Sexagesima Sunday, February 4, 2024

Sexagesima Sunday, February 4, 2024

We have often sung a hymn, “Lord, Let My Heart be Good Soil” (WOV 713). The hymn presents the positive things good soil possesses, things like openness to the seed of the Word… like a place for love to grow… like a place where peace is understood. But the hymn doesn’t stop there. It names the qualities of the heart that need to be changed, qualities like hardness, coldness, and lostness. Just so, the hymn prays for the Lord to break a stoney heart, warm a cold heart, and lead a lost heart. All of these are wonderful! Except… except you and I don’t know our hearts. Knowledge of the human is reserved to God (cf. 1 Ki. 8:9; Act. 15:8; Lk. 16:15 among many) for only he can plumb its depths and divine its inclinations. Whatever examination you and I might do upon our own hearts only leads us into pride or despair—pride over the supposedly good quality of its soil or despair over the observed poor quality of its soil. Since we—you and I—cannot know what the inclinations of our heart might be, we have to be told. Just so, you must have a preacher… you must have one who will address both the prideful and the despairing with God’s Word of Law and Gospel. Thereby inflicting upon them God’s merciful coup de gras—his stroke of grace—which mercifully puts miserable sinners to death and then graciously raises them up as saints to walk in newness of life which is nothing less than to have Jesus Christ as the life of their mortal flesh.

Prayers from those who must first die in their sin so that they can be raised to newness of life…

Heavenly Father, so use your grace upon me that I would die to sin and be raised to walk in newness of life. O Lord, hear us.

Heavenly Father, so use your grace upon me that I would deplore the sin I find in my heart and trust you in making my heart good soil. O Lord, hear us.

Heavenly Father, so use your grace upon me that during these days of my baptism Christ is the life of my mortal flesh. O Lord, hear us.

Heavenly Father, so use your grace upon me that as Christ is my life in faith, I would have my neighbors back in love. O Lord, hear us.

Heavenly Father, so use your grace upon me that as I have my neighbors in love, they would love me as well and both my neighbors and I would live in the life of Christ. O Lord, hear us.

Heavenly Father, so use your grace upon me that I would have eyes to see the Institute of Lutheran Theology and hear its proclamation of Jesus Christ, him crucified, and him alone. O Lord, hear us.

Heavenly Father, so use your grace upon me that I would wait for your son to come in glory so that my glory would then be revealed. O Lord, hear us.