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We All Must Repent
Ash Wednesday is a day for repentance, for admitting our sins to God.
Luke 13:1-5
Today’s devotion comes to us from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 13. We read as follows in Jesus name.
At that time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. He answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered these things? I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all perish too. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse sinners than all the people living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all perish too.” (Luke 13:1-5 EHV)
Jesus was discussing some of the current events with the crowd. Current events of the day with the crowd when he was talking with them. And I got some bad news for you, back then, the news was not any better than it is nowadays. We hear of a couple horrible tragedies that occurred. First of all, there were the poor Galileans who Pilate had executed in the temple. And then there was also an event where a tower fell by Siloam and killed a whole bunch of people in Jerusalem. And Jesus then is discussing these events with the crowd, and some of the people in the crowd maybe have it in their mind that because those people suffered in the way they did, that they must have been worse sinners.
And Jesus can read their mind that they’re thinking that way. And so Jesus wants to correct that wrong way of thinking about things. Maybe sometimes we’re tempted to think that way, too. We might think that we deserve better than other people because we’re upstanding people. Sometimes we feel a little bit entitled to the things that we have in this life, and we maybe even think that we deserve to go to heaven. But Jesus reminds us that we must all, all of us, repent. Jesus says that unless you repent, you will all perish too. As sinners, we don’t deserve anything good from God. We, all of us, really are deserving of death and hell. That’s what the Bible tells us in Romans, Saint Paul tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and we are all deserving of God’s wrath.
And so we dare not put any confidence in ourselves and think that because we’re decent people, that we deserve good things from God and Jesus is correcting that wrong way of thinking here. Jesus, not too long after this, is going to go to the cross. And as he goes to the cross, he’s going to bear all of our sins, carry all of our sins upon himself, and he’s going to go to the cross, and he’ll suffer and die to atone and take away all of our sins and not just ours. But he’s going to pay for the sins of the whole world so that forgiveness might be available to all people.
And that’s the beautiful gospel message, the beautiful, unexpected surprise, if you will. None of us deserve anything good from God. And yet God forgives us in love through Jesus, His son and what Jesus has done for us.
And then today we think about how it’s Ash Wednesday in the Christian church. Ash Wednesday is a day for repentance, for admitting our sins to God. And so, yes, we repent. We admit our sinfulness before God, but then we receive Jesus wonderful forgiveness, the forgiveness that flows to us from the cross and from what he did for us. And even as we do repent in ashes and dust, we look forward to the day when we will shine forever with Jesus and his heavenly kingdom. Amen.
