Morning Devotion for Holy Week
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
The Invitatory
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end.
Amen.
The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: Come let us adore him.
Reading: John 13:21-32
After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.
When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.
Meditation – Michael Palmisano
Can God be glorified by our faithlessness? Put more clearly: Can God be valued for who He truly is, by our faithlessness? This seems to be the question demanded of us in the final lines of today’s text. At that very moment when Judas crossed the threshold of the house and set out to betray Jesus, the evangelist tells us: “When [Judas] had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified…” (John 13:31). Of course, this is merely the first of many steps toward the betrayal of Jesus which will culminate in His crucifixion and resurrection, but even Judas’ first movement out of the house proves to be a part of Jesus’ glory.
By these lines I am reminded of that famous phrase ascribed to Martin Luther at the peak of the Reformation 500 years ago. In reference to the boundlessness of God’s grace he wrote a word of encouragement to one of his fellow reformers something to the effect of “Sin boldly!” The full text which surrounds that famous imperative is as follows:
“If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong [“Sin boldly”], but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2 Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign. It suffices that through God’s glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins? Pray hard for you are quite a sinner.”
Do you believe that God’s grace is indeed this abundant? If you do, then any notions of “justice” in heaven or upon earth are illusory. Whatever “justice” Luther is alluding towards on the other side of life must look nothing like the justice we think to know here on earth. By grace, justice has been met out upon sin and death for us upon the cross. The Gospel inverses all expectations by revealing that our betrayal of God cannot separate us from Him but is rather the exact instrumentation of our forgiveness. The TLDR (“too long, didn’t read”) of the Gospel is that one day we will all wake to find that God’s grace had long ago overwhelmed sin and death for all people, for all time. To our faithlessness towards God comes the response of God’s faithfulness towards us. Through our shame, arises His glory.
No man is either “good” nor “bad.” By God’s grace we are all in an ongoing process of redemption, ever subject to the tides of His mercy washing over us. By grace, God is calling a new man out of each one of us every day, remaking us afresh – a new Adam on the first day of Creation. Even by our sins God can be glorified – on heaven and on earth.
The Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
Closing Prayer
Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
