Sin is a loaded word. For those outside the faith, it’s a funny and dated religious term. For Christians, we repeat it so often that it loses its bite. Scripture reveals that sin is worse than we know. Jesus is so serious about it that he says, “If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out.” What is it about sin that’s so fatal it would require Jesus to go to the cross?
This Lent we do a soul examination, studying all the ways God describes the complex of sin. Lawlessness, adultery, rebellion . . . The cancerous nature of sin means that we need to go deeper than surface confession. The problem is worse than we know, which makes our Savior greater than we can imagine.
Invocation
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, who delivers us from all evil.
Invitation Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, stay with me. There is evil within me, and I am so often attentive to it. I am easily overcome by my own desire to get away from you and be free to have everything I want and to do everything I want. Lord, give me the real freedom of your life in me. By your victory over temptation, make me victorious. By the power of your love make me strong. Amen. (from The Lutheran Book of Prayer, CPH, 1970)
Word
Matthew 26:13
“‘Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.’”
Meditation: You Matter by Megan Roegner
I think that my favorite verse in the whole Bible is John 20:16. Mary Magdalene has just found the empty tomb on Easter morning and is weeping because she believes Jesus’ body has been moved. She pleads for the man she mistakes for the gardener to tell her where the body has been placed. Of course, the man is Jesus, and all he needs to say to open her eyes to the truth is “Mary.” Just one word, just her name. Every time I read this verse, I have to blink back tears, and I’m not sure why it moves me so much. I think one reason is that it’s such a human, relational moment. Mary is so deep into an emotional crisis that she can’t see what, or rather who, is right in front of her. But all it takes for her to snap out of it is the sound of Jesus’ voice saying her name. I imagine that voice to be warm, loving, and slightly amused. He knows her, and he loves her. He’s just conquered death, and in the midst of all of that glory and wonder, his relationship with this one, distraught woman matters to him.
I think another reason I am drawn to this moment is that the person who first sees the resurrected Lord is a woman. In a time when simply the presence of women among Jesus’ followers was radical, making this initial appearance to a woman, appointing her as the apostle to the apostles, feels like a declaration of women’s value and equality from the very beginning of the church.
A similar heart-clenching moment happens in Matthew 26, when an unnamed woman pours expensive ointment on Jesus’ head. The same event is included in Mark 14. John 12 identifies Mary of Bethany as pouring ointment on his feet and wiping them with her hair. Similarly, Luke 7 describes a “sinful woman” anointing Jesus’ feet with ointment, kissing and weeping over them, then wiping them with her hair. In every Gospel account, the woman’s actions (and Jesus’ reception of them) are criticized. But in every account, Jesus praises her. In Matthew 26, he says,
“Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. … Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.” (v. 10, 13)
I don’t have enough cultural knowledge to truly understand the nuance of the actions of the Gospels’ anointing women (or woman, if they all describe the same event), but I think it must have been shocking, both strange and intimate behavior. Yet, Jesus accepts the anointing as the act of worship, devotion, faith, and love that the woman intends it to be. And not only does he accept it, he promises that she will be remembered. She matters to him.
Our love matters. We are imperfect. The world might not think that our acts of faith are that important. Our devotion might come across as a little weird. But it matters. And Jesus sees us, knows us, and loves us back.
Jesus, you know me, and you love me. Let me carry the assurance of this love with me through my life. Let the wonder of this love move me to be a blessing to others. Let my life be one of worship. Amen.
Sending
In the face of evil, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen.