Sunday, March 30, 2025, Fourth Sunday in Lent
“Reconciled”
Isaiah 12:1-6; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:11-32
Hymn Service
Hymns: #814 “O Bless the Lord, My Soul”; #570 “Just As I Am”; #560 “Drawn to the Cross, Which Thou Hast Blessed”; #791 “All People That on Earth Do Dwell”; #550 “Lamb of God”; #574 “Before the Throne of God Above”; #422 “On My Heart Imprint Your Image”; #744 “Amazing Grace”
Dear Friends in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.
The story of the Prodigal Son is a reconciliation story. To be “reconciled” means “to be brought together again.” Reconciliation is the restoration of a broken relationship.
We all know about broken relationships, don’t we? Something happens in a family; there’s a disagreement or an argument between a brother and a sister, or a parent and a child, or between two friends. Something comes between us. Somebody does something to hurt somebody else. Someone walks out and slams the door behind them. And then nothing is ever done about it, because neither side is willing to budge, and the years go past. It’s the saddest thing. For reconciliation to happen, someone has to go first. Someone has to be willing to swallow their pride and reach out to be the first to apologize. And someone else has to be willing to forgive.
Jesus’ parable about the Lost Son is a metaphor. His story is about a broken relationship between a father and a son, and also between two brothers. But what it’s really all about is you and I being reconciled to God our Father and coming back home to Him. And once we get it right between us and God, then we can begin to repair our relationships with one another.
In our reading from 2 Corinthians 5, St. Paul is telling us and showing us how reconciliation can be made to happen and what we need to do to get it done. You can apply this good advice from Paul to your walk with God, or to any relationship here on earth that you need to apply it to. Either way, it’s a beautiful thing, and you’ll be glad you did.
St. Paul begins by saying, “From now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.”
If we look at our precious relationships only from a wordly point of view, or “according to the flesh,” that gives us all the reasons and excuses we need not to go and be reconciled. You don’t know what they did to me… You don’t know how much they hurt me… You don’t know what they put me through… I’ll apologize when they do… Then hurt leads to anger, anger leads to resentment, and resentment makes reconciliation all but impossible.
But if Christ is more than flesh - that is, if He truly is the Son of God who gave Himself for our sakes, so we could be reconciled to God - how can we continue to look at someone else with resentment and anger, once we’ve understood that they’re also a child of God that Jesus also died for? If Jesus died to forgive us, how can we not forgive someone else? And forgiveness, of course, is the only thing that can mend a broken relationship and make it brand new again.
“Therefore,” says Paul, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” What he’s saying is that the old things – the old resentments, the old hurts, that old pile of hurtful, stinking, useless garbage – has passed away, come to an end, and been disregarded. That’s what it truly means to forgive. “Forgiving is easy, but forgetting is hard,” the old saying goes. But if you can’t forget, is it really forgiveness at all? “I will forgive your wickedness and remember your sins no more,” God says. We’re all going to need a lot of help from God on this one - because without forgiveness, reconciliation is impossible, and whatever “the thing is between us” will stay right where it is.
And it’s Christ, says Paul, that makes the “new thing” – the new relationship – possible. “All of this,” says Paul - all this blessing, all this grace, all these second chances to take what’s wrong and make it right again - “All of this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” “The ministry of reconciliation” – what a concept that is! It is, in fact, our mission in life as Christian people and the reason God has brought us together as a Church. God has reconciled us to Himself, by sending His only Son to the cross to pay for our sin. The ‘thing’ that was between us and God - the sin, the disobedience, the rebellion against God, everything we’ve ever done to offend God, everything we’ve ever done to hurt one another – is all washed away as we bend our knees, confess our sins, and hear God’s good news about forgiveness. And then we can say along with prophet Isaiah: "I will praise You, O Lord. Although You were angry with me, Your anger has turned away and You have comforted me.” Paul says in another place here in 2nd Corinthians that God “comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”
Our mission, our place, our duty, our calling - our blessing, our privilege, and our joy - is to help people come and be reconciled to God through knowing Christ - with the further happy result that people can put away their anger and be reconciled to one another. The ministry of reconciliation is why God put us here, why we exist, and our life’s work as Christian people. God’s Word says we get to be ambassadors, mediators, the world’s go-betweens, both between people and God, and between people and other people. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” Jesus said.
“God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ,” says Paul, “not counting men's sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” Reconciling the whole world to Himself, Paul says. We call that the “universal atonement.” Jesus paid for all the world’s sins on the cross – yours, mine, and everyone’s, every last one. The God of mercy and love has chosen not to reckon or charge our sins against us, by putting them on the back of His only Son. Jesus instead. That is the message – the Good News – that has been committed to us as God’s Church and people and given to us to share with the world around us. The Good News is that you can be reconciled to God – made right with Him, restored to a blessed relationship with Him – because Jesus out of love for you has paid the price for all your sin. “For God so loved the world…”
So, says Paul, “We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.” An ambassador is the King’s representative, His messenger, His herald – the one who goes from place to place announcing – “Hear ye! Hear ye! I have news from the King.” We get to be the voice of Good News, in a world where good news is so hard to find. So we implore, we beg, we plead with people; we say it “even with tears,” as Paul says: “Come and be reconciled to God.”
Here Paul makes the astounding statement: “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus not only took on my sin, He became my sin. He crawled into this sinful skin of mine, and made Himself responsible for every awful thing I’ve ever done. He, the holy, perfect, sinless Lamb of God, gave Himself on a cross that by all rights should have been mine. He was willing to take on this sinful flesh and be ME, so I could be His, and become like Him. He was, for those hours He spent on the cross, forsaken, abandoned, and forgotten by His heavenly Father, to give me a chance to be remembered and forgiven, reconciled and restored, and welcomed home again. So I could be raised up to live again, just like He was on Easter morning.
The Prodigal Son is a poignant, heart-touching reconciliation story. Didn’t the boy deserve whatever he had coming? Look what he did! Rotten kid! Ungrateful brat! He deserved to be sitting in that pigpen he found himself in, didn’t he? But… he’s us! The prodigal son is ME! The one the Father opens his arms for, and covers with kisses, and dresses in a royal robe, and kills the fatted calf for. There’s a celebration in heaven when any one of us comes home: “This child of Mine was lost, but now he’s found!” Amazing grace, how sweet the sound! Thanks be to God!
And so we will praise You, O Lord. Although You were angry with us, Your anger has turned away and You have comforted us. Surely You are our salvation, and the salvation of all the world, and we will trust in You and not be afraid. Lord, You are forever our strength and our song; You have become our salvation. O Lord, we’ve come here with joy to draw water from the wells of Your salvation. We give thanks to You, O Lord, and we call upon Your name. Help us to make known among the nations – among our families, friends, and neighbors - what You has done, and proclaim to everyone that Your name is exalted. We sing to Your Name, O Lord, for You have done great things for us. Lord Jesus, help us to make Your Name known to all the world.
“Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is Holy One of Israel among you." In Jesus’ name; Amen.