June 22, 2026

Today's Reading: Micah 7:18-20

Daily Lectionary: Proverbs 25:1-22; Prov: 26:1-28; John 19:23-42

“He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” (Micah 7:19)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Satan’s head is crushed by the bruised heel of Christ. That is where your iniquities lie - crushed into dust under the feet of a victorious God. Rotting in the belly of a great fish in the depths of the sea - that is where your sins are. The compassion of our God would put His Son in our place. We should be dead in the grave, punished for our sins. We should be dead in the belly of a fish. But we are not. Instead, Christ takes our iniquities and sins and rids us of them, taking them upon Himself. In His death, he destroys death, and in His rising from the dead, he brings you with Him. The wages of sin is death, but you have been brought into new life. Death cannot hold Christ, and it cannot hold you. God will again have compassion on us. He takes on what we cannot carry. He defeated sin, death, and the devil. He, the God of life and light, shines forth into the darkness of sin and death and cannot be overcome. Those things that seek to crush and drown us have come undone. In Holy Baptism, water, which would kill us, unites with God’s Word to make us alive. Old Adam is drowned and dies, and the New Man is dragged out of the water, leaving the wages of sin to sink to the depths of the sea.

God looks upon sinners with compassion and love. We deserve to be crushed under His feet and thrown into the sea because we are sinful by nature. But instead, our sin and iniquity, which we have never lived without (in sin did my mother conceive me), is now dust and sand, cast into the sea. God looks upon us in love. He looks upon us and sees His Son. He does not consider your sin or iniquity. He forgives you and renews you. He is steadfast and immovable. He has made you His own, and He will not forget you. 

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

In a wat’ry grave are buried all our sins that Jesus carried: Christ, the Ark of Life, has ferried us across death's raging flood. (LSB 597:3)

Deac. Emma Heinz, registrar for Higher Things.