Ruth and Jonah (Midweek Lenten Worship, Part 4)

[Below, you'll find the live stream video of the midweek Lenten worship service of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio for March 30 and the prepared message for the service. I hope God blesses you through His Word here.]



Jonah 2-3

Tonight, two themes will take our attention: the sign of Jonah and God’s call to a life of change.

Jonah is the only Old Testament prophet to whom Jesus compares Himself. Jesus was and is both God and human. Jesus is sinless. Jonah, by contrast, was a sinful man. When God called Jonah to rise and speak God’s Word to the Ninevites in the kingdom of Assyria, he ran in the opposite direction. When God the Father sent Jesus to die for our sins, Jesus was “obedient to death—even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8) It would be hard to find an Old Testament prophet less like Jesus than Jonah. Yet when a Pharisee asks Jesus to show a sign of His deity, Jesus says, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12:39-40)

What is “the sign of the prophet Jonah” exactly? Jesus’ resurrection is one part of the sign of Jonah. But so is death. Jonah prays to God in tonight’s lesson: “From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help…” (Jonah 2:2) In the belly of the fish, Jonah was at first, as good as dead, with no reason to think he could survive such an ordeal. And, Jonah was as good as dead because he had sinned against God. “The wages of sin is death.”

Like Jonah, Jesus has died for sin. The difference is that while Jonah would symbolically die before symbolically rising from the belly of the fish for his own sin, Jesus would actually die before actually rising from the dead for our sin. As 2 Corinthians 5:21 says of Jesus: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” God has gone to the lengths of enduring death itself to reach us with His forgiving love. Do you want to see what God is like and how much He loves you? Look at His death, when like Jonah, buried in the depths of the sea, God the Son lay dead in a tomb for your sin. This is the sign of Jonah that Jesus gives to us.

In our reading from Jonah tonight, we see that God didn’t give up on Jonah or on the people of Nineveh. He wanted to call them to repentance and faith in Him. In the belly of the fish, Jonah repents for his rebellion against God and “​​the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.” (Jonah 2:10) God delivers Jonah from death for a reason. Jesus has also delivered you and me from sin, death, and eternal separation from God for a reason. 1 Peter tells baptized believers in Christ: “you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession.” Those are blessed things to be; but then Peter tells us why God, through Christ, makes us a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession.” It’s this: “...that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:10) Faith shared, grows; faith unshared is stuck in perpetual immaturity, likely as not to die. God saved Jonah from death in the deep not just to save Jonah, but also so that Jonah could take life with God to others. In Christ, God has saved you and me to do the very same thing in our world and in our time, not as an obligation, but as a joyous privilege.

And so, saved from death in the deep, Jonah becomes the only prophet in the Old Testament that God calls (or has to call) twice. God once more tells Jonah: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” (Jonah 3:2) God doesn’t say, “All right, Jonah, go to Nineveh and get it right this time.” When God forgives our sins, it’s as if they never happened. Forgiving Jonah, God again sends the prophet on his mission to the Ninevites.

Over the course of several days, Jonah delivers God’s message to the Ninevites: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” (Jonah 3:4.) The original Hebrew in which Jonah is written literally says, “Forty days yet and Nineveh shall be neh·pā·ḵeṯ.” That last word can be translated as overturned. But it can also be rendered as changed. God’s message to the Ninevites was, “In forty days, CHANGE is coming!” This isn’t much different from our message as Christians to the world, “When Jesus comes back, things are going to change. We can be on the right side of that change with Jesus or we can be on the wrong side of the change against Jesus.”

The Word of God that comes to the Ninevites through Jonah is both Law and Promise. The Law says, “God condemns your sin and without repentance, you won’t like the changes coming.” The Promise, like the Gospel that comes us through Jesus, tells the Ninevites, “When you repent and believe in God, there will be a change in your relationship with God. And when you believe in God, He will set out to change you to be more like Him.”

In ancient Israel’s history, God had sent prophets to His own people, the Jews, and their calls for repentance and faith were often rejected, the prophets killed. But: “The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.” (Jonah 4:5) Later, the king himself will repent and believe in God and say, “Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” (Jonah 3:5)

The trusting attitude of the Ninevites is remarkable! They repent and believe in God. They accept that God is entitled to bring any changes to their lives He wants.

Change, in fact, is the essence of the life of faith in God. When we live in daily repentance and renewal, we accept that God is likely going to make changes in our daily lives. He’s going to call us to do things we don’t want to do, to change the ways we think about other people. We will either curse the changes that God brings to us, as Jonah did when God wanted him to change from being a prophet just to his own people and to reach out in love to people he hated as well, or we will embrace God and trust Him through all the changes that He calls us to make in our lives. Friends of ours had a negative view of people who came to America from other countries. But when God called them to help their local church teach English to immigrants who spoke Spanish and Arabic, they didn’t run in the other direction like Jonah. They embraced the call God placed on their lives. It meant changes in their lives. Big changes. But it has also brought them the joy that always belongs to those who are open to the changes God wants to bring to our lives. How is God calling you to change your life tonight?

The Ninevites trusted in God. “When God saw what [the Ninevites] did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened,” Jonah 3:10 tells us. God loves to destroy our old sinful ways of thinking and living and forgive us, then sets us free to live out the lives He is daily changing, to face the new callings He sets before us each day.

While the repentance, faith, and life of God-driven change we see in the Ninevites inspire us, Jonah presents a different story. More on that as we conclude our series next week.

The Searching Father and His Two Lost Sons

[Below you'll find both the live stream video of today's 11:00 AM worship service, the "modern" service, from Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, and the text of today's message.]



Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

In today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 15:11-32, Jesus tells what’s usually called the parable of the prodigal son. But, really, the parable isn’t about either the younger or the older son. It’s about the father, who loves both sons. It’s about the God we meet in Jesus Christ, Who loves all people.

Just before telling this parable, Jesus tells two shorter ones. The first is about a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine of his sheep to go find the lost one-hundredths one, then throws a party when the lost sheep is found. “I tell you…” Jesus says, “there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” The second parable Jesus tells is about a widow who loses one of her ten coins, sets about searching for it, and, on finding it, throws a party. “I tell you,” Jesus concludes that parable, “there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:10)

In each of these parables, something gets lost and in each, the person charged with the stewardship of what is lost doesn’t rest until they’ve found the lost things. Notice too, that in these two parables, the shepherd and the widow stand in for God, and the lost things stand for those who have become separated from God. Jesus, God the Son, once described His mission by saying He came “to seek and save the lost.” (Luke 19:10)

But here’s the other thing I want you to notice about these two parables. Jesus says that both stories are about repentance. But neither the sheep nor the coin do anything to get found. Repentance then isn’t something you and I do. Repentance is what God does to us when His Word comes to us, whether through the words of Scripture or through the sacraments. God’s Word comes to us as Law, telling us that we are sinners who deserve death and cannot save ourselves from that fate. God’s Word comes to us as Gospel, telling us that Jesus Christ died for us and grants forgiveness and eternity to all who believe in Him. We might more accurately call the parable in today’s Gospel lesson,  the parable of the searching father and the two lost sons. 

Jesus tells these parables to a crowd composed of two groups of people besides His own disciples. First, there are the tax collectors and other sinners. The second group of people Jesus addresses today is made up of Pharisees and teachers of religious law. These two groups are represented by the lost sons in Jesus’ parable.

You know Jesus’ story. A younger son asks his father for his portion of his inheritance. The father complies with the son’s request. The younger son converts his inheritance to cash and sets off for a far country. While there, he squanders his money, a famine hits, and the son has to go to work for a Gentile pig farmer, something unthinkable for Jesus’ fellow Jews. He looks longingly at the pigs’ feed because he’s so hungry. He then devises a plan. Remembering how well his father treated the hired servants, he decides to ask his dad for a job. That way, he can earn a living but still be free of his obligations as a son. The younger son thinks that he can or has to work for his dad’s favor or help, just the way we may sometimes think we have to work at being good Christians. A man once seriously asked me, “What inputs do I have to bring to God to get the outputs I want?” He wanted to have with God what the younger son now wanted with his father: a business relationship.

When the younger son returns to his father. He only gets through part of his rehearsed speech. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son,” he says, as planned. (Luke 15:21) But before the self-admitted unworthy son can ask for a job so he can earn a place in his dad’s dominion, his father welcomes and forgives him with hugs and a kiss. Friends, God doesn’t make deals with us. He freely offers His gifts of forgiveness and new and everlasting life to all who, because they see God in His Son, Jesus Christ, turn to God. The younger son thought that returning home to his father was his idea, part of a shrewd plan to use his dad to get what he wanted out of the old man. In fact, he turned to the father because the father’s love had created the impulse to turn to him. When people turn to the God we know in Christ, they may do so for their own selfish reasons. But whatever our motive, whenever anyone turns to God in repentance, it’s because God has used His Word to call us to that repentance. Whenever the lost are found, it’s the action of God alone. God the Father refuses to make any of us His “hired hands,” servants striving to earn our way out of hell into God’s kingdom. Instead, in Jesus, God calls us to be His children, heirs of His grace, forgiveness, and love.

As the Creator of the human race, it’s God’s right to receive the repentant, no matter how uninformed their motives may be, just as it’s God’s right to destroy the unrepentant who refuse to turn to Him. But God wants to save all people. Not just people like the tax collectors and notorious sinners to whom Jesus speaks, but also people like the Pharisees and teachers of the law, people who have grown certain of their own righteousness.

That leads us to the older son. He comes in from the fields and hears the music of a party in his father’s house. When he learns that the father is celebrating over the return of his younger brother, he’s angered. His father comes outside of the house to invite the older son inside–the way Jesus leaves the comfort and eternal jubilation of heaven to enter our world, inviting us to follow Him and enter the Kingdom of God. The oder son refuses his father’s invitation. “All these years,” he says, “I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders.” (Luke 15:19) And yet, he goes on, “when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!.” (Luke 15:30) We can see that, despite the differences between him and his younger brother, the two sons actually have had the same view of their father. When the older son complains of “slaving” for his father, he shows that his respect for his father has had nothing to do with love or gratitude or because he values their relationship. Like his younger brother when he set out to come home, the older son wants a piece of his father’s estate, but he doesn’t want his father. The older son got an A+ as a “good boy,” but he has no desire for a relationship with his father.

Many church people think that being Christian has everything to do with “being good” and nothing to do with having an eternity-changing relationship with God or with living in God’s Kingdom. They think if they’re good, attend worship, and do things for the church, they’ll be leading godly lives. (Even though many of the things these people do “for the church” has absolutely nothing to do with the one and only mission Jesus has given to His Church: to be and to make disciples.) People like this think that their “slavery” to being “good Christians” will earn them a place in God’s kingdom.

At the end of Jesus’ parable, the rebellious son has learned of and experienced his father’s undeserved grace–his charity. He receives forgiveness and a welcome home. Meanwhile, the older son, always outwardly compliant, stands outside of his father’s home. He refuses to be part of a family that welcomes repentant sinners. There are many Christians who hop from church to church looking for the one where there are only good people like the older son and where the rebels who need God aren’t allowed.

But folks, no matter who you’ve been, whether a hypocrite who’s played at trust in God like the older son, a rebel who’s wanted just enough of God to get what you want in life but not so much as to actually repent and believe, or some combination of both, God is running down the lane looking for you, a father desperately seeking His children. He calls you again today and everyday to turn to Him through Jesus…and to receive again and again the joyous welcome of heaven that happens whenever anyone hears Christ’s call to turn from their sin and follow Him…and then, by the power of the Holy Spirit, run into God’s outstretched arms. Amen

Ruth and Jonah (Midweek Lenten Worship, Part 3)

[Here, you'll find the video of the live stream of tonight's Midweek Lenten devotional worship service with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, and the text of the message shared.]



Jonah 1:1-17

The first thing to be said about the Old Testament book of Jonah is that it’s not a fish story. Only three of its 42 verses deal with the great fish we immediately think of when we think of Jonah. The fish is only one of His creatures that God sends to rescue Jonah throughout the four short chapters of this book. 

It should be said though, that we may be tempted to wonder why God even bothers with rescuing Jonah. He’s rebellious, selfish, even hateful. 

But then, when others observe us, people who are, by baptism and belief in Jesus, simultaneously saints and sinners, the same question may arise: Why is it that God bothers with people who can, at times, be so fervent in confessing their faith and also be so rebellious, selfish, and hateful?

As we began this series two Wednesdays ago, we said that the Old Testament books of Ruth and Jonah compel us to ask some big questions. And we’ve begun to answer them. 

In Ruth, we saw that God’s care for His own people–represented by Naomi, Elimelech, and their two sons–didn’t stop at the border between Israel and Moab, where they went as hungry refugees; God, Yahweh, was still their God and with them outside the promised land. 

We've learned that God was equally concerned about people outside His Old Testament covenant. Through His Word, shared by Naomi and her family, Ruth, a Moabite foreigner, came to believe in God, even becoming the great-grandmother of David, Israel’s second king and the ancestor of the family into which Jesus, the Savior of the world was to be born. 

In turning tonight to Jonah, we see our questions more fully answered by God’s Word. The God we know in Jesus isn’t confined to particular places. He’s got the whole world, actually the whole universe, in His hands.

Jonah lived more than two hundred years after the time of Ruth. By his time, Israel had torn into two: a kingdom to the south, often called Judah, with worship centered in Jerusalem, and a kingdom to the north, called Israel, whose worship life would eventually settle in Samaria. 

Both kingdoms rebelled against God. But Israel, the northern kingdom, was the most notorious in its idolatries and mixing of other religions with the worship of Yahweh. Nonetheless, the north produced great people of God, including the prophet, Elijah. The ancient rabbis believed that Jonah was the son of the widow of Zarephath who God raised from the dead through Elijah. That may or may not be true, but we do know that Jonah was one of the prophets at the king’s court in 2 Kings.

Jonah is the fifth of the twelve minor prophets whose books are bundled together in the Old Testament. Unlike the books of the other prophets, which are mainly composed of the oracles God gave them to speak, the book of Jonah is a historic narrative that tells us about what happened when God commissioned Jonah to speak God’s Word to the Ninevites, when Jonah refused to do so, when God again called Jonah to go to Nineveh, and when Jonah finally delivered God’s Word to the Ninevites. 

But what is a prophet? Above all, God called prophets to deliver God’s call to people to turn to God in repentance and faith. That's important to keep it in mind.

Now, to our text for tonight, Jonah 1:1-17. It begins, as we see in other prophets’ stories, with the Word of God coming to Jonah. He’s to go to Nineveh to preach against the Ninevites and their wickedness which, God says, “has come up before Me.” (Jonah 1:2) 

Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria, a nation that had treated God’s people harshly. The archeological remains of Nineveh exist today not far from the Iraqi city of Mosul, about 250 miles from Baghdad. 

There would have been great dangers for Jonah in going into enemy territory. But that, as we’ll see, isn’t why Jonah didn’t want to preach to the Ninevites. He was concerned that the Ninevites might repent, trust in God, and be welcomed into relationship with God. But Jonah hated the Ninevites and didn’t want them to walk with God.

So, instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah books passage on a ship in the Mediterranean to someplace called Tarshish. Jonah thinks that he can “flee from the Lord.” (Jonah 1:3) In his anger with God, Jonah seems to have momentarily forgotten that the presence of the Creator of the universe can’t confined to his homeland. King David, who lived several centuries earlier knew better than that. “If I go up to the heavens, you are there;  if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me…” David writes in Psalm 139:8-10. God is with us even when we don’t want Him to be!

As you know, a huge storm erupts. Each of the sailors and passengers prays to their own gods and toss cargo overboard to lighten the weight of the ship. But nothing stops the storm or settles the ship. The other passengers cast lots to determine who’s at fault for this life-threatening storm. The lot falls to Jonah. Although running from God, Jonah, a saint by God’s grace and a sinner by birth, confesses his faith to Gentiles. Now, this is ironic. In confessing his faith in God to Gentiles on that ship, Jonah is doing the very thing God wanted to send him to Nineveh to do. (Another case of, “Either God gets His way or God gets His way.) Jonah tells his shipmates: “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” (Jonah 1:9) He explains that he has displeased God by running from the mission God has given to him and that to save themselves, the passengers and crew must throw him into the sea. 

Not wanting to be responsible for Jonah’s death, the Gentile crew try to row toward land, but to no avail. Then they do what Jonah won’t get around to doing until chapter 2: They pray to Yahweh, the God we know in Jesus, the great I AM! Jonah is evangelizing Gentiles despite himself! 

Finally, Jonah is thrown overboard and a dead calm descends on the sea. Then we’re told, “At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord [that is, in the original Hebrew, Yahweh] and made vows to him.” (Jonah 1:16) 

This is not the last time that Jonah, perhaps the original Lutheran–a reluctant evangelist–is used to convince others to trust in God even as he, listening to his sinful nature, refuses to trust in God himself. Jonah is like you and me, maybe, and definitely like the apostle Paul who confessed that his sinful nature often got in the way of his faith in God: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” (Romans 7:15)

Thoughts like these may have been going through Jonah’s mind as he floundered in the sea. But, God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” (Exodus 34:6) 

God was faithful to Jonah even when Jonah was faithless to God. He sent a great fish to swallow Jonah and save him from death. 

The grace of God which He extends to us now in Jesus Christ isn’t a license for us to commit sin, of course. 

But God’s grace, His charitable love for sinners, even sinners who believe in Him, is tough and resilient. God is unwilling to quickly give up on anyone. 

That’s why eight-hundred years after Jonah, God would take on human flesh in Jesus Christ to die on a cross for our sins and rise from the dead to offer life with God to all who repent and believe in Him. 

God doesn’t give up on Ninevites, Jonahs, or us…or that neighbor somewhere in your life or in your world you don’t like, the way Jonah didn’t like the Ninevites. 

In Jesus Christ, we know that God never tires of calling out to us as Jesus did at the beginning of his earthly ministry: “The time has come…The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15) 

More about the reluctant Jonah and the good news God has for us all next week.

Repentance, Not Judgment

[Here, you'll find the live stream video of today's 11:00 AM worship service with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, and the text of today's message.]



Luke 13:1-9

On a social media site, a Christian recently publicly refused to pray for the Ukrainian people. He said that the Russian invasion of their country proved they were under God’s judgment.

This man seems to have a faulty theology of glory, rather than the Bible’s theology of the cross. The theology of glory declares that if you’re a believer in the God revealed in Jesus Christ, nothing bad will happen to you. That, of course, is untrue. Throughout history, believers in the God first revealed to ancient Israel and now revealed to all the world in Jesus, have suffered calamities, tragedy, and death, both natural and manmade. Jesus Himself, God the Son, suffered brutality and death on a cross and told all of us who follow Him that we will, at the least, suffer the indignity of death ourselves, will suffer like the rest of humanity, must daily die to our old selves so that our new selves can rise, and may even be persecuted for our faith before we are finally raised to live eternally with God.

Scripture says that there are times when God chastens and condemns His people and brings calamity, even death, to them for their sin. Ancient Israel became so rebellious toward God in the wilderness that He sent poisonous serpents to bite them. Many died. It was only when God ordered Moses to melt down bronze, fashion it into the form of a serpent, put it on a pole and raise it, and make the people look at it in repentance to acknowledge their sin and place their faith in God alone, that the suffering survivors recovered.

In the New Testament book of Acts, a husband and wife, Ananias and Sapphira, under no obligation to give the proceeds from the sale of their home to the Church, told everyone that’s what they had done. They wanted bragging rights. But when it became known that they’d actually held back some of the money they claimed they had given, God took their lives. It’s a chilling incident.

Judgment can come from God in this life. But we need to be careful in saying that when people get into trouble, they must be under God’s judgment. In fact, if we even think it, I suspect it’s best to repent for playing God. Only God will judge people’s worthiness for eternal salvation. We can and we must, as God’s people, share both His Law and His Gospel with others. But judging people’s eternal destiny is God’s job, not ours.

As our Gospel lesson for today, Luke 13:1-9, begins, some men tell Jesus about a recent event in Jerusalem: A group of Galileans had just been slaughtered in the temple by soldiers sent by Pilate, the Roman governor. This likely took place during the Passover, because that was the only time that laypeople, rather than priests, were allowed to participate in the sacrifices offered in the temple courts.

Jesus asks the men, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 13:2-3)

And then, citing another recent event, Jesus asks the crowd what they think of “those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 13:4-5)

Just before the people in the crowd remind Jesus of Pilate’s murder of the Galileans, Jesus has been talking about how important it is for us to accurately interpret the times in which we live. You see, at the moment Jesus was born at Bethlehem, the fallen creation in which you and I live entered the “end times.” When we rightly understand that this, we know that the life of this universe, not to mention our own individual lives, could have ended and still could end at any second. That means that the standard operating procedures of our inborn sinful human natures will not do. Judging others as worthy of God’s condemnation and ourselves as being innocents with a right to God’s blessings, good fortune, and ease will not do.

Jesus says that when we see others die violently or suddenly, we dare not conclude that God punished them or that they were worse sinners than we are.

God’s Word tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) The whole human race is composed of sinners. That includes you and me. There is no escaping that word all. Since you and I are all sinners and since no sin is worse or better than any other sin, Jesus says we dare not conclude that the person who dies from cancer or COVID, or the mother and child killed by a Russian bomb, or the young Russian conscript forced to be involved in “special military operations,” or the depraved despot who is unleashing war on Ukraine even as we speak, is worse than we are. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Instead, Jesus says, when we see the tragedies, travesties, and deaths of our fallen world, our first thought should be not to judge others’ salvation, but to repent. Unless we repent, Jesus says, we will perish. To perish, in the Greek language in which Luke wrote his gospel, means not just to die, but to be utterly atomized, but still to exist, crushed by the eternal suffering and torment that comes to those who put their faith in their own goodness and righteousness rather than in the goodness and righteousness of God.

To repent for our sin is not just being sorry for our sin, it’s also to  “trust in the one who brings [us] forgiveness and release [from the death sentence we deserve for our sin.]”

It’s right for us to fear God and not just respect Him or hold Him in awe, because God has every right to hold us accountable and judge us for our sin.

But in Jesus Christ, we know that, as we turn to Him and turn away from our sin, we can trust in God not to judge us according to our sin, but solely and completely according to the righteousness He gives to all who believe in Jesus.

Jesus, the Son of God, is the Lord and King sent by God the Father, “to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free…” (Luke 4:18) Jesus covers the repentant in grace, forgiveness, and life with God! It’s the same grace, forgiveness, and life with God He commissions us to share with all the other sinners of the world.

At the end of today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus tells a parable.

A man, clearly representing God the Father, owned a vineyard. As was common in the first century in that part of the world, the vineyard owner planted a fig tree among the grape arbors. But, after three years, the fig tree hadn’t produced any fruit. The owner of the vineyard is angry with the unproductive tree. So, he tells the vinedresser to cut it down. But the vinedresser, representing God the Son, Jesus, begs the owner of the vineyard, “Sir, leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.” (Luke 13:8-9)

In the parable, Jesus, the One Who offered His life on the cross to save us all from sin and death, asks the Father for more time for “fertilizer,” His life-giving Gospel Word, to be poured onto the human race. Christ begs that the Father will give His Church time to spread His good news, sharing His call to repentant faith.

To the first-century churches of Asia Minor, anxious for Jesus to return and usher in His eternal kingdom in its fullness, the apostle Peter said, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

Repentance and saving faith in Jesus are gifts God gives through His crucified and risen Son. May God help us spend our days not in judging others, but living in this repentant faith and in sharing the good news of Jesus, by which He saves the perishing and gives the repentant eternal life with God. Amen