Editor’s Note: Lent is a season of personal reflection. As Advent provides a time to prepare our hearts and minds to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Lent offers us time to reflect on our sin, and the need for our Savior’s death and resurrection on the cross.
This year, our weekly reflections will focus on the mercy of God. In His goodness, God has displayed mercy towards us from the start. He knew sin would enter the world and created a means to have right-standing with Him. In the coming weeks, it is our hope that we each spend time remembering God’s mercy and His pursuit of us—from our sinfulness and need, to the institution of sacrifices for the Israelites, culminating with the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. God has been always kind, always just, always loving, always merciful.
This week, we make a turn from Old Testament to New. We have recognized our sin and need for repentance and mercy through the Old Testament institution of sacrifice— a temporary act that must be oft repeated. Now, as we move into the New Testament, we begin to see God set the stage for the ultimate sacrifice through Jesus Christ, but first, we will spend some time reflecting on God’s heart for us and what great lengths he would go to pursue us.
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.”
Matthew 18: 10-14
Reflect:
God’s mercy is not passive, waiting for us to come to our senses, working to find him and finally experience his mercy. In his mercy, he relentlessly pursues us, even when we are far from the sheepfold. Matthew 18 seems to be about God’s measuring of greatness and humility and the valuing children.
1. If you are a parent, have you ever had a child wander away from you? How did it feel to realize the child was missing? How did it feel to be reunited?
2. Think back, do you ever remember being lost? Compare the lost feelings with the feelings that raced through your body once you were back in a familiar safe place with safe people. How do those memories bring new understanding to God’s pursuit of us?
3. What feelings might you need to examine if you find yourself feeling like one of the ninety-nine obedient sheep?
4. In prayer to God, name one or two people whom you don’t want to perish. Ask Him to relentlessly pursue them.
In Ezekiel 37, God demonstrates that He is a source of life and hope for people who are exhausted and scattered.
“Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God…I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I the Lord make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.’”
Ezekiel 37: 21-23, 26-28
Reflect:
1. What meaning does God’s Old Testament pronouncement and fulfilment of unification and salvation for Israel mean to you today in the 21st century in the United States, especially if you are non-Jewish?
2. Just as God has the power to cleanse Israel, God has the power to cleanse each of us. From what “idols” and “vile images or other offenses” do you need to be cleansed?
3. These scriptures highlight God’s pursuit of his chosen people Israel. Given this glimpse of his character, what thoughts do you have about his pursuit of people in other countries and his capacity to bring peace when nations put him in the center of their plans? (John 12:32; Revelation 7: 9-11)
Prayer:
Dear God, as I reflect on your unrelenting pursuit of me and of other humans, made in your image, loved by you from before the beginning of time, I am overcome with gratitude. But I am also humbled. Sometimes I continue to turn away or ignore you rather than falling into your arms of care. Teach me more clearly how to get in step with you. Give me a relentless concern for others around me, especially those who may have been forgotten by the world because they are not part of the 99 who are seen and safe. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Additional scriptures: Isaiah 59:16-21 and Jeremiah 31:20, 31-34.
*New International Version of the Bible was used for scriptures in this piece.