March 12, 2024 

Today's Reading: Ephesians 2:1-10

Daily Lectionary: Genesis 43:1-28, Mark 12:13-27

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-6)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. But God...those are powerful six letters. Paul here tells us exactly what our condition is, in no uncertain terms. We are dead, and we’re dead because of our trespasses. What are our trespasses? Those are all the big and small ways we’ve broken God’s law: failing to love Him, failing to love our neighbors, putting ourselves first, serving the desires of our sinful hearts, and maybe even justifying all this sin under some delusion of self-righteousness. These trespasses don’t just leave us crippled, injured, or weak, instead they kill us. We’re entirely captive to them, just as a dead person is entirely captive to death and can do nothing to free herself. Think of it like Lazarus, stinking and rotting in his tomb, certainly unable to walk out under his own steam, but was freed from death by the call of Jesus. 

We are similarly bound up in our grave clothes of sin, and our God, who is rich in mercy and love, calls to us by name, very often for the first time at the font, telling us to come out of our graves. Despite our stinking corpses of sin, He loves us and calls us His own, and makes us alive in Him. His intervention into our deaths is not some spiritual potpourri to cover the smell and make us look a little more presentable, instead when God makes us alive, He is breathing new life into us just as He breathed life into creation by His Word. His Word of grace brings true life to all the dead places destroyed by sin. All of this He does for you by grace. He doesn’t bring you life and treasures eternal because you did something to earn it or warrant it, after all God owes none of us anything, but because He is a God of love and mercy, He seeks to bring peace where there is affliction, grace where there is only condemnation, life where there is death. Your God has called you His own, made you His own, and will raise you up with Him, not because of who you are, but because of who He is. Thanks be to God. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Salvation unto us has come  By God’s free grace and favor;  Good works cannot avert our doom, They help and save us never.  Faith looks to Jesus Christ alone,  Who did for all the world atone;  He is our one Redeemer. (LSB 555:1)

-Deac. Eleanor Corrow, Higher Things Board Member and coordinator in LCMS Missionary Services. 

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

Unforgivable? Unforgiveness is a prison—mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. In a world full of turmoil, many use forgiveness as a coping mechanism without understanding what true forgiveness is. Learn what forgiveness from Christ looks like, and how He forgives His people.