June 12, 2025

Today's Reading: Genesis 11:1-9

Daily Lectionary: Numbers 24:1-25; Luke 23:1-25

“Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.” (Genesis 11:9)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. 

Everybody wants a perfect little life. We all have a picture of it. This is how it needs to be so I can be content, happy, whole, and safe. Everybody wants the Tower of Babel. Those people were on to something. Look, there is nothing they couldn’t do. Until God showed up and kicked over their sandcastle. We’ve been trying to rebuild the thing ever since. Every campaign promise and every daydream – unity – progress – greatness – utopia. We still want Babel. Because we think, “Here is peace. Here is where good happens, where God would be.” 

Then, your own little Tower of Babel crumbles behind your unfulfilled dreams, your candidates are not living up to promises, and your home life turns upside down. So we sit down here in the mess, depressed, hopeless, because all our plans of building a tower to heaven fell apart. Here’s the thing. Heaven isn’t just “up”. Which is good. If heaven is just “up,” then we’re always going to be just short of it. If you have to build up, there’s no hope at the bottom. You see it in how amazing your lives are here compared to how many others, and yet how miserable you are. Here’s why God muddied up our language. Here’s why He won’t just give you your daydreams of a perfect life. It’s not enough. There’s always more to climb, and heaven isn’t just up. 

He loves you too much to want you to spend your whole life with hope just out of reach. He didn’t want you to think that a perfect life is the only place good things can happen. He isn’t the kind of God who waits for us to figure out how to come up to Him. He comes down to us. Even us sinners. Us selfish, willing to climb over our neighbor in pursuit of our tower. Us idolaters, who find more hope in a new home than a living God. Us coveters, who ignore our lives as they play out in front of us, who keep lists of things we want to buy. For everyone who builds and ends up shy of heaven. For everyone who finds out the hard way sin never actually builds up but only tears down. For me, for you, Christ descended. To die. To rise. To save. It means there’s hope at the bottom. It means God won’t stay away from the mess. Even on your worst day, Jesus can’t be uncrucified. His promise is still true. It is finished. 

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

O Savior, rend the heavens wide; Come down, come down with mighty stride; Unlock the gates, the doors break down; Unbar the way to heaven's crown. (LSB 355:1)

- Rev. Harrison Goodman, Higher Things Executive Director of Mission and Theology.

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.

In Clarifying the Great Commission, Rev. Daniel Christian Voth identifies common omissions from our collective understanding of Jesus’ farewell discourse—omissions that turn Christ’s promises of forgiveness, life, and salvation into a legalistic command. Come and discover a richer understanding of The Great Commission.