Pastor's Devotion for Final Week of Lent
mhu...@holytrinitymarietta.org
Thursday, April 6, 2017
When the eighteen-year-old Martin Luther took shelter under a tree in the late spring of 1502, he lived in a world of fear and superstition. Praying to St. Anne for safety and comfort, he vowed to become a monk if he survived the storm.
I doubt that anyone else recorded the coming of this storm, but you could argue that the storm itself was the most significant event in Western history during the second millennium. On July 17, 1502, Luther entered the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt, Germany and history was reshaped.
Because of this long-forgotten day in history, the world came to a different understanding of the meaning of forgiveness and grace. Martin Luther himself would undergo many times of trial and self-doubt. Eventually, he would come to an understanding of what we know as the “Office of the Keys”—the power to forgive sin. Luther’s great understanding was that the priest wasn’t really needed to stand between people’s need for forgiveness and their request for that forgiveness. Today, we celebrate the gift of forgiveness as we pray for it ourselves.
Dear Lord, forgive me all my sins.
Friday, April 7, 2017
None of us likes to consider ourselves failures and ome people go to great lengths to present themselves as total “successes” in life. Recently, I noticed a party in progress in a rich area of Atlanta. Every attendee car parked on the street bore a luxury car emblem. Looks do make a difference for many people.
As human beings, our problem is that no matter how much we try to present the correct image, gnawing issues persist to trouble our lives. Before the advent of modern techniques of psychotherapy, the only recourse people had to resolve psychological issues was confession. What people centered on the Bible have always known is that confession cleanses their souls and frees them to act as people living Christ-like lives.
On Sunday, we remember the anniversary of the execution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer’s legacy for us is in many ways a legacy of this freedom in confession. Even as he went to his execution at the hands of his Nazi captors, Bonhoeffer’s life was an example of the freedom of the Gospel. By understanding the difficulties of discipleship, Bonhoeffer embodied a freedom of conscience that too frequently rare in a world in which people seek to win the favor of others by failing to obey the demands of conscience and faith.
Confession frees us to act as people of conscience.
Dear Lord, help me to live in your power of faith each day.
Saturday, April 8, 2017
As Luther discusses confession, he asks the question, “What sins should we confess?”
I think Luther understood that this is a question that troubles most people who live in the Christian faith. How are we to know how something rises to a level that demands confession?
You may be aware that as a monk Luther struggled with this question nearly every day. He did everything he could to make himself worthy before God. Then, Luther came to understand the words of St. Paul that we are justified by faith (alone) apart from the works of the law. What Luther came to realize is that God is merciful rather than vindictive. God’s intention is to free us from the power of sin in order that we might live a new life.
In a sense, the act of confession itself is our daily message of the power of resurrection life at work in our lives. And, as we experience Holy Week, we come to a renewed understanding of this gift each year that we explore the meaning of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection.
What Luther tells us is that we should confess those sins that “trouble us in heart and mind.” I think what Luther means is that we should pay attention to the world around us, pray for forgiveness for our own actions and the actions we bear as people who surrounded each day by issues of justice, pollution, and hunger and all sins beyond our control.
Dear Lord, give me the power of your grace to confess and to pray for help for all I need each day.
Monday, April 10, 2017
As we enter the time of Holy Week, the power of sin should become painfully obvious to us. It isn’t difficult to identify with this power. Crowds go easily out of control. Individuals make decisions based on their own issues or needs rather than the good of all. However, the most compelling figure in relation to human sinfulness in the passion story is Pontius Pilate.
Pilate represents the power of the state. As far as he is concerned the problem brought to him is like a flea on the back of the Roman Empire. At first, he even wonders why Jesus is even worthy of his time and effort. Yet, Pilate eventually understands the importance of his task. Appearing to act appropriately, he tries to convince the Jewish rulers that Jesus does not deserve a sentence of death. Finally yielding to them, Pilate does hand Jesus over to be executed.
With all the power of Rome at his disposal, Pilate cannot follow the demands of his own conscience as he yields to the political realities swirling around him.
Pilate reminds me of how my life works too. As I consider the sins of my own life, I realize that I am at the same time powerful and powerless. I need the power of God to rectify issues and patterns of sin in my life. In short, I need the power of confession.
Dear Lord, help me to identify those things I need to confess.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Martin Luther understood that we would not be constantly focused on theological issues. Although he says that it would hardly ever happen to people aware of sins around them, we should not struggle to name individual sins. Instead, we should be satisfied with hearing the words of absolution for the general sins around us.
One of the traditional liturgical understandings of the Lenten season is that we confess our sins as the people of God, but that we do not hear the full absolution of our sins until Easter. The idea is that Lent should be a time when we come to an understanding of how much power sin has over our lives. Easter, the time of resurrection, reminds us that Christ frees us once and for all from the power of sin in our lives.
I think this is an important message for one reason: Holy Week and Easter serve as dramatic reminders that Christ lives in us and that God chooses to be in relationship with us throughout our lives. From the moment we are Baptized, we see images of this relationship. Most of the time, we ignore the relationship or we don’t understand it. However, God acts powerfully in our lives with the promise that God will “remember our sin no more.”
In a sense, that phrase provides a spiritual summary of God’s power of hope and redemption.
Dear Lord, help me to experience this Holy Week as a time of renewal and grace.
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
How may we be assured of forgiveness?
Although we may not state the question so bluntly, Luther’s question is really the question at the center of our lives.
Being assured of forgiveness means that we overcome our sense of shame and failure in all situations we encounter. Luther answers the question by noting the power of the pastor to offer an assurance of forgiveness and hope through the forgiveness of sin.
However, Luther knows that some people will still not hear a pronouncement of forgiveness as an assurance of God’s forgiveness. Luther then notes that the pastor should offer forgiveness and further assurances from God’s Word.
In other words, none of us can hear God’s assurance of forgiveness too much. God is constantly at work shaping and molding us as the ultimate potter of our lives. No matter how old we are, this action is happening as we live in Jesus Christ every day. At any point in life, people turn from sinful actions and move forward in Jesus Christ.
To me, the words of the hymn, Amazing Grace, summarize God’s power and assurance of forgiveness: “I once was lost but now am found; was blind but now I see.”
As we begin the worship experiences of Holy Week tomorrow, I pray that you will know the gift and power of God’s resurrection message in your live.
Dear Lord, lead me into your gift of resurrection every day of my life.
May you feel the power of God’s blessing every day!