Scripture Focus: John 12.12-13
12 The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. 13 They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,
“Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the king of Israel!”

Reflection: What Wondrous Love Is This? — Lenten Hymns
By Jon Polk

While the anonymous author of the hymn text “What Wondrous Love is This” may be lost to history, its lyrical beauty and simplicity are timeless.

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this
That caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul!

The hymn originates from the Appalachian region of the United States in the early 1800s. While hymnals were not commonplace at the time, the lyrics were first published in two different camp meeting songbooks in 1811, one in Lynchburg, Virginia, and the other in Lexington, Kentucky.

Because hymn books were rare, authors would often write lyrics that were simple and repetitive to aid congregations in learning the songs. This was not indicative of a poor writer, rather the repetition served to increase retention of the words and message.

The tune of the hymn was similar to a 1701 English song, “The Ballad of Captain Kidd,” which recounted the exploits of a sailor who had been executed for piracy. Many other popular songs had also been set to the same melody. In this way, the tune was memorable and easy to learn, much like singing “Amazing Grace” to the tune of The Eagles’ “Peaceful Easy Feeling” or the old Gilligan’s Island TV show theme.

Furthermore, the song was discovered by composer William Walker during his travels in Appalachia and published in 1835 in his collection of shape note hymns, The Southern Harmony. Shape note singing was a popular form of musical notation using shapes to denote different pitches. Since most people in that day could not read music, shape notes made it possible for everyone to sing.

The season of Lent provides an opportunity for us as Christians to consider what messages we repeat over and over with our voices, actions, and attitudes. Do we present the simple message, “When I was sinking down, Christ laid aside His crown,” clearly and accessibly to those who have ears to hear?

Does the world hear a Church that repeats a message of its own selfish needs and demands, or do they hear us proclaim, “To God and to the Lamb, I will sing”?

Ultimately, what is the deep song in our hearts that we will repeat, not only in this life but through all eternity?

And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on.
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on.
And when from death I’m free
I’ll sing His love for me,
And through eternity I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on,
And through eternity I’ll sing on.

Listen: What Wondrous Love is This? by Fernando Ortega
Lyrics: What Wondrous Love is This?, anonymous  — Lyrics from Hymnary.org

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Bless the Lord, you angels of his, you mighty ones who do his bidding, and hearken to the voice of his word.
Bless the Lord, all you, his hosts, you ministers of his who do his will.
Bless the Lord, all you works of his, in all places of his dominion… — Psalm 103.20-22

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Exodus 33 (Listen – 3:49) 
John 12 (Listen – 6:26)

Read more about Bearing Reproach
By these things, we are the Lord’s messengers, preparing the way, carrying the gospel to all around us.

Read more about Justice to Wormwood
It will not do for us to sing about justice without bringing it to pass.

Scripture Focus: John 9.34
“You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!”

Reflection: Steeped In Sin
By John Tillman

The Pharisees are partially correct in the above passage; the formerly blind man was steeped in sin at birth. Where the Pharisees were in error was denying that they were also steeped in sin.

There are two ways of thinking about sin. One sees sins as individual actions. In this calculation, we total sins up, like fines in a legal system. We interpret sins as individual, unconnected actions.

This mode of sin evaluation is favored by the Pharisees and many modern Christians. Thinking about sin in this manner makes it measurable and able to be compared. No matter how bad we are, we can always find someone who makes us look good by comparison.

This thinking also leads us, like the Pharisees, to see those in difficulty or hardship as suffering from their own sin and wrongdoing. This allows us to further exclude and punish the suffering while absolving ourselves from any responsibility to help them. Today, many view the poor through this lens, seeing generational poverty as the fault of the poor, and the community’s responsibility as minimal or non-existent. This view of the poor can’t be found anywhere in scripture—except perhaps in the views of the Pharisees.

Sin is not just some bad things that we sometimes do. Sinful actions are “sins” but sin is more than actions. It is a condition. It isn’t just a condition that we live with. It’s a condition that we live in. Paul tells us creation groans to be released from sin, and we feel its effects. Sin is pervasive. It seeps into the cracks and corners of our souls and our society’s systems.

Sin isn’t like a disease, a condition inside our bodies, as much as it is like an environmental condition, an inescapable influence that surrounds and penetrates us.

Sin is gravity. It is our atmosphere. It is our water. We are radioactive with sin. It vibrates out of us in ways that damage and harm us and anyone we come near.

We need Jesus because only his righteousness is the antidote to the radiation poisoning of rebellion. Making better choices and “sinning less” is a pleasant side effect. 

We can blind ourselves, like the Pharisees, refusing to see our sin. Or we can admit our former blindness and, seeing Jesus, we can say as the formerly blind man did, “Lord, I believe.”

Music: “Gravity” — Lecrae

Divine Hours Prayer: The Small Verse
The people who have dwelt in darkness have seen a great light.

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis TickleToday’s Readings
Exodus 30 (Listen – 5:06)
John 9 (Listen – 4:56)

Today’s Readings
Exodus 31 (Listen – 2:32) John 10 (Listen – 4:44)
Exodus 32 (Listen – 5:47) John 11 (Listen – 6:37)

Read more about The Focus of Christ’s Anger
Jesus spent time with people who, by every cultural definition and religious law, would be under God’s wrath. Sinners. Heretics. Financial swindlers. Fallen women. Foreign occupiers. Shouldn’t Jesus have been angry with them?

Read more about Suffering and Sin
We feel less responsible when we believe only the lazy are poor, only the promiscuous are in danger of sexual assault, only hedonists become addicts, and only nihilists suffer depression.

Scripture Focus: John 8.11
Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

From John: In rewriting this post from 2019, I was reminded of how much worse our culture’s polarization has become in just two years. There are many voices in culture and the political world, on the left and the right, who take only certain sins seriously. But Christ who died for sins, takes them all seriously.

Reflection: Taking Sin Seriously
By John Tillman

Some might summarize this passage like this: The Pharisees catch a woman in adultery but Jesus lets her go. Except that’s not what happened at all.

Jesus is kind and loving but is not a pushover who winks at adultery and doesn’t take sin seriously. 

To think this, one must ignore Christ’s words to the woman, and his actions in the remainder of the gospel of John. Jesus takes sin far more seriously than anyone in this entire scene. 

The Pharisees don’t take the law or sin seriously. If they did, the woman’s sexual partner would be present and under the same sentence. To them, the woman and God’s law are just props for their attack on Jesus.

To Jesus, however, sin is deadly serious business. It has to be. He came to die for sins.

“Go now and leave your life of sin,” is an unambiguous acknowledgment of the fact of the woman’s sin and an unmistakable command to repent. Christ does not condemn her, because he is taking her condemnation on himself.

Jesus is not a distributor of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer would describe as “cheap grace:”

Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.

Costly grace is…costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.

The true grace Jesus offers is costly. It is so costly that the wealthy, rich, powerful members of society drop their stones and walk away from it. They cannot bear the cost to their pride. It is so costly the lustful won’t look at it. It is too costly for them to give up their lusts.

Jesus doesn’t “let the woman go.” He sends her out. Jesus, instead of taking the woman’s life, redeems it. He buys it for his own.

When we see ourselves in this passage, we should not see ourselves as members of the crowd, shamed into forgiving the woman and dropping our stones. We should see ourselves as the shamed woman, freed and sent out to live anew.

We have been bought with a price and sent into the world, leaving our lives of sin.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Cry of the Church
O Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon me.
O Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon me.
O Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world, grant me your peace.

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis TickleToday’s Readings
Exodus 29 (Listen – 6:23)
John 8 (Listen – 7:33)

Read more about Three Armies of Sin :: Throwback Thursday
Sin has hemmed us in with three strong, mighty armies. The first is our own flesh, the second the world, the third the evil spirit… — Martin Luther

Read more about A Singular Plea In Prayer :: Throwback Thursday
Christ died for nobody but real sinners, those who feel that their sin is truly sin. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon