Scripture Readings: Ezekiel 37:1–14 | Psalm 130 | Romans 8:6–11 | ​John 11:1–45

“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11). 
 
The last Sunday of Lent is upon us, and Holy Week is just around the corner. Throughout this sacred season, Lent has invited us to journey with Jesus to the cross… to fix our eyes firmly on our Saviour… to follow Him in faithfulness… and to set aside all the things that distract us or derail us from walking in His holy ways. 
 
And this final week as Lent draws to an end, the Scriptures invite us to reflect on where all this is heading… to consider ‘the end’ that we’re moving towards. But first, they call us to face the end of death. 
 
Death is often seen as ‘the end’. That dreaded barrier beyond which the living cannot see. The outer wall of our existence, that sooner or later confronts us all, whether we’re ready to face it or not. Understandably, a great deal of our human story has been about the constant struggle to try and fend death off, at least for a time… living each day in its shadow… unsettled by the mystery of what lies beyond. Death confronts us with our own helplessness. It brings into sharp focus our fears of surrendering control over our lives and our stories… while at the same time amplifying the pain of saying goodbye to those we cherish but whom we are powerless to protect forever… no matter how hard we may try.
 
For many of us here today, death is already all too familiar. We have already had to say goodbye to family members and friends… to those we love and long to be with again. And some of us have had our own seasons when we had come face to face with our own mortality as well. And yes, thankfully, our Christian faith offers us hope of a future beyond death. A hope of a final reunion… and restoration… and reconciliation. A hope that does not make death easy to face per se… but at least it offers us something firm to hold on to when everything else is being shaken.  
 
And yet, even this hope can at times feel far off… far removed from our day to day existence under death’s shadow. Which is why it’s good that our Gospel reading today invites us to go a bit deeper. To not rest content with a true but vague and distant sense of hope, and instead to receive the hope that comes not from denying death’s power… but from trusting the good news that the Living God has already face death and defeated it… for us.  
 
Our Gospel reading today tells a story of the Son of God, Jesus our Lord, facing death with those very dear to Him: with His disciples, and with His friends Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. It’s a familiar story to many of us. A story of illness, of hopes being crushed and rekindled. Of doubts and devotion… of deep sorrow, and faith even in the midst of it. It’s a story of death, and the signs of God’s New Life… the signs of the ending of death. 
 
And we can’t hope to reduce or sum up this profound story in just one morning together. This story is meant to be heard and reheard over a whole lifetime, though it still has much to say to us today. But even though much must be left unsaid this morning, I’d still like to draw our attention to a few parts of this story of how Jesus faced death along with His friends that offers the kind of enduring, and trustworthy hope that you and I and our world really needs. 

This story begins with Jesus and His disciples… His followers receiving word that one of Jesus’ friends, Lazarus, was seriously ill, and was requesting His help. But instead of rushing to the bedside of His beloved friend… Jesus says to His followers: “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” (John 11:4).
 
And yet… soon afterwards Lazarus does indeed die. And so, we’re faced with a bit of a crisis to work through: I mean, was Jesus just wrong? Or was there much more to the story that still needed to be played out? With hindsight, we now can see that the end result of Lazarus’ illness was not in fact death, but a sign… a revelation of God’s glory. For Lazarus, death was just going to be a temporary stop, not the final destination his illness was leading to.
 
The disciples don’t know all this yet. But when Jesus suddenly tells them that it’s time to visit Lazarus, one thing they do know is that Jesus seems to be planning to lead them straight into serious danger. They had literally just escaped from Jerusalem, where Jesus was almost executed by an angry mob. Heading back to Judea at this moment would mean quite likely having to facing death. Which is why Thomas, moved by true devotion if not hope, says: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (John 11:16).
 
Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile our faith in the Living God with what seems to be happening around us… and even with the direction that God seems to be leading us. In those times, when we don’t yet understand, or know how our story will play out… will we stick close to Jesus, and trust Him, even if the way forward seems hopeless? Even if, like Thomas, we assume that there’s no way to get through what lies ahead? 
 
When they arrive in Bethany, Jesus has a moment with both Martha and Mary. They bring Him their griefs and doubts, their anger, and their faith in Him all wrapped up at once. They come to Him having faced the death of their brother… and Jesus meets them both just as they are.
 
Because God doesn’t hide from how hard death is for us… or offer us simple answers or explanations. He knows all the pain and the weight of our sorrows. But what He does do is ask us to trust Him in the midst of it all. To hold onto Him, especially when we are hurting the most.
 
When Martha comes to Him, she cannot hide her great frustrations and pain that are intertwined with her faith in Him. She says to Him: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” (John 11:21-22). When Jesus responds by telling her that Lazarus will rise again, she affirms the truth of that distant, vague hope in a future reunion… the ultimate resurrection of the dead at the end of the ages… the faith of her people that one day all this pain of parting will end forever. But that day feels so far off! It doesn’t seem to be much of an anchor for her in the here and now. And so, Jesus offers her the Anchor she needs.
 
John 11:24-27, “Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” 

I am the resurrection and the life… He says to Martha, and to us all. The Living Anchor for the Christian faith is not a remote vision of an afterlife… it is our Saviour Himself… the One who faced death and defeated it for us once and for all… and who alone is able to see us through death. To carry us through our times of grief and loss… to hold us close, even with all of our anger and doubts and terror… telling us we can trust Him, even when we have no answers, or words to express our pain. He is the One who will weep with us even when He knows that He will soon turn our sorrows into joy.
 
After He meets with Martha, her sister Mary confronts Jesus, repeating Martha’s words of frustration and grief, but without her sister’s sense of hope. John 11:32, “When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” That’s all she can bring herself to say.
 
And instead of offering her answers, or even words of comfort, Jesus weeps with her. He shares in her pain, and takes on her suffering… deeply moved by her sorrow. 

And even though God is the great Creator of all… the source of all that is, seen and unseen… God shows us He is not unmoved by our griefs and pain. His compassion and love for us His children knows no limits. And yet, He is also not overwhelmed by our sorrows… standing back powerless while forces greater than him run amok. No, God weeps with us, even as He works to bring all our tears to an end.
 
And so Jesus comes to the tomb of Lazarus… to the resting place of the beloved friend He still allowed to die. This reminds us that death is not a sign that we are unloved… that God has somehow turned His back on us, or abandoned us. Death is the reality for us all, living as we do outside Paradise. God’s great love does not prevent us from suffering or dying… but He does offer us the sure hope that our stories won’t end in death. Like everyone, we will have to face it, but our loving Saviour will see us through it! 

Jesus calls Lazarus up from the grave, and brought his beloved friend back to life… a sign of God’s power to break death’s apparently unstoppable power. And yet as amazing as it was, this sign was only a foretaste… a glimpse of the glory that was soon to come… when Jesus would face death Himself… enduring the agony of the cross, and entering the grave… not to reverse death, as He had done with Lazarus… but to go through it and defeat death once and for all!
 
When the time had come to take up His cross, our Lord Jesus knowingly walked towards the danger. He confronted those who sought to destroy Him, and brought the fight between the forces of darkness and God’s light to its ultimate showdown… faithfully following the will of His Father in Heaven, and trusting in His unending, unshakable love.
 
And yet… Jesus endured all the agony of sorrow and grief too. He experienced first hand the full terror of the cross, and all that it would require of Him: betrayal, abandonment, humiliation, torture, and public execution.
 
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus earnestly pleaded with His Father: asking that if there was any other way… to please take this cup away from Him! But Christ’s prayer in the end was a prayer of faith. Of trust. Not My will, He says to His Father… Not My will, but Yours be done. 

Jesus faced His own death at the cross through faith. Faith in His Father’s unending love, a love that did not keep Him from suffering… but which saw Him through death and out the other side into God’s glorious new and unending life. 
 
Through His cross, and grave, and resurrection on Easter morning, Jesus broke death’s vice-grip over God’s world, shattering that terrible barrier that had always claimed to be the final end, and He revealed the power of God to make all things new. 
 
Jesus shows us in the midst of life that the grave is not in fact final, but that death itself will come to an end… giving way already to the glorious New Life of God revealed first of all in Jesus Christ the crucified and Risen Lord, and offered to us all in His name, by the power of His Holy Spirit. 
 
This is after all what the Church means when we say that in the Creeds that we believe in the ‘resurrection of the dead’… not just that Jesus was raised to new life, but that in Him, all of His people will be raised as well. As St. Paul said in our second reading today: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11). The same glorious fate as Christ Jesus experienced on Easter Sunday awaits all those of us who are in Christ, and who share in the life of His Spirit.
 
Until that day, we have this anchor of hope in our own encounters with death… the hope that Jesus Christ is with us, that He loves us, and died for us… and He will see us through whatever death throws at us. 
 
And as we prepare for Holy Week, stepping once gain into the story of Christ’s passion… His suffering, and death, and resurrection… let us draw near with faith, trusting in God’s saving love for us and our broken world. Let us bring all that we are to Him… bring all our doubts and devotion, our confusion, and fear… our anger and questions and sorrows with us to the foot of the cross… trusting that though the grave might have its day… in the end our Saviour is leading us into His unending life. Amen. 

​And our All-Ages Song for the season of Lent can be found here:

Scripture Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1–13 | Psalm 23 | Ephesians 5:8–14 | ​John 9:1–41

“Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.’” (John 9:39).
 
As part of my Lenten practice this year, I’ve given up looking at the news… at least until after lunchtime. I know it might not sound like much of a challenge, but it has been. It’s been hard not to look at the headlines each morning… wondering what new crisis or catastrophe is playing out in our world… feeling the strong urge to scroll past story after story, in a vain search for that small sense of control that’s supposed to comes from ‘being in the know’… and instead, to try and leave the world in God’s hands for a few hours. I know it’s not much, but for me it’s at least a small step forward in faith.  
 
These days, as we look around, we can see a lot of dark and scary scenes playing out before our eyes… in our wider world of course, as old and new wars and conflicts rage on… but maybe we also see troubles and sources of suffering a bit closer to home too. People around us, and maybe even some of us, are facing times of intense difficulty, despair, and isolation… searching for some relief, or even just a way to make sense of their experiences. 
 
Of course, in dark times it’s natural for us to ask difficult questions, and to search for answers… to focus on finding a way to make sense of our lives, and our all too often tragic world. 
 
And people have landed on a whole spectrum of responses… of ways to understand why things often seem so wrong: from believing that everything in life, including suffering, is just random, and there’s nothing we can do about it… to believing that everything in life, including our suffering, is destined to happen. That it’s all been specifically planned out or determined by God ahead of time, for some mysterious purpose. And because we know that God is good and just, when something bad does happens, then it must be someone’s fault, right? They must have done something wrong to deserve their rough circumstances… punishment for sins, known or unknown.
 
Sorting through these kinds of questions is sometimes called the ‘Problem of Evil’… an age old philosophical dilemma trying to make sense of how God can be good and all powerful, while evil still exists and persists in His world. These are the kinds of questions that aren’t just asked by those in ivory towers or university classrooms… but by all sorts of ordinary folks… by those found in hospital beds, or emergency shelters… in broken relationships… and in church pews… really anywhere that suffering can be seen.
 
And the Holy Scriptures are not blind to these questions, and to the issues that they raise… but they are also not bound to the types of answers that philosophers tend to offer either. 
 
And that’s because the Scriptures are not focused on answering philosophical problems, or even answering our questions, as pressing as they might be. They have their own important work to do: they are focused on helping us come to see the One who meets us in the midst of our darkened world, and who opens our eyes and our hearts and our minds to the light and the life of His saving love.
 
The Holy Scriptures point us to Jesus. They invite us to see ourselves and our stories… both the joys and the tragedies… all in the light of God’s good work through Him… bearing witness to what Jesus has done, and is doing despite the world’s darkness, to reveal God’s rescuing love.
 
Our Gospel reading today, John Chapter 9 in its entirety, is a powerful story that begins with the disciples’ close encounter with someone else’s suffering, and with their own attempt to make sense of it. They see a man who was born blind, and ask Jesus about the source of his suffering: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). Who caused all this? Whose sin earned this man a lifetime of being unable to see?
 
Like many of us, the disciples want to know how to account for what seems like a complete tragedy. They want to understand and grasp the reasons behind the misery and pain they see around them.
 
But as the story unfolds, what comes to light is less of an explanation for evil, and more of an invitation to see God at work… and to believe in the One He has sent to save us.
 
In response to their question, Jesus offers something surprising: not an answer, but a solution. John 9:3-7, “Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.”
 
Neither this man’s nor his parents’ sin… but so that God’s works might be revealed in him. In other words, ‘It’s not about who caused his suffering… but watch and see what God is going to do about it!’ And right there, Jesus brings God’s healing mercies to this man, opening his eyes for the first time after a lifetime of blindness. But far from being the end of the story, this miracle was just the beginning.
 
The rest of the Chapter follows what happens after, as both the man who can now see, and everyone else around him is forced to wrestle with what God has done in his life… either drawing closer to faith in Jesus, or becoming more and more entrenched in their rejection of Him. Were they witnessing a genuine miracle of God, which would serve to confirm Jesus as God’s faithful messenger and servant? Or was this all a trick? A clever deception that needed to be exposed for all to see?
 
As the story keeps moving forward, Jesus steps out of view, and the man who had been blind but who now can see takes centre stage, as first the crowds, and then the religious leaders of his community argue and debate… trying to make sense of how this amazingly good thing could have happened. And so, the healed man is essentially on trial, being pressed to explain his story to their satisfaction, and reject the One who had opened His eyes. But the more the man is pressured, the more he comes to see and believe the truth about Jesus, the One who had given him sight, no matter what others may do or say.
 
In contrast, the Pharisees find themselves unable… or at least unwilling to see God’s mercy and grace at work in this man’s miraculous healing. They were so committed to their own perspective, their own preconceptions about Jesus… about people like this man who had been born blind… about themselves as those who were supposed to be ‘in the know’… and about how the Living God was supposed to work in the world… that despite all the growing evidence, they choose to reject not just the miracle, and the healed man… but the One who had done this great work. The truth was right there, but they chose not to see and believe it.
 
After the man’s inquisition, comes the climax of the story: the man is kicked out of his community… ostracized and facing isolation and rejection for his commitment to the truth. But even though his story has taken on a new dark turn, Jesus sees him. Jesus seeks him out, and He invites the man to believe in Him even more… to come to see and believe not only in Christ’s power to heal his eyesight, but to know up close and personally the depths of God’s saving love. To look on the face of His merciful Saviour, who first saw him suffering and blind, and rather than walk by, or explain his pain away, reached out in love to set him free.
 
John Chapter 9 is a powerful narrative in its own right… but we know it’s a part of a much larger story, one that the man who had been born blind could not possibly have seen or even imagined at the time: the story of the Living God looking with compassion on our suffering world, and working to confront the evil at work in it… the dark forces working to tear His beloved creation apart… through the work of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was sent to save the world by suffering for it. 
 
This is the story of the cross: how Jesus doesn’t shy away from all of our tragedies and pain, but instead steps right into the deepest darkness of our world. At the cross, He endures the complete rejection of His people, of those He came to save. He faced all the questions and interrogations of those fully determined to defame and deny Him. And instead of desperately trying to prove Himself, or to avoid the agony of the grim fate they had planned for Him, Jesus entrusted His life into the hands of His loving Father… knowing full well He was laying down His life… choosing to suffer and to die to save us sinners… who time and again refuse to see and believe. 
 
But while many may still look at the cross, and see there only tragedy and defeat, we are invited to see there God’s greatest work to undo evil, once and for all. We are invited to see the cross of Jesus, and to believe both in God’s merciful love for us sinners… but also in the power of His love to rescue us from the hold of sin and death. We are invited to see the cross of Christ and believe in the rest of the story… in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which opens our eyes to God’s redeeming love still at work even now… able to transform even our world’s tragedies and saddest stories into signs of His New Life coming to light.
 
Because of Christ’s death and resurrection… because He chose to faithfully endure the cross, and enter the grave… and rise again… we can see the Living God hard at work… not busy blaming us for our sins, but hard at work setting us free from them! We can see He’s not eager to arraign and condemn us… He’s preoccupied with arranging our pardon and peace! Looking at us with eyes full of compassion and love… seeking out and saving the lost.
 
The cross points us, not to abstract answers, but to our Saviour… to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to our crucified and risen King… calling us to place our faith in Him, and in His holy work on our behalf. 
 
How will we respond to this calling? Will we draw near to our Saviour in faith… as He gradually opens our eyes more and more to the depths of His saving love, for us and our world? Or will we draw back… and seek instead to find our security and solace elsewhere… focusing our attention on finding the answers that fit with our own preconceptions, or searching for someone to blame…  shutting our eyes to the grace and the mercy of God revealed in the face of Jesus?

When we find ourselves facing days of darkness, and experience real tragedies that we struggle to understand or explain… may we look to the cross, and see there the work of our merciful Saviour, and trust in His love for us no matter how hard things may get. May we see the cross and believe that through the Holy Spirit, Jesus is always with us… that our great Shepherd will lead us both to green pastures and through all of life’s dark valleys… entrusting ourselves and our world into His healing hands, eager to join Him in the good works of His Kingdom… and knowing that even if we can’t yet see how all the suffering and darkness around us will come to an end, that God really is at work and one day He will bring about that day of joy that will last forever. Amen.

​And our All-Ages Song for the season of Lent can be found here:

​And our All-Ages Song for the season of Lent can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Genesis 12:1–4 | Psalm 121 | Romans 4:1–5, 13–17 | John 3:1–17

“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14-15).
 
Every Lent here at St. Luke’s, we hang up our paintings of the Stations of the Cross, twelve scenes depicting our Lord Jesus Christ’s agonizing journey towards His crucifixion, painted by the artist Sieger Köder. They are powerful pictures, creatively drawing us into the story of our Saviour’s passion and death. But despite… and probably because of their power and the artist’s skill… some of these paintings can be hard to look at. In them we can see up close the suffering and agony that our Saviour endured. And in some of them, we can also see glimpses of the heartbreak of those who loved Him, standing by powerless to stop His pain… and we are invited to imagine sharing in their grief and pain as well. 
 
Many things in life are terribly painful… and can be very hard for us to look at. To call to mind, and acknowledge the impact that they still have on our lives. Painful memories. Traumatic losses. Dreaded diagnoses. Damage done within our relationships.

It’s hard to look closely at these kinds of things, and so, it can be really tempting at times to just try to avoid it all… to avoid these things that make us feel unsettled, regretful, vulnerable… and maybe even condemned. I mean, why would we want to dwell on and look closely at things that are so painful and upsetting?
 
Well, one reason would be if there was someone who actually had the power… not to take them away per se… but to transform these things that we experience as evil into something very different… into a means of experiencing real healing, forgiveness, and even blessing for us and for our world. 
 
In that case, we’d be left with a choice: to keep on trying to avoid it all… or to place our trust in the one who claims the power to save us. To choose to trust in their intentions and in their ability to rescue us... or to keep on closing our eyes.
 
In our Gospel reading today we hear the well known story of Jesus and Nicodemus… of their secret, nighttime meeting, and their famous conversation about faith. In this passage we find one of the most well known sentences in the whole Bible, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
 
And this passage is one of the notes that rings true all the way through the symphony of the Scriptures… the story of the Living God’s gracious, self-giving love reaching out to save His beloved world. We heard echoes of this same note in our first reading today from Genesis 12:1-4, where God chooses Abram and his family to experience His blessings themselves, and to play a pivotal role in bringing God’s blessings to all of the other families of the earth. 
 
But if that’s the case… if the story of Scripture is about God’s rescuing love reaching out to embrace the world… we might find ourselves asking: why are there so many people in our world today not being saved? 
 
Well, that’s a big question that I won’t pretend we can answer completely this morning. But there are a few things we should say in response to it in light of the Scriptures.

First of all, the kind of salvation we’re talking about here does not mean completely avoiding suffering, or every evil experience… at least for now. One day, yes, that will be the case! One day, we are promised a new Creation, and eternal life without pain or suffering, or tears. But not yet. Not until this current age of the world comes to an end, and the Risen Lord returns to set the world right once and for all. Until that day, we may still face great tragedies, and suffering… but we also believe that God remains with us, and that He will bring us through those difficult times, faithfully leading us towards His blessed eternal life.
 
And the second thing we need to remember is that throughout the Scriptures we see that God’s salvation is offered to us, but it is not forced upon us. It’s an invitation to receive a gift… but a gift we can also reject. And so, sadly, not everyone will believe the Good News of God’s saving love offered to us all in Jesus Christ… at least for now. I mean after all, who knows how everyone’s lives will unfold? Or how the LORD will be at work in their life, drawing them towards faith? Or how God might work through people like you and I to make the truth of His Good News known to them?  

The truth is, we really don’t know how anyone else in our world will respond to God’s great gift of salvation. But what we do know is that God’s intentions towards them… towards our whole world… is love! And we know that God’s ability to save them has been made known through His Son, Jesus Christ. Both of these gifts, God’s love and His gift of salvation… offered to us and to all, require faith… trust… belief… if we are to receive them, and to share in them. 
 
And so, in our Gospel passage, we find Jesus presenting Nicodemus, and all of us with a choice… a crisis moment: how will we respond to the gracious gift of God’s saving love through His Son? Will we believe, or not?
 
Reading beyond verses 16-17, this choice laid out in pretty striking terms. John 3:16-18, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

Choosing to believe or not has consequences either way. Just like choosing to receive or refuse an antidote when we’ve been poisoned has pretty clear consequences as well.
 
And so, here we find Nicodemus… and maybe ourselves as well… caught in a pretty tight spot. He was a teacher of Israel, and a Pharisee, someone who took God’s ways seriously, and who had sought to help guide his fellow Israelites to live rightly… awaiting the coming day of God’s great salvation… the day of the LORD, when God would set all things right, and rescue Abraham’s faithful descendants from their enemies, to share in God’s blessed life forever. 
 
But then here comes Jesus… doing and saying so many things that seemed at the same time both out of place… like challenging many of the teachings and practices that Nicodemus and his fellow Pharisees had built their lives upon… while at the same time offering powerful glimpses of God’s own hand at work… signs that were increasingly hard to deny… or to simply explain away. 
 
Nicodemus was in a hard spot: having to choose between two diverging paths stretching out before him: to stick with the path he already knew, or to follow this One who might just turn everything upside down... but who also seemed to have an undeniable connection to the Living God. And so, Nicodemus takes a big step. He meets with Jesus in secret one night, and says to Him: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him. Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:2-3).
 
Unless one is born anew… or born from above, as some translations put it… they cannot see the Kingdom of God. In these words, Jesus acknowledges the truth that big changes are needed to truly experience the life of the Kingdom. Not changes that can be accomplished all on our own… no, we need changes that come from above… changes that have their source in the grace of the Living God and His Holy Spirit at work in us. 
 
Just like a baby can’t make themselves be born, Jesus is saying that the life of the Kingdom is not within our grasp. We just can’t get there on our own steam. We can’t make it happen, or bring it about. But we can receive it. We can have it given to us. But how? Again and again, the Good News tells us, we receive God’s grace by faith! By trusting God, and turning towards Him with our hearts and lives open to Him. 
 
And then Jesus takes this whole conversation in a strange new direction, and brings up a strange story from long ago… from the days of Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness, when Moses lifted up a snake. What’s going on here?
 
Well, this story of Moses and the snake comes from the Book of Numbers Chapter 21, when God’s people were suffering and dying, plagued by poisonous snakes. But then, God tells Moses to create a surprising antidote: another snake but made of bronze… an enduring replica of the source of their suffering… and he was to lift it up, so that anyone who looks on it would be saved… while those who don’t, won’t. 
 
Numbers 21:5-9, “The people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food. [by which they meant the manna God gave to them].’ Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.’ So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.”
 
When faced with the agony of the serpent’s power, the Israelites were give a choice: to trust in God’s remedy as strange as it may have seemed, and receive life, or not. But to trust meant to not avoid looking at the snake. It meant turning to face the painful, and terrifying reality before them in full, all the while trusting God to transform it from being a threat into a gift of mercy. From the source of agony into the source of healing… and of forgiveness. 

After all, the serpents were there in the first place because the people had sinned. They had brought this suffering on themselves. And yet even so, God had turned their punishment into a sign and experience of His mercy… as a moment meant not to destroy them, but to reinforce their need to trust in Him… to place their faith an their lives in His hands, so they could truly walk in His good ways, share in His blessed life, and bring that blessing to the world around them. 
 
Lots of our experiences of pain and suffering come from life in general. Tragedies strike both the good and the bad alike. But sometimes, we do bring suffering on ourselves. And when we do, we can’t always avoid facing the consequences of our selfish and sinful actions. 
 
But that doesn’t mean that God can’t transform even our mistakes and messes into a sign and taste of His mercy… offering us forgiveness and freedom even in those moments when we least deserve them.  The question becomes: when we mess up and sin, will we dare to look to our Saviour? Will we not try to avoid His all-knowing eyes, as painful and as hard as that may be… and honestly confess our faults to Him… trusting that even then He will not turn us away?
 
The Good News is we have good reasons to believe… to trust in His mercy that go far beyond just wishful thinking. For as Moses lifted up the serpent, so Jesus, the Son of Man, was lifted up on the cross for the world to see… so that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but will have eternal life. 
 
The cross is a constant reminder of our sins… a sign pointing to the source of all of our world’s wreckage… and a painful reminder that our own hands have played a part in making such an awful mess of things here on earth. And yet, through Jesus His Son, God has transformed the sign of our condemnation into a sign of His incredible mercy… His remedy for all our sins… and He calls us again and again to look at His Son, hung from the cross for all to see, and to see there God’s own self-giving, saving love at work, and graciously offered to us all.
 
And not only that, but now the cross is a sign of hope… because of what happened after! Yes, Jesus first endured the agony of the cross, but He was then raised up from the dead, to be God’s Saviour for us and for our world. And those of us who believe in Him now have this same hope alive in ourselves. The hope that because of Jesus, we too will get to share in God’s blessed and eternal life… not instead of times of suffering and pain, but on the other side of it. The hope that comes from knowing that nothing we might face… no trauma, or tragedy, or regret, or pain… even if we have brought this pain upon ourselves, is greater than the saving love and the mercy of the Living God made known and offered to our world in Jesus Christ our Saviour. 
 
So then, as we make our own journey through Lent together… may we keep our eyes fixed firmly on Jesus at the cross… even when it’s hard. Even when it makes us feel and think about things that we find uncomfortable… or painful. Even then, may we continue to look at Him at the cross with the eyes of faith… and see in His face God’s precious gift of life, offered to us all, even while we least deserved it… trusting that He’s looking at us all with eyes full of mercy and love… longing for us to believe in Him, and receive the blessings that His love has in store. Amen. 

Scripture Readings: Genesis 2:15–17, 3:1–7 | Psalm 32 | Romans 5:12–19 | ​Matthew 4:1–11

“If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:15).
 
This past Wednesday marked the start of the sacred season of Lent… a season of repentance… of turning our hearts and lives back to the Living God, and of preparation for Holy Week… a time to get ready for the great events at the centre of our Christian story: the saving death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Saviour King.
 
And this morning, on the first Sunday of Lent, we begin our journey with Jesus to the cross by recalling together His time of intense trial and temptation in the wilderness… where He is confronted with, and yet overcomes, the tempting deceptions and lies of the Enemy, who tried hard to undermine Christ’s faithfulness to His heavenly Father, and to bring God’s great rescue plan to an end.
 
And while this episode from the early days of Jesus’ ministry might seem like little more than an intense but private and personal struggle … it is actually a major crisis moment for the story of God’s whole rescue mission… and the story of humanity as a whole. 
 
Right before our Gospel passage today begins, St. Matthew tells the story of Christ’s baptism in the Jordan River, where the Spirit of God descended on Him like a dove, and a voice from Heaven affirmed His unique identity: God says of Jesus “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17). Immediately after He received these words of assurance, we hear that Christ Jesus is led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness… where He fasts and prays for forty days… and where He is to be tempted by the devil.
 
And in this wilderness showdown where Jesus’ faithfulness was being tested in body, mind, and spirit, He was also reliving and redeeming Israel’s own Exodus story… their time of testing in the wilderness.
 
Centuries earlier, the Living God had affirmed the people of Israel as a whole to be His own firstborn son. Speaking to Moses in Exodus 4:22-23, the LORD says “Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord: Israel is my firstborn son. I said to you, “Let my son go that he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go…” As we know, God rescued Israel from Pharaoh’s grasp, and brought them through the waters of the Red Sea to start a new life as God’s own children. 
 
And what does it mean to be God’s children?
 
Just like with all children, life as God’s child begins with an act of grace. A gift offered that the child did nothing to earn or bring about. Their life is simply given to them as an act of self-giving love. And then begins a lifetime of them learning and growing… a journey which really relies and thrives on trust! Learning to trust the One who is leading us, and caring for us, even when other attractive options come calling. Even when we’re being led where we’d rather not go, if it was just up to us. Trusting that the One leading us really does love us, and wants what’s truly best for us. 
 
As we know from the Scriptures, the people of Israel really struggled with this during their time in the wilderness. Time and again, whether acting out of hunger, or fear, or other distorted motives, they turned on the LORD, grumbling against God whenever they faced trials and intense situations, instead of turning towards Him and seeking His help. For those forty long years in the wilderness, God’s children kept on falling into temptation… with disastrous results.
 
But before we get too comfortable passing judgment on them, we need to keep in mind that their stories are a gift for us, written for us and each generation of God’s children… because in them we can see ourselves. We see the same patterns playing out in our own stories. In fact, this is the story of humanity as a whole, going way back to the Garden of Eden with the very first children of God, Adam and Eve… and their deception by the snake. And just like them, all of us can be quick to be deceived and give in to our own temptations… reaching out for what we see as good in the moment, while turning our backs on God’s good ways. 
 
When you and I are faced with our own trials and temptations, we too can easily give into grumbling, and quickly go back to our old self-destructive ways… disobeying God’s guidance, and instead of growing in our faith, we grow farther and farther away from Him. 

But there is Good News for us, offered even when we least deserve it: Just like Israel wasn’t left to wander the wilderness alone, neither are we. God is with us. Jesus is on the scene. And as God’s eternal Son, who become one of us, Jesus came not just to relive and redeem Israel’s story… He came to redeem all of our fallen stories… the story of fallen humanity as well. Where we all stumble and fall, Jesus stands tall… enduring the test for us, in order to lead us into God’s life. 
 
Jesus’ three temptations are laid out for us in our Gospel passage from Matthew Chapter 4. The first was to use His divine power to turn stones into bread… to meet His own physical needs, but to do so apart from God’s way. Now after fasting for forty days and nights, His hunger must have been raging. And of course, Jesus needed to eat… what He was longing for wasn’t something bad in itself. But the way He was deceptively invited to satisfy His deep hunger would undermine the whole reason He was fasting in the wilderness in the first place… to endure these trials to draw near to and deepen His dependence on His heavenly Father. To actively trust God to sustain Him, and to actively choose the way of faithfulness, even when it hurts.

And Jesus responds to the tempter by quoting from a passage from the Torah, from Deuteronomy Chapter 8, where Moses reminds God’s people of how the LORD constantly cared for them in the wilderness.
 
Deuteronomy 8:2-6, “Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. The clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the Lord your God disciplines you. Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him.”
 
As a parent disciplines… not just in the sense of punishment, but of training… like an Olympic athlete disciplines themselves to become far better at their sport than they would be naturally… so God was training His people Israel to trust in Him. And so, centuries later, Christ Jesus also chose to endure this divine parental training… trusting in His Father’s sustaining love, even when He was presented with an easy way out.
  
Like Israel, you and I also have real physical needs that God knows all about. But He also wants us to come to know that what brings us life is not just food, and water, and shelter alone. We need these things, yes. But we also need God’s word… His grace and His guidance are not simply nice options… they are essential for us if we are to find real life as His children, and not to wander through life searching in vain for what only God Himself can satisfy.
 
For his second temptation, the evil one brought Jesus up to the highest point of the Temple in Jerusalem… and told Him to throw Himself down and prove to everyone, Jesus included, that He really is God’s beloved Son, even quoting Scripture to make this sound like an act of faith… but all the while, the tempter was just sowing doubt… trying to undermine God’s clear affirmation of Jesus’ true identity declared at His baptism… and trying to drive a wedge between Father and Son, calling for some other proof instead of taking the LORD at His word.
 
And again, Jesus responds by referring to the Torah, Deuteronomy 6:16-18, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. You must diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his decrees, and his statutes that he has commanded you. Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may go in and occupy the good land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give you…”
 
Rather than try to make the Father prove Himself on Jesus’ terms, Christ practiced faithfulness by doing “what is right and good in the sight of the Lord’’, instead of seeking what seemed right in His own eyes. No room was allowed for twisting the Scriptures to pursue His own agenda apart from God’s ways… just humble dedication to the One He loved, and lived to follow with all of His heart.
 
Finally, the gloves come off, and the tempter lays all his cards down on the table. Matthew 4:8 “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”
 
All the world and all its splendor… yours… all you need to do is give yourself to the devil.
 
There are lots of people who have taken up this offer over the years. Maybe not in such an obvious, back and forth conversation with an agent of spiritual evil… but with the same compromises being made… and the grand expectations to receive all that one could desire… if they will just turn their backs on the Living God, and turn their lives over to the ways of darkness instead.
 
The worst is when God’s own people fall into this trap, handing over our full allegiance to the Living God, and His ways in exchange for things like security… influence… possessions, accomplished agendas and political power… setting aside God’s commandments, all while proclaiming to the world that we are faithfully serving His good Kingdom. []
 
But the irony of this third temptation that Jesus faced, is that everything was to be His already! After all, Jesus is the beloved, eternal Son of God, destined to reign as King of Kings at the Father’s right hand forever.
 
But the path to this eternal Kingdom would first lead Jesus to the cross… to again be called on to faithfully endure fierce trials, and betrayal, and abandonment… torture, and death. To be the true Saviour King of the world, Jesus would need to suffer and die to set us sinners free.  
 
And so, His third temptation was to bypass all this suffering… to turn His allegiance over to the devil, and receive everything right then. To seize for Himself the chance to rule ‘like’ God but without having to humble Himself, and learn obedience conforming His will to the Father’s holy ways. The devil tells Jesus He can ‘have it all’ without the hard work of faithfulness, and righteousness, and the steadfast love that’s willing to suffer to seek and to save the lost.

But in response, Jesus turns to the tempter and says:  “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.’” (Matthew 4:9-10).
When push comes to shove, Jesus shows there is nothing in the world the devil can offer that will get Him to turn His back on His Father.
 
But what about us? Does this third temptation pull at our hearts today?
Are there ways you and I are tempted to take hold of something in this life that would mean refusing to trust God, and resisting the calling to walk in His holy ways?
 
If so, we’re certainly not alone. The devil is hard at work bending many ears these days, as he has been since day one. And yet, when we hear these dark whispers, offering us our desires in exchange for our faithfulness, we must recall that the evil one offers us nothing good that the Living God has not already exceeded.
 
While wandering in the desert for forty years, Israel had already been offered far more than they could have asked for or imagined while they were suffering as slaves in Egypt. The LORD graciously set them free, and was with them every step of the way… leading them into a whole new life of blessings and freedom in the Promised Land as God’s own beloved children. 
 
And as Christians today, we have already been offered the new life of God as well… a new identity as God’s own beloved adopted children… invited to share an eternal and blessed life with one another, and our Saviour King. And through the Holy Spirit, the LORD is with us every step of the way too… leading us through our own wildernesses, and times of trial… our own seasons of learning to live each day by faith, to trust that God loves us, and wants us to grow more and more like Him. 
 
But what hope do we really have of passing the test?
 
Our hope cannot be in our own faithfulness… but in Jesus Christ… the faithful One who passed the test for us and gives His life of complete obedience as a free gift of grace. 
 
The hope for all of humanity’s story falls on the shoulders of Jesus. Where we all stumble and fall, Jesus alone remains true and completely endures the test of faithfulness. And through His faithfulness, God has graciously opened the door wide for the rest of us to find new life in Him… to be received as Christ’s new brothers and sisters, saved by all that He’s done for us… and offered to us as a free gift of love.
 
But this free gift of Christ’s saving faithfulness is not given to us so that we can avoid trying to be faithful ourselves.
It’s not like that at all. This free gift is given to save us, and faithfully led us through the wilderness… no longer alone, but completely confident in God’s sustaining grace and steadfast love every step of the way, and even when we still stumble and fall.
 
Because of the faithfulness of Jesus, we can see what true faithfulness looks like… and spend our days following the One who finally got it right.! Learning from Him how to be God’s faithful children too, and leaning on His grace when we fall.
 
Lent reminds us that Jesus our Saviour endured all our temptations… and He has overcome them so that with His help… with His own Spirit at work in us, we can now begin to overcome them too. We can now follow Him in faith, trusting in His grace and love, and learning from Him how to walk in God’s good ways… as a child learns to become more and more like the parent who constantly and faithfully cares for them.
 
But Lent also reminds us that Jesus our Saviour does not lead us away from the wilderness… He leads us through it. In faithful love, He leads us steadily onward to the cross… where our faith in Him will no doubt be tested, but where God’s own faithfulness and saving love is made known beyond measure to those who believe.
 
So then, as we begin this journey through Lent, walking together with Jesus to the cross… may we place our trust in our heavenly Father’s great mercy and sustaining grace, even when we face times of deep longing. May we seek out the comfort and guidance of the Holy Spirit, especially when we feel uncertain and afraid. And may we cling to the steadfast love of Jesus Christ, our faithful brother, offering our own wholehearted devotion to our Saviour King, who leads us into life. Amen. 

For a deeper look, you can also check out their 14 Episode Podcast series on the Character of God, found here:

And our All-Ages Song for the season of Lent can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Joel 2:1–2, 12–17 | Psalm 51 | 2 Corinthians 5:20b–6:10 | Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21

“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1).
 
“I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
 
That was a sonnet called Ozymandias, penned by the British poet Percy Shelley, apparently inspired by an ancient statue of an Egyptian Pharoah… contemplating the irony that this powerful ruler’s legacy… which must have seemed so grand and glorious in his day… had in time been reduced to sand and stones… and nothing more.   
 
It’s a stark reminder… especially for those of us seeking worldly glory, and who seem to be preoccupied with our own legacies… with what others think of us here on earth… a reminder that in the end every kingdom falls, and every legacy fades. Like King Ozymandias, all our works will likewise turn to dust.
 
Ash Wednesday offers us a similar reminder of our own mortality. In a world that does its best day by day to help us ignore and deny all signs of our weakness, fragility, and human limitations, Ash Wednesday reminds us that it is from dust that we all came, and to dust we will all return.
 
And yet, unlike Shelley’s poem that seems to present this humbling truth about our shared mortality with a sense of hopelessness and empty inevitability… Ash Wednesday does something very different: it calls us to remember our surprising place in the story, by locating our human fragility… our death-bound state of being within the scope of the grace, and mercy, and steadfast love of the Living God… giving us a hope far beyond anything we creatures of ash and dust can build for ourselves.
 
Ash Wednesday reminds us of the truth that while we are indeed ashes and dust… mortal, and fragile, and fallen… in His mercy and love the Living God Himself took on our frail humanity. In His Son, Jesus Christ, God became ashes and dust just like us… in every way, except for our sins… but then He bore those for us as well at the cross! Dying in our place… letting death’s full force fall upon Him, and then rising again to rescue us… and bring us into God’s own blessed and everlasting life.
 
Ash Wednesday reminds us that God knows exactly who and what we are… and yet, even though we are just ashes and dust, God loves us anyway… and through His Son Jesus, God has graciously opened up for us a glorious future… offering us freedom and forgiveness of our sins… turning our despair into joyful hope… and helping us set aside our selfishness and pride, and preoccupation with our own status and glory, to share God’s humble and self-giving love with one another, and with those in need all around us.

And so, having received the grace and mercy and love of the Living God, even though we are but ashes and dust… Ash Wednesday calls us to reject the proud path of Ozymandias… of striving to impress those around us, even with our own apparent righteousness and spiritual piety… twisting our devotion to God into a performance, all the while neglecting the connection that really matters: our relationship with Almighty God, through Jesus Christ, the real King of Kings.
 
And so Ash Wednesday invites us to humbly draw near to Jesus our Saviour in faith… to take up our own crosses and follow Him always… not as a performance, but as those wholeheartedly pursuing the way He has shown us… the way that leads to God’s true and everlasting life that His mercy and grace alone can provide.
 
In time, the world may think nothing of us. Or it might believe all kinds of lies about us, and misunderstand us completely. For better or worse, our legacies are out of our hands. But with the time that we have been given, with our days on this earth before we return to the earth, Christ calls us to pursue the things that will endure… to set our hearts on, and to live in line with God’s good Kingdom. 
 
He tells us, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21).
 
Tonight, we remember that we are dust… and to dust we shall return. But we remember this alongside the blessed hope offered to us in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Saviour. In Him, our eternal fate is secure. In Him, we find new purpose… and are empowered to take part in the good work of His Kingdom even now… the only Kingdom that will have no end. Amen.

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 43:16–21 | Psalm 126 | Philippians 3:4b–14 | ​John 12:1–8

“Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.” (Philippians 3:7).

Well, it’s been an interesting week, to say the least, hasn’t it? A week of worldwide uncertainty, and fearful predictions, as international trade and markets have been responding to the new round of tariffs imposed by the  administration in the United States. And as with any disruptive and uncertain situation, there’s lots of different ways people and nations are choosing to respond. Some are quickly scrambling to make deals and try to avoid even worse outcomes for themselves. Others are hitting back with increased trade barriers of their own… retaliating against what they see as deeply misguided practices that will hurt many people in the long run, and especially those who are already struggling, and vulnerable.

Lots of peoples’ sense of security is being shaken. Lots of economies and families are going to have to adapt and respond somehow, and honestly, it looks like many will face unnecessary suffering because of choices being made by a handful of people with political power.

On the bright side though, this is not a sermon about global trade, tariffs, and market practices. If you’re interested in that stuff, there’s plenty of other, much more qualified people talking about it these days, for better or for worse.

But I wanted to bring this stuff up in part because it’s on a lot of people’s minds… and also because it’s kind of an interesting example of how we humans can respond to disruptive events and people so differently. When our world gets shaken, for good or evil… when everything we hold dear and thought we understood is suddenly challenged and questioned… when brand new obstacles or opportunities are opened up before us… we have to make some choices about the ways we will respond… which is usually shaped by what we are most devoted to. 

And in our Gospel passage this morning, from St. John chapter 12, we see two very different responses of two of the earliest followers of Jesus to what He was up to.

Our passage takes place in a particularly tense part of the story of Jesus… as our Lord approaches Jerusalem, and the world-changing events of Holy Week draws near.

Just before this part of the story, Jesus had done something truly amazing, and deeply unsettling to many: in front of many witnesses, Jesus had raised His friend Lazarus, who had been dead for four days, back to life. St. John frames this amazing event as a sign of Christ’s power, and God’s Kingdom at work in Him. And in response to this, many people believed in Him… but many others did not. In fact, the religious leaders of the day, convinced that Jesus was upsetting too many things that they held dear, and undermining their spiritual authority, began to make plans from this point on to have Jesus arrested and executed.

And right after this story, St. John will tell of Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem on what we now call Palm Sunday… eagerly welcomed by crowds waving branches and praising God… a reception fit for a King… but as we know, in the week that follows, this King will end up on a cross. 

And right in the middle of this dramatic moment in Christ’s story… this movement towards the world-changing climax of the Gospel, we find our passage today. And we are given a powerful picture of what the Christian life looks like.

The story holds up side by side two followers of Jesus: Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve chosen disciples, and Mary of Bethany, the youngest sister of Lazarus. 

We’re told that Jesus visits their home in Bethany a week before the Passover, and while He’s there having supper, Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with a very precious perfume, and wiped His feet dry with her own hair. It is an image of incredible humility, offering to Jesus, not simply a pleasant and expensive experience, but a gift intended to both honour Him, and make obvious her sincere devotion.  

And though we’re not told initially why she offered this gift, if we step back and remember the recent story of her beloved brother, the picture becomes a bit more clear. Jesus had just raised Lazarus back to life. He had changed their deepest sorrow to joy, and gave them hope beyond anything they had imagined. And so, moved by gratefulness and trust, she presents Jesus with a wholehearted act of devotion. Nothing was too precious now compared to Him.
And in this beautiful moment, with the fragrance of her precious offering filling the house, Judas speaks up, and we are given a glimpse of a very different way to respond Jesus, and what He is up to. 

John 12:4-6, “But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’ (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)” 

Not a very flattering picture, but in three short verses, St. John gives us quite a character sketch of Judas: 1) Judas is a traitor to Jesus… an unfaithful follower, who ends up betraying God’s chosen One; 2) Judas is a thief… motivated by greed, and self-centeredness, not the compassion and generosity that Christ Jesus calls us to; and 3) Judas new how to present himself as faithful and wholeheartedly devoted to the work of Christ’s Kingdom… He knew the right words to say, but he was a hypocrite… an actor playing a part, and not a devoted servant of God. 

And Judas, this traitor, and thief, and hypocrite, one of the twelve, looks at what Mary does for the One he calls Lord… and he calls it all a waste. He questions her wisdom, and tries to heap shame on her beautiful gift of love.

And from the outside… with a cool and calculated tally of coins and costs, what Mary did does look like a waste. Think of how much good could have been done with the money that perfume cost. Surely Jesus doesn’t need or expect this kind of extravagance, especially when there were so many people near by who were struggling and suffering. What Judas says does makes sense. 

But as St. John tells us straight up: Judas was ultimately selfish. He knew the right things to say, and the arguments that made him sound wise and responsible… but he was only devoted to himself… not to the poor, or those suffering, and as we see soon enough, not to the Lord.  
 
Meanwhile, Mary doesn’t say a word. She lets her actions tell their own story. And even if they are misunderstood, or misinterpreted, or maligned… and if she is accused of being wasteful, or careless… Jesus knows her heart! Jesus knew what she was offering to Him, just as he knew what Judas was holding back. And so Jesus received the gift of wholehearted love that she poured out for Him… honouring her actions as part of the preparations for His coming death. 

For this story is about more than Mary’s gracious gift, and Judas’ hardening heart. It is a story that points us to the events of Holy Week, and the great confrontation between the powers of darkness, and the Lord of Light… the moment when God’s own precious Son freely gave up His body and blood… His life at the cross, in what must have seemed in that moment as an unspeakable waste! 

I mean, think about it. Think of how much good Jesus could have done if He had just stayed away from Jerusalem that Passover week. How many more people who were sick and suffering could have been healed if He had made a few less enemies, and a few more powerful and important friends? How many people who were discouraged and oppressed could have been given freedom and hope had He just been a bit less worried about the Kingdom of God, and a bit more willing to ‘play ball’? 

Jesus could have done so many great things for people, and for Himself, if He had just been a bit more selfish… if He would have refused to offer up His life at the cross in our place. 

But no, Jesus instead let His actions speak for themselves… even if others would misinterpret, or misunderstand, or malign Him and the incredible sacrifice that He made… even if it meant paying a cost far greater than anything we could imagine… even if, to the eyes of the outside world, what Jesus did just looks like a shame, and a waste… God knows exactly what was going on that Good Friday, when Jesus poured out His life for you and me… and for us all. God knows the depths of Christ’s wholehearted devotion to the will of His Father in Heaven… and God received Christ Jesus’ gift of wholehearted love for us… even while we, just like Judas, were still all wrapped up in ourselves, and our self-destructive sins.  

And we know this. We know that Jesus’ gift of love was received, because three days later, God raised His Son again, rescuing Him from the power of death, once and for all, through His resurrection.

And this is what Jesus now graciously offers to us: the power of His resurrection. He shares with us His own victory over the grave… not so that we will not suffer, or have to go through times of uncertainty, or grief, or pain, but so that we can do so with the confidence that He has already faced death on our behalf, and come out the other side… that He lives now as our Risen King of Kings… that there is now absolutely nothing… not poverty, pain, the grave… or even trade barriers that can keep us from the saving, generous, life-giving love of the Lord, who gave His life to set us free from our sin, our fear, our shame, and to lead us into the New Life of God even now.

So like St. Paul, in our reading from Philippians today, let us not place our confidence and our hope in appearances… or in all the assets and honours we can count up, or try to amass for ourselves. Instead, let us press on towards the goal of the New Life of God’s Kingdom, trusting in the power of Christ’s resurrection… the power of His saving love that not even death or tariffs can stop. 

​And like Mary, may we respond to the incredible grace and love of Jesus Christ our Lord by pouring out our lives in thankfulness and praise to Him in wholehearted devotion… not just in our words, or in our times of worship, but in all of our actions… in everything that we do… holding nothing back from the One who gave everything for us. Amen.

​And our Songs this week can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Joshua 5:9–12 | Psalm 32 | 2 Corinthians 5:16–21 | Luke 15:1–2, 11–32

“Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’” (Luke 15:31-32).

Our Gospel reading this morning is one of the most well known and beloved parables of Jesus. A powerful story told to help us understand and respond to His Kingdom work. This story has often been called the Prodigal Son… as prodigal means ‘wasteful’ ‘lavash’, or ‘recklessly extravagant’, in reference to the younger son’s completely careless use of his inheritance.

It's a story that stands out as a profound example of the radical nature of God’s mercy and love, and grace… a story that tells us that no matter how far we have wandered, we really can be welcomed home again. Inviting us to turn around again and return to the Father’s eager embrace.

But this parable is much more than simply a story about the depths of God’s mercy and grace. It’s a story about broken relationships, and reconciliation… about the restoration of the bonds between a father and his sons… but just as importantly, between the sons themselves.

In this parable, we are not simply being reminded of God’s great mercy and saving love offered to us… we are being called to respond to His mercy and love… in how we relate to those in our lives. Perhaps especially those we feel the most estranged and divided from.

And I don’t know about you, but I can think of very few other topics that are more relevant today than reconciliation… the coming together again of those who have been torn apart. Every day it seems, there’s yet more divisiveness and broken bonds in our world… fractured friendships, at the local, national, and international level.

The conflicts we face in life can be incredibly challenging. And it’s not always easy to know how to respond, or what we can do to move forward. But thankfully, in today’s parable we have been given a word from our Lord Jesus Christ not only offering us hope for our own forgiveness and grace, but also an invitation to change how we see and respond to this deeply divided world that we find ourselves in.  

In the first part of the parable, Jesus introduces us to a family of three: a father and his two sons. Right away, we’re told that the younger son demands his share of the inheritance, and then heads off to a distant land, where he wastes everything he had received, and is left with nothing. Now, the scandal here is not just about the younger son being careless with his money… it’s also about the shameful way that he treats his father, and the damage done to their relationship.

In the largely patriarchal and honour-shame cultures of the ancient Near East, fathers were the honoured head of the family. They were expected to be treated with great respect, and deference. And the same would go for the older sons, those who were expected to fill in for their father as head of the household once he dies. So when this youngest son rudely demands his inheritance right away, he isn’t just being impatient, he’s acting disgracefully… it would be like saying to his father: ‘I wish you were dead.’ And it suggests a complete break in their relationship… disregarding all that he had done for him.

But then everything blows up in his face. Disaster strikes, and the younger son finds himself in desperate straits. A famine strikes the land, and the son is left destitute. His new friends abandon him, and he’s forced to do degrading work with no hope of relief. And here at rock bottom, that’s when he comes to his senses, and he remembers that his father’s servants were much better off than he was now. 

Of course he knows that there’s no chance of making amends now and restoring their broken relationship. But maybe his father will have pity on him, and take him back as a hired servant. So he swallows his pride, and rehearses his apology… expecting to have to bear the full weight of his mistakes… and heads back home full of shame, but hoping against hope that maybe… just maybe… his father will be gracious enough to give him a job so that he will not starve. 

But as it turns out, the younger son does not understand the depths of his father’s mercy and love. 

His father sees him from afar… and he runs. He runs to his boy, and embraces him… and covers his mud-caked face with kisses. The son starts to recite his prepared apology, but the father doesn’t even wait to hear it. Instead, he calls for his own best robe, and his ring, marks of familial status and honour, to be given to his long-lost child… and then the father calls for a feast. 

And the youngest son is swept up in an amazing act of grace, and lavish love beyond anything he expected or deserved… or even dreamed of. Where he expected to find condemnation and shame, he is surrounded by compassion and forgiveness instead… a beautiful glimpse of the very heartbeat of the message of the Gospel.  

Can we identify with this son’s experience of being embraced by his father’s gracious love? I hope so!

This parable offers us a powerful image of God’s love, that Christians have looked to from the beginning to understand and express the kind of welcome we have been offered in Christ. This story often hits home when we have moments of conversion… coming to faith for the first time… or of reconnection… returning to the Lord after he have wandered away, and are suddenly made aware that God’s love for us is so much bigger than our brokenness… and so much stronger than all our guilt and shame… It’s like coming to life again: when everything seemed lost, suddenly we’re found and welcomed home.

But this parable is more than a powerful vision of our own forgiveness, and if we stop here, we are actually missing one of the most important parts of this story’s message. 

Because this story is not only about one son. It’s about a family. The parable tells us about another son. The elder brother. The one who was expected to be honoured, like his father. The one who never stepped out of line. Who never shamed his father, or his family, or wasted his inheritance. The son who worked hard and who always did what was expected of him. 

A son who, just like his younger brother, does not understand the depths of his father’s mercy and love.

His story picks up with the party already started. The older son comes back from a day of working in the fields, and he hears about the feast in honour for his long-lost brother. But unlike his father, the older son is filled with anger and deep resentment. And so, he refuses to join in the celebration. 

So his father leaves the party and goes out to find him.

When he does, he begins to plead with the elder son to join them, and the always obedient, responsible son responds by letting his father have it. Now before we look down on him, let’s think about his position. Let’s listen to his complaint. Luke 15:29-30,

“But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’”

‘What has this all been for?’ he says. ‘I’ve worked and slaved for you all my life, and for what? You’ve never blessed me like you bless this useless, horrible son of yours!’

Can we identify with this older son sometimes? Do we ever feel weighed down with duty… working hard to do what’s expected, but then seeing nothing to show for it? All the while, seeing other, completely undeserving people being lifted up? If you’ve ever felt this way… if you’re feeling this way today, you’re definitely not alone. And thankfully, this word from Jesus our Lord is for you… to bring you peace and hope as well. But this parable is also a challenge to us… correcting some assumptions that we all make from time to time about the true nature of God’s mercy and love, and how it works in our lives, and in our world.

One way to explain the older son’s point of view is to say that he is relating to his father with a basically 
transactional framework: ‘If I do this for you, you’ll do that for me.’ Of course, there’s a flip side to this too: ‘If I don’t do this for you, you won’t do that for me.’ This is a vision of the world where we all basically get what we deserve… and it deeply shapes how we relate to ourselves… and how we relate to the other people in our lives.

But the Gospel, the Good News of offers us another way to see both ourselves, and others… not based on evaluating what everyone does or does not deserve… but based on what the Living God has done for us, and for them too… through God’s Son, Jesus Christ.

And this parable… this story asks us all: ‘Do we truly understand our Heavenly Father’s mercy & love? How in tune are we with God’s amazing, saving grace for sinners of every sort?’

In the parable, the father seeks to share his life and joy with both his sons… not as a reward, but as a gift. As an outpouring of his own generosity, and willingness to embrace them both as his own. 

With the younger son, we see this clearly, as the father honours and welcomes his child home with unexpected ease, and overflowing joy… seeing his wasteful and wayward boy as one who has been brought back to life from the dead.

And with the older son, we see the father seeking him out, eager for his diligent child to come and share in his joy as well. And we also see the father patiently listening to his elder sons’ angry accusations… against his brother, and also against the father… but then gently challenging the older son’s assumptions… inviting him to adopt a whole different way of seeing himself, his relationship with his father, and with his estranged brother. Luke 15:31-32,

“Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

The son seems to have thought that his father had forgotten him… that he had been loved less, and neglected. But in the father’s eyes, that’s not the case at all! It’s not an either/or. He loved both his children, and wanted them both to share in his love together. 

But to do that, the elder son had to choose to make room in his heart and his life for his brother again. He would have to start to see that the new life of his brother mattered so much more than money, or honour, or his ideas about what anyone deserved. 

This story is an invitation to live by God’s grace. To receive His grace, and then to extend it.

And the story is left hanging. How would the older son respond? More to the point: how will you and I respond???
 
After all, this parable is not at all a hypothetical scenario. It is a word from our Lord Jesus Christ, challenging our own assumptions, and calling us to a deeper understanding of our Heavenly Father’s great mercy and love… one that will actually begin to alter how we relate to God, and to all those around us.

In other words, it’s pointing us to Jesus Himself… to God’s own beloved Son, our Saviour.

The One who went out to the lost, to the scandalous, the losers, the compromised, and corrupt, and called them turn around and to share in the New Life of God’s Kingdom… embracing them as His beloved sisters and brothers, not because they deserved it at all, but because of God’s own great mercy and love. 

And we know, Jesus was also rejected by those who were self-righteous… those who could not or would not recognize in Him the mercy and love of the Living God at work… and who were angry and scandalized that Jesus would claim to be so close to the Holy One, and yet still hang out with all the wrong kinds of people. 

But Jesus didn’t come to pick sides. He came to seek the lost, and to share God’s great mercy and saving love with everyone and anyone who would receive it. And He did this by taking our place once and for all at the cross.

Jesus gave His life for both the younger and the older brothers… for all of us, no matter which ways we have wandered from the holy ways of our Heavenly Father: through being shameful or self-righteousness… through our anger or our carelessness. Christ Jesus took on all the consequences of our world’s ungodliness… in every form it may take… in order to save and embrace us all… bringing us to Himself forever.

As St. Paul says in second Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

But here’s the kicker: what Jesus has done for us, He has also done for everyone else. That includes those who have hurt us, or who deeply frustrate us, or who give us reasons to be afraid. He doesn’t condone what they’ve done, or want it to continue. Far from it! 

But the truth remains that Jesus Christ gave His life for them too. And our Heavenly Father seeks to save them too. As much as we may want to at times, you and I don’t get to draw the lines about who gets embraced by the love of God.

But if we leave it there, we’re actually missing the biggest scandal of this story, and like the older son, we’re still left standing outside, refusing to come in. The real scandal of God’s mercy and saving love is that He wants us to share it with them too. Not to stand off at a distance, grumbling, but to be an integral part of how his love is made known. 

In other words: Jesus embraces us, so that, with the Holy Spirit’s help, we can embrace our estranged siblings too, and help them return to the loving arms of our Father in Heaven.

Or better yet, in St. Paul’s words: “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:16-21).

Of course we know, that we can’t make people respond faithfully to this Good News of God’s reconciling love. And there is no guarantee that those we share it with will want anything we have to offer. And we can never try to force people who are estranged to be reconciled. It has to be a two-way street. In order for broken relationships to truly heal, there’s lots of healing, and listening, and rebuilding of trust that will need to take place. 
 
But as Christians, we have already received God’s reconciling mercy and grace, and are now called to share it with those around us in Jesus’ name… looking at ourselves and everyone around us, not simply from a human point of view, but as beloved sons and daughters that Christ Jesus died to save.

So how will we respond to all those around us today? That all depends on how we see them, and on our understanding of the mercy and saving love of our Heavenly Father. 

So may we see and treat everyone… ourselves, our loved ones, our neighbours, and even our enemies, in the light of the Gospel… the Good News of what Jesus Christ has done to seek out and save us all. Amen.  

Today marks the third Sunday of Lent, a sacred season for Christians to prepare in mind, body, and spirit, to follow our Saviour Jesus Christ to the cross, and the solemn commemoration of His betrayal, death, and resurrection at Holy Week.

Some of the traditional practices of the season of Lent include fasting, the study of Scripture, prayerful reflection, and generous almsgiving. 

To help us grow in our understanding and faith as Christ's disciples today, each week we will be sharing links to two videos from the Bible Project from their series on The Sermon on the Mount.

You can find this week's videos,  'Wisdom Within Laws About Oaths, Retaliation, and Enemy Love', and 'Warnings About Religious Practices' below: