30 March 2025 - Lent 4, Year C

Theme

This week’s readings teach us about the difference of a life before and after accepting God’s salvation. The Israelites begin eating from the new, bountiful promised land of Canaan. David sings about the joys of a life after forgiveness. Paul teaches that those who belong to Christ are a new Creation and Jesus shares a story of a father’s joy and celebration when a long-lost child returns home to their rightful place. 

Scriptures

Joshua 5:9-12 - The Israelites stopped eating manna to survive and began eating unleavened bread and roasted grain from the land of Canaan. This was a sign of God releasing them from their shame of slavery in Egypt.

Psalm 32  - David speaks about the joy of experiencing forgiveness of our sins. He explains the stark difference in living a life of sin before accepting God’s forgiveness and grace and after.

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 - Paul explains that anyone who belongs to Christ is a new creation. Because of this, we no longer see people from a human point of view, but from God’s point of view - this means that we no longer see them as their sins. We are Christ’s ambassadors in this world and call people to Christ to reconcile them to God. 

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 - When confronted about the type of people that he was associating with, Jesus told the parable of the lost son. A man has two sons. The younger son demands his share of the estate and leaves to waste it on wild living. When he returns, the father hosts a party while the older son is jealous. The father declares that because the older son stayed by him, everything he has is his, but they needed to celebrate the younger son’s return because he was considered dead, but now he lives.

The Context

The Joshua story takes place shortly after the Israelites have taken residence in their new home, the long-anticipated promised land. For forty years, they had been wandering the desert, surviving on nothing but manna. Now, suddenly, they had access to the bountiful harvest of a new land with new resources and treasures. The Israelites understood this as a sign of God finally forgiving them and freeing them from their shame from their captivity as slaves in Egypt. 

Personal Application

Many of us who have experienced God’s grace and forgiveness would be able to share powerful testimonies of how our lives have changed drastically from what they were like before we accepted God’s salvation. Many of us would say that we became new creations, or it felt like we were born again in that moment. 

It is good to remember that moment that we surrendered our lives to God’s will and became new creations with a new purpose. We also shouldn’t forget that our transformation was not a one-time event at a particular moment in the past. We should be continuously growing and often experiencing moments of transformation where we are becoming more and more Christlike every day.

When last did we consider how our lives have changed since accepting Jesus into our hearts? Are we still striving to become new creations who are more like Christ every day?

Communal Application

David and Paul both talk about the transformed life. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, he explains how those who have experienced a new birth become ambassadors for Christ in this world, working to reconcile everyone back to their rightful place in the love and acceptance of God. 

Too often, the Church is still guilty of seeing people as a sum of their sins, rather than seeing them as people who bear the image of God.

How can we as a Church, better accept people as God’s beloved creations and help them to experience a new birth and the joyful transformation that comes with it?