Daily Lectionary: Leviticus 26:1-20; Luke 13:18-35

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. Alleluia! Christ is risen!  There’s a certain strange comfort in believing that the world works like this: God is in control of everything. He gives prosperity and power to the good people. The bad people he sends calamity and weakness so bad they’ll wish they were good. In this nicely ordered world, how good you’re being can be told by your prosperity and lack of calamity.

 

This was the world of Job’s three friends. This is the world of televangelist Jerry Falwell, who, when the World Trade Center was attacked, blamed it on the immoral people of our country. It’s the world of Pat Robertson, when Haiti suffered a great earthquake, said it was a judgment for their practice of voodoo.

 

But this is not how God works. “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand?” (Psalm 130:3) It seems that is how he works, from these words of Leviticus, but look at the bigger picture. If calamity is the direct response to unbelief and wicked behavior, what about the godless who are enjoying plenty of earthly prosperity? Where is their disaster for spurning the Word of the Lord? So much for the neat, tidy world we can understand.

 

The wrong situation of this world can drive us to say with the psalmist, “Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.” (Psalm 73:12-13) So what is the answer for us?

 

The promises made to Israel are only realized through Christ. They are neither literal promises that our daily lives will be free from trouble, nor that diseases are direct punishments for unfaithfulness. It’s clear that Israel as God’s nation fell far short of the faithfulness which God promised to bless. Even when they were rebuked by curses, at best only a remnant repented.

 

What it takes is God’s Son, the Christ, to stand in the place of His people. He was the truly obedient one, who “[walked] in my statutes and observed my commandments and [did] them.” And yet, what Christ got in His passion was the curses our disobedience deserves. This is the only way for sinners to receive God’s favor.

 

That is also how He has broken the bars of your yoke to make you walk upright. It’s not our good behavior that needs to turn God’s heart toward us. While we were still sinners, Christ did this for us. We walk upright before God through faith in His Son.  In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

 

 - Pastor Michael A. Miller is Pastor at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Lebanon, OR.