Author: Shari Gannon

Who comprehends the Lord’s pardon?  Struck by its incomprehensibility, we are left with Nicodemus’ question, “How can these things be?” (Jn. 3:9).  “Seek me,” says the Lord… “Call on me,” says the Lord… “Forsake your ways… return to me,” says the Lord… the unflaggingly faithful Lord calls his people to him, not to receive judgment and punishment, but to receive compassion and pardon.   Indeed, who can understand it?

The Lord himself reassures us in our inability to comprehend his faithfulness.  He announces, “My ways are not your ways…” “My thoughts are not your thoughts…” (vs. 9).  Nothing in this sin-broken creation prepares us for the Lord’s mercy.  No relationship on earth exudes love and faithfulness like our Lord’s claim upon his people.  That divine mercy and compassion are too good to be true.

Our skepticism convinces us that the Lord’s faithfulness simply exceeds our capacity to trust it.  “Surely,” we think, “there must be a catch… The Lord cannot simply up and forgive sins, can he?”  So, in our skepticism, we fall into one or the other of the two traps that Satan sets around the Lord’s faithfulness.   The first trap convinces us that our skepticism is true.  God does not simply up and forgive sins.  No, he does not.  We must add some work of our own:  sorrow, repentance, amendment of life… whatever the trap contains.  The second trap convinces us that it is certainly true:  God does indeed up and forgive sins.  In fact, since that forgiveness stands over our entire lives, there is no need even to admit to our sinfulness.  We say to ourselves, “I like to sin; God likes to forgive; it’s a match made in heaven.”

Not so fast, God does indeed simply up and forgive.  His pardon is so exceedingly abundant, it’s incomprehensible.  This pardon… this compassion… this love from God is (as Paul preaches) only available in Jesus Christ.  Not in that “something” you must add… not in your assumption of pardon… only… only in Jesus Christ!

Table Talk:  Discuss the two traps and how you have succumbed to them.
Pray:  Heavenly Father, keep your Word Jesus Christ plentifully available to me that in him I would not only be pardoned but be kept from the traps Satan has laid for me.  Amen

Isaiah 55:6-9

6 Seek the Lord while he may be found;

call upon him while he is near;

7 let the wicked forsake his way,

and the unrighteous man his thoughts;

let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,

and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

The thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel begins with the Lord commanding the prophet to “prophesy against the shepherds of Israel (vs. 34:1).  The Lord gives Ezekiel the indictment against the shepherds (and by shepherds, the Lord means the leaders of the people both religious and governmental).  They have fed themselves and not the sheep (34:2).  They eat the fat sheep and clothe themselves in wool but do not feed the sheep that provide these things.  The shepherds… the leaders… do not strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the injured, bring back the strays, or seek out the lost.  The Lord’s sheep, scattered hither and yon, have become food for the wild beasts.

In the text before us, the Lord is giving those so-called shepherds the boot.  The Lord is taking over their position.  He will be leader… he will be his sheep’s shepherd… he will rescue his flock (vs. 11 & 22).  Yet, the Lord is not content to indict merely lax and incompetent shepherds.  The Lord also indicts by “judging between sheep and sheep” (vs. 34:17).  These bullies of the flock have used their strength to seize and consume the good pasture and to claim and drink the clear water.  Even worse, they have despoiled both pasture and stream for the rest of the flock (vs. 34:18-19).  The Lord rectifies all this insult and injustice, taking the shepherd’s position for himself and then bestowing it upon his servant David (vs. 23).

Consider again the parable of the Lost Sheep told by Jesus in the fifteenth chapter of Luke.  Consider it in light of what you have learned from this chapter in Ezekiel.  Consider that the “lost sheep” had not wandered off because of its own moral failings or other sinful behavior.  Consider instead that the “lost sheep” was there in the wilderness because the assigned shepherd had failed or because the strong sheep had bullied this weak one into lostness.  Consider that, though the parable might be such an indictment as the Lord prophesied through Ezekiel, the Lord still rescues his flock through the Son of David, who is  Jesus Christ, the very Word of God himself.

Table Talk:  Discuss how the shepherd/sheep imagery clarifies you.
Pray:  Heavenly Father, keep me in the care of my good shepherd, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

11 For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. 12 As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13 And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. 14 I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. 16 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice…

…20 Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: Behold, I, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. 21 Because you push with side and shoulder, and thrust at all the weak with your horns, till you have scattered them abroad, 22 I will rescue my flock; they shall no longer be a prey. And I will judge between sheep and sheep. 23 And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. 24 And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the Lord; I have spoken.

Do… do the commandments!  Why?  For very temporal and earthly benefits: life and children, and possession of the promised land (vs. 1).  The Lord tested his people, the Israelites… he tested them in the keeping of his commandments.  That keeping was their discipleship.  A connection exists between the two words “discipline” and “discipleship.”  Each word has the same root… the meaning of instruction or training.  Discipleship means learning from an exterior source, a source like a teacher or a leader, or by specific philosophical constraints.  Discipline, on the other hand, comes from an inner motivation to obey rules or a code of conduct.  Such obedience can be called self-control or correction.  Disciples need discipline and discipline produces disciples.

In his disciplining of his people, the Lord humbled them, led them to hunger, and then fed them on manna—which heretofore had been entirely unknown to them (vs. 3).  His people came to know the truth:  that they lived solely and entirely by the Word of the Lord (vs. 3).  The whole of the forty years wandering in the wilderness was to prepare them to live in the land where the Lord their God was leading them.  This land was not wilderness and desert; it was a good land, fertile and lush.  This land was not scarce and desolate; it was abundant and fruitful.  The discipline acquired during the sojourn in scarcity would be practiced by the people as they lived in abundance.  Even in that abundance, the people would continue to live solely and entirely by the Word of the Lord.

So, now, to you…  You have known times of scarcity and times of abundance.  You have known both wilderness wanderings and sojourns in secure, abundant places.  The Word of the Lord, Jesus Christ, has been your companion in all those times and places.  He constantly and continually holds you in the discipline and discipleship of living solely and entirely by “every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (vs. 3).

Table Talk:  Discuss the ways you have lived by the Word of the Lord in times of both scarcity and abundance.
Pray:  Heavenly Father, lead me into thanksgiving for times of scarcity as well as times of abundance.  Amen.

Deuteronomy 8:1-10

The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10 And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

“What’s it worth to you?”  Maybe I just didn’t have the right kind of friends, but I heard that demand from them quite often during my adolescence.  I’d make a polite request to see or share whatever new toy or activity they were enjoying, and their rejoinder would demand an exchange of value for value.

This world broken by sin has three ways in which we give and receive goods and services from one another; there’s 1) giving and sharing; 2) trading and purchasing; 3) coercing and taking.  The first delivers value with no thought of return.  The second exchanges value for value.  The third takes away value with no thought of compensation.  You do them all; it is the way the world works.

We would be mistaken, though, to reason that God must work this way.  The prophet Zephaniah makes it extremely clear that God is not much interested in trading or purchasing—not much interested in exchanging value for value.  The Lord rejects silver and gold, property and wealth.  God’s wrath is no respecter of persons:  from the lowest to the highest “the whole earth shall be consumed.”

No, our Lord’s interest is not exchange but redemption.  As we learn in the catechism: “he has redeemed me a lost and condemned person not with silver or gold but with his own precious blood and his innocent suffering and death.”  Such redemption lies outside of reason; it belongs to faith alone.

Discuss:  Consider various times you’ve demanded payment; do you have any guilt?

Pray:  Lord, hold me faithfully in Jesus and his redemption of me.  Amen

Zephaniah 1:7-18 (14-18 published here) English Standard Version

14 The great day of the Lord is near,

near and hastening fast;

the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter;

the mighty man cries aloud there.

15 A day of wrath is that day,

a day of distress and anguish,

a day of ruin and devastation,

a day of darkness and gloom,

a day of clouds and thick darkness,

16 a day of trumpet blast and battle cry

against the fortified cities

and against the lofty battlements.

17 I will bring distress on mankind,

so that they shall walk like the blind,

because they have sinned against the Lord;

their blood shall be poured out like dust,

and their flesh like dung.

18 Neither their silver nor their gold

shall be able to deliver them

on the day of the wrath of the Lord.

In the fire of his jealousy,

all the earth shall be consumed;

for a full and sudden end

he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.

Out of our common humanity’s fascination with religion, our sin demands that we impress God with our prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.  On and on we go, feasting and banquets, assemblies solemn and reverent, sacrifices and offerings for reconciliation and peace, songs and music delight us and so, we think, they delight God.  In reality, these practices simply delight us, and we truly do enjoy offering to God those things that please us.  All the while, we have gotten the direction wrong.  The direction of worship is not from us upward to where God resides.  No, the direction of worship is from God downward to us.

Listen to what the Lord has to say about his people’s misdirection of their worship.  What of their solemn and reverent assemblies?  God takes no delight in them (vs. 21).  What of the sacrifices they’re so proud and pleased to make?  God will neither accept them nor look upon them (vs. 22).  What about those sweet melodies and songs they so love to perform for the Lord while they enjoy them so much?  God will not listen and commands them to be taken away (vs. 23).

God abhors such religious practices because those practices are all about satisfying us and our own righteousness.  Such worship of God merely supplies the excuse for the practice of our religiosity.  Our Lord desires an entirely opposite direction for worship that delights him.  Rather than this common humanity acting out its sinfulness in an upward display of religiosity, our Lord wants to pour out upon us his justice and his righteousness.  When our Lord speaks, it is as if the floodgates have opened, and all God’s treasures roll down from heaven like an ever-flowing stream of mercy and grace (Cf. vs. 24).

Now, when your preacher opens her or his mouth and proclaims God’s Word in your midst—that is, preaches Jesus Christ, him crucified, and him alone, handed over to be the life of sinners dead in their sin… then your religiosity is silenced… shut up… so that Jesus Christ—the Word of God—can be heard saying, “You are mine.  I have claimed you.  I will give you rest.  Rest, now.  Your sins are forgiven in my name.”  To hear and believe those words is true worship indeed.

Table Talk:  Discuss how so much of our so-called worship is for our own enjoyment.
Pray:  Heavenly Father, hold me in the humility and hope that my God comes down to me.  Amen.

Amos 5:18-24

18 Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!

Why would you have the day of the Lord?

It is darkness, and not light,

19 as if a man fled from a lion,

and a bear met him,

or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall,

and a serpent bit him.

20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light,

and gloom with no brightness in it?

21 I hate, I despise your feasts,

and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,

I will not accept them;

and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,

I will not look upon them.

23 Take away from me the noise of your songs;

to the melody of your harps I will not listen.

24 But let justice roll down like waters,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.