Luke 13:1-9

Third Sunday in Lent

March 23, 2025

 

“Father of mercies and God of all consolation; come to the aid of your people, turning us from our sin to live for you alone.”

These are the words we spoke to begin our worship this morning… asking the God of mercies that we stand before to help us.  To turn us around… from our sin and back to our Creator God.  That is called repentance.

Two minutes later, we bring it up again – not for God’s benefit, but for ours – confessing that we have turned from God and given ourselves into the power of sin.  After recognizing this truth… we say that we are “truly sorry and humbly repent”… asking the compassionate and Holy Father to forgive us, and to “turn us again toward Him so that we may live and serve Him in newness of life through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.”

We do this each Sunday that we’re together because it is what Jesus wants us to do… because it is what He demands we do.

We say these words of repentance to receive His forgiveness for the wrongs we have done and the wrong that we are.  You and I need to be “turned around” as individuals and as a family of believers so that we might live as God wants us to!

But first, we must acknowledge that we have turned away from God, accept His forgiveness, and then, turn toward Him… and receive the everlasting life He intends for us to have.  In a nutshell, that is what it means to repent.  But we don’t always grasp a complete understanding of what that is telling us. 

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language will tell you that to ‘repent’ is to “feel remorse or self-reproach for what one has done or failed to do; to be contrite.” 

While that definition is correct, it is only half of the repentance God asks of us…  though it seems to be the half we are best at… Especially during Lent.  When we are able to identify the things in our life that are “sinful”.  We deny ourselves some of the things that we enjoy.  We give more attention to the sacrifices we make.

That’s all well and good.  It is right that we recognize our weaknesses, confess them to God, and desire to receive the forgiveness that He so freely gives.  But, like our dictionary definition – and perhaps in our own way of thinking – that is only half of the definition of what it means to truly repent.

We need to get the full meaning of the word if we are to follow the words of Jesus in today’s gospel lesson.

Luke records a group of people coming up to Jesus to ask him a question… one they themselves can’t answer about some recent tragedies that have occurred in their community.

• “What did these folks do wrong?”
• “What sins did they commit?”
• “Were they more guilty than all the others?”

Do those questions sound familiar?  They are ones we ask when we hear of ‘bad things’… tragedies that happen to ‘good’, ‘undeserving’, innocent people.  But Jesus directs their attention away from the current events and those unanswerable questions to what really matters.  The real issue.

Jesus declares that their sin or guilt is not the issue – It’s ours!  Saying, “But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”  You might say that Jesus has a way of “putting the cookies on the bottom self”!  The sobering reality is that there will come a time when all of us will die and come under God’s judgement.

Isn’t it interesting how caught up we can get in other people’s state of affairs?  How easy it is to speculate someone else’s sin and guilt…  Yet, ignore our own! 

That is what was happening in today’s Gospel.  And that as why, as a Family of Faith we need to remind ourselves of our own guilt, to admit the wrongdoings that is our fault alone. 

Which is why you and I are called to repent.  Yet, turning away from something, feeling sorrow and guilt about what we have said or done is only part of repentance.

The other side of turning away from our sin is turning toward God – accepting His gifts of forgiveness, His love and His grace.  We turn toward God to receive all that He has for us and to live our lives as He would have us to live them.

Fortunately, Jesus (scriptures) gives us direction; instructing us on how to turn ourselves to God, the way to live the life He made us to live.  Looking back to Luke 12, Jesus tells us…

 

• Do not be anxious about your life – what to eat and what to wear. (v. 22)
• Your father knows that you need these things. (v. 30b)
• Seek first His kingdom and these things shall be added to you. (v. 31)
• Do not be afraid, your Father has chosen gladly to give you the Kingdom. (v.32)
• Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also. (v.34)

“Repentance” becomes our focus during this season of year we Lutherans call “Lent”.  Our failings and our unworthiness are magnified in the light of the intentional sacrifice Jesus made on the cross.

Yet, we also need to keep our minds on God, who loves us so much that “He sent His One and Only Son into the world, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.  For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. “ (John 3:16-17 NLT)

Jesus only gives us two choices: Turn away from sin and toward our loving Father… or perish.