Preparing for Worship - March 30, 2025

The Scripture readings this week are full of the assurance of the forgiveness of our sins this Lenten season, earned for us through Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross for us. May we keep taking our sins and failings to Him, trusting His continuing love and mercy for us.

The psalm, Psalm 32, is one of the “penitential” psalms of the Old Testament, where we are encouraged not to hide our sins but to be honest with God and bring them to Him for His full and free forgiveness. King David, the author, had struggled with doing this and was trying to cover up his wrongdoing. He was miserable, though, and the Lord’s hand was “heavy upon him” until he acknowledged his guilt. Then his sin was “forgiven,” “covered” over by God (ultimately, through Jesus), and “not counted against him.” This psalm uses several words picturing our wrongdoing: “transgression” -  stepping beyond the boundary of what is right and good; “sin” - missing the mark of what we ought to be doing; “iniquity” - living a bumpy, uneven way, instead of God’s smooth path for our life; and “deceit” - pretending to be better than we are and hurting others with our dishonesty. Such wrongdoing creates great sorrow for us and others, but as we trust the Lord and His forgiveness in Christ, His “steadfast love surrounds us” and gives us gladness and joy and a “hiding place” in His peace. The Lord then “teaches"  and “counsels” us through His Word, with His eyes upon us for our good and the good of others. We can then have a better understanding and don’t have to be “curbed” and pulled along with “bit and bridle” like a horse but can serve our Lord and others with rejoicing.

The Old Testament lesson is from Isaiah 12:1-6. In Isaiah 11, God had predicted through Isaiah the appearance of a fruitful Branch coming from the line of Jesse and David, full of God’s Spirit and with righteousness and faithfulness (Isaiah 11:1-5,10). “In that day,” God will turn from His anger over sin and comfort His people. God Himself will be our salvation, our Strength, and our Song as we trust in Him. For He will be great in our midst as the Holy One of Israel (coming to us in the person of His own Son, Jesus). Through Him, we can drink from “the wells of salvation.” We are also to “call upon and proclaim His Name” and “make known His saving deeds among the peoples, in all the earth.” We will “shout and sing for joy," especially in His payment for all our sins on the cross and His victory over death for us in His resurrection.

The Gospel lesson is from Luke 15:1-3, 11-32, the familiar story of Jesus of the prodigal son and his father and brother. Jesus was being criticized by the religious leaders for welcoming “sinners” of all kinds, including tax collectors, and even eating with them, a sign of care and fellowship. Jesus then told several parables, including the one about a father who had two sons. Normally, a share of an inheritance would only go to a son when his father died. The younger son wanted his share much earlier, almost as if he wished his father were already dead. The father chooses to give him his share, and he goes off to “a far country,” far from his father and his father’s wishes and what is good. Over time, he squandered his inheritance in wild, “reckless living.” This younger son then had nothing left, and when a famine came, he had to get whatever job he could find, a lowly job of feeding pigs, considered “unclean” animals by the Jews. He made little income, and no one would help him, and he thought he might “perish with hunger.” He finally came to his senses about himself and realized what a sinner he was before heaven (not even wanting to mention God’s name) and against his father. He was not worthy of being his father’s son, but he hoped he could be a hired servant for him and survive. His father sees him coming and has great compassion and hugs and kisses him. The younger brother tells his father that he hopes only to be his servant because he has sinned so badly. Instead, his father welcomes him with honors and prepares a celebration because his son was dead and now alive again, lost and now found. The older son, who has been serving his father for years, is very jealous and angry and wouldn’t even recognize his brother as his brother and his father’s son anymore. He seems to have his own sins and failings in his responses to his father and his unwillingness to forgive his brother. He sees only unfairness and thinks only of what he thinks he deserves for his hard work for his father. The father shows mercy and forgiveness for both sons and only wants them both forgiven and reconciled with one another. Jesus is reminding the Pharisees and scribes who criticized Him that everyone is is sinner and needs the mercy and forgiveness that Jesus had come to bring to the world. And he is willing to give that forgiveness to all, by His saving work, according to the loving plan of His Heavenly Father.

The Epistle lesson is from 2 Corinthians 5:16-21. This might be called a summary of all the other readings and God’s loving rescue plan for the world in Christ. Just before this lesson, Paul had spoken of the love of Christ that now controlled him and all believers because Christ, for their sake and for all, had died on the cross and was raised in victory to life again. “Therefore,” Paul begins this reading, he no longer looks at Jesus “according to the flesh” as an ordinary man whom he opposed. The risen Lord Jesus had appeared to him and turned his life around. He and all believers are now “a new creation” with a new life in Christ. “All this is from God,” Paul proclaims. It is not Paul’s doing or anyone else’s. God reconciled us sinners to Himself. Where there was sin and hostility toward God and others, now there is peace. God does not count our trespasses against us any longer but forgives them, as the father in the Gospel lesson was willing to forgive both of his sons. It can be done because “for our sake, God made Him, Jesus, to be sin,” to take all our sins upon Himself, though He knew no sin and never sinned, and paid the penalty for them all in His suffering and death for us so that we might be counted righteous and be the righteous children of God our Father, as we are brought to trust in Christ alone as our Savior. Paul’s job, now, is to be “an ambassador for Christ.” God appeals through Paul, then, for all people to be reconciled to Him through Christ. As we sometimes hear of a husband and wife having trouble and then having a reconciliation, God reconciles us to Himself, in Christ. All this is done by Him, through Christ, and by being brought to trust what he has done for us. It is the best news in the world, and this salvation is available to all in Jesus, our Savior. We still struggle with sin in this life, even as a “new creation,” but the Holy Spirit is also at work in us, enabling us at least to seek to be reconciled to other people with whom we have had difficulty, at times. What joy and peace there can be when our Lord enables that, too.