The Upload
Posted on Mar 04, 2016 by
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week.
We Christians love to talk about God’ grace and we are so thankful for that grace, aren’t we? By definition, God’s grace is God’s love in action towards those who do not deserve God’s love. Literally, that means all of us. God’s grace is that undeserved love that God sheds on us. God’s grace is God moving heaven and earth to save all of us, because we cannot do it ourselves. To fulfill this absolute love for all, God sent his only Son, Jesus Christ, so that all of us might be reconciled to God. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul said it this way: “For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
What an incredible gift God gives us, all of us, in this unmerited love. Martin Luther struggled for years in his early life because he had been taught that God was a vengeful taskmaster who expected perfection from a creation that was allowed to sin. As hard as he tried, he could not be sinless in his life, and so he believed he was doomed to hell. Yet, while studying the scriptures and coming to know God’s true ways, Luther came to understand grace and to understand that God is a loving and merciful God. In Jesus, God grants us righteousness. That means, through Jesus, we are reconciled to God, even though we could not do such a thing on our own.
In our Gospel text for this coming Sunday (Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32), we read a story that we all know well, The Parable of the Prodigal Son. In this story, the youngest of two sons demands his inheritance and so his father gives it to him, and then the young son goes away and squanders it, and when he returns home, the young son’s father welcomes him with open arms even though he did not deserve such a welcome and such love. But that is not the end of the story. The older brother, who stayed and remained faithful to his dad, was furious when his father showed such love, and he demanded that his father be vengeful and unforgiving. To such demands, the father responds, “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” (15:31-32).
When it comes to grace, all too often, we are that older son who demands grace for himself but does not want his father to offer such grace to his younger brother. All too often, we want God to “punish” those we disagree with, all while we receive God’s undeserved love. God’s grace does not work that way, though. God’s grace is for everyone, and God does not show partiality (Romans 2:11).
Our challenge this week is to give thanks to God for God’s grace, grace that is given freely to all who will accept it. For as Paul also said in his letter to the Ephesians, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7).
Have a blessed week!
Shalom,
Pr. Dave