Introduction to Lent
Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, For I delight in it. Psalm 119:35
Knowing that Jesus has taken away our sins, healed us with His stripes, and made peace with God through His chastisement, the next question one may ask is, “Where do we go from here?” In the sacrifice of His life, Christ gave us the answer to that question: Heaven, eternal paradise with God. But until we are delivered there, we might ask, “How then shall we live?”
In our day-to-day lives, with Jesus’ passion on our minds, would it make sense for us to give in to sinful pleasures? Would it make sense for us to live in a way that is unholy when our unholy living is the very reason Jesus died in the first place? Of course not! It would be a ludicrous notion to say otherwise. Yet where is it that we often find ourselves? We have no excuse for returning to gossip, anger, taking the Lord’s name in vain, skipping church because we don’t feel like going, theft, pornography, disrespecting authority; and yet that’s where we return. With our sinful nature, time and time again we find ourselves giving into sinful pleasure and unholy living. What wretched people we are!
At the same time, let’s not make the mistake of viewing Jesus’ passion as a glorified guilt trip. The passion of our Savior Jesus is rather the very place we should turn in repentance. When we find ourselves falling into those sinful pleasures and unholy living, let’s return to our Savior’s passion and lay those sins at His cross. Jesus, the Son of God, suffered without measure so that all of those times we gave into sin could be forgiven. Let us then pray that through the sacrificial love of Jesus we may walk a worthy life towards God, knowing that all our failures have been forgiven in Him.
Grant that I Thy Passion view with repentant grieving
Nor Thee crucify anew by unholy living.
How could I refuse to shun every sinful pleasure
Since for me God’s only Son suffered without measure?
The Lutheran Hymnal 140:4