LENT
4
March
22-24, 2025
Pastor
Timothy J. Spaude
Text: Luke 13:1-9
(EHV)
“THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT BAD NEWS!”
Perhaps you already know or have
figured out that our way of worshipping the Lord is set up as an ongoing
dialogue. Most of the time the pastor serves as a messenger for God, speaking
His words, and you the people listen to what God has to say and respond to it.
So we begin singing praise to our God. We are called to worship with humble yet
joyful hearts as we confess our sins and hear again that we are forgiven. The
meat, the main part of the worship service, centers around God’s word. That’s
important because the Lord has told us, “Faith comes from hearing the message
and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” We need, we want faith,
so having a huge opportunity to hear God’s words is super important. As the
pastor reads God’s word and you, God’s people, listen, there is also a dialogue
going on. At the end of the reading the pastors says, “The word of the Lord.”
And you say, “Thanks be to God!” Very fitting! God give you something good, you
say Thank you! The dialogue of the Gospel lesson which focuses on the words and
work of Jesus when He walked this earth is just a little different. The pastor
says, “The Gospel of the Lord.” And you say, “Praise be to you O Christ!”
Gospel means Good News. Of course we are going to praise Jesus for the Good
News. Every once in a while, though, it kinda seems out of place. Like when
there is a Gospel lesson that Jesus is teaching about the Last Day. And the
Gospel reading ends with something like, “Depart from me you cursed into the
eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” And I say, “This is the
Gospel of the Lord.” The Good News. Doesn’t seem to fit. Oh, but it does. Today
in God’s word our Lord Jesus sets us straight. God’s ways are not our ways, and
we do Him wrong when we impose our way of thinking on Him. Today Jesus shows us
the Good News about what we consider to be Bad News!
Jesus had been talking very pointedly to a
large group of people urging them to tend to their own spiritual well-being. He
warned against hypocrisy, senseless worry, trusting in things rather than God
and apathy towards the reality of eternity. You know how it goes when someone’s
words start to hit too close to home. You Change the subject! So that’s what
they did. “At that time there were some present who told Jesus about the
Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2He
answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all
the other Galileans because they suffered these things? 3I tell
you, no. But unless you repent, you will all perish too. 4Or
those eighteen who were killed when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you
think that they were worse sinners than all the people living in
Jerusalem? 5I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all
perish too.” Some Jews from Galilee
had come to worship at the Temple. In a display of Roman cruelty Pilate had
some of them killed while worshipping. Did this bad thing, this murder, happen
because those people were in trouble with God? Jesus goes down their road. In another widely known incident a tower had
accidently fallen and killed 18 people. Surely God was getting them for
something. That’s the way people think. When bad things happen to people,
whether at the hands of evil people or by accident, they must have done
something wrong. That’s where the pagan concept of karma comes from.
“THE
GOOD NEWS ABOUT BAD NEWS!”
Jesus turned things back around. “Unless
you repent, you will perish.” Here is the Good News about Bad News. When people
die too early it is bad news to our ears. It happens by accident. The 67 who
died in the DC plane/helicopter crash. 24 dead in the recent California
wildfires. 39 dead from the storms that swept across our nation. Bad news. It
can happen because of the evil people do. The Waukesha parents murdered by
their son. The numerous citizens of Milwaukee murdered by reckless driving. Bad
news. Did they die as punishment from God? “No,” says Jesus. Focus on the Good
News. Untimely deaths are God’s loving call for living people to repent. No one
is promised another day of life. Each day is a gift of God’s grace. Each day is
an opportunity for all people to believe and be saved. And while this call is
for all people, the person I am to deal with is me. And the day I need to be
concerned about is today. Today, do I recognize my sins and need for Savior?
Today am I looking to Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus for my forgiveness? You need to
ask the same questions for yourself. Every bit of bad news is evidence of the
Good News that God is still working. God still cares. God still wants you and
everyone else to believe in His Son and be saved. Heaven is real. And Hell is
too.
And while God is a patient God, there are
limits to His patience. A time when it comes to an end. That’s the truth Jesus
taught with the parable He told next. “He told them
this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking
for fruit on it, but he did not find any. 7So he said to the
gardener, ‘Look, for three years now I have come looking for fruit on this fig
tree, and I have found none. Cut it down. Why even let it use up the
soil?’ 8But the gardener replied to him, ‘Sir, leave it alone
this year also, until I dig around it and put fertilizer on it. 9If
it produces fruit next year, fine. But if not, then cut it down.’” The
parable’s meaning was pretty obvious for the original hearers. Probably for us
too. If you plant a fruit tree you do so with purpose. That it produce fruit.
If the tree is not fulfilling its purpose, at some point the tree planter says
“Enough!” and moves on. In the parable I am the fig tree. You are the fig tree.
God is the owner looking for fruit. Jesus is the gardener pleading for more
time. As long as we live Jesus pleads for us and works to make us Christians
who produce fruit, repentance, which includes lives lived for the Lord.
“THE
GOOD NEWS ABOUT BAD NEWS!”
What do you suppose the digging up and fertilizing
are in people’s lives? What about the pruning Jesus talked about in another
word picture? Well the fertilizing is food for a tree so that brings us right
back to God’s word which is food for our faith. Digging up around a tree,
wouldn’t that disturb the roots, maybe cut off some? Pruning, there you are
cutting living branches off of a tree. What’s that like in real lives of real
people? Bad news! At least that’s how we would label it. Car accident or house
fire. Even with insurance, a pain. Broken arm or leg. Heals…but. Job loss.
Medical bills. All bad news. Except it isn’t. We think that way because we are short-sighted
and have our minds set on earthly things. It’s all we know. God loves us too
much to leave us to ourselves. He is deliberately using the bad news we hear
about others and the bad news we deal with personally to keep us God dependent,
in a state of repentance, so we are ready for our end or The End which, with
living faith in the living Jesus, turns into the beginning of the way things
were supposed to be, a perfect life with God and others. So bad news isn’t
really bad news. It’s Gospel, Good News that the Lord cares and is watching out
for us.
Kind of reminds me of a great coach I had.
I remember him addressing the team at the beginning of a football season when
we had the two a day practices in the heat of the day. “Boys,” he said, “Don’t
get mad at me when I push you and correct you and even yell at you when you
deserve it. I am only doing that because I know you can get better. Get upset
if I leave alone. Because that means I’ve given up on you.” Brothers and
sisters, God has not given up on you. When you face the bad news of another
challenge that pushes you to run to the Lord in mercy and prayer, when the bad
news of hardship, loss, and hurt comes into your life, especially the kind that
make you cry, “Father, I don’t understand,” hold on to the Good News that God
only chastens those He loves and digs around and fertilizes those He knows can
get better. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not ours. They are so
much better, so know this truth. Whatever He allows is for your good. This is
the Gospel or the Lord! Amen.
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