Lection Reflections: The Fourth Sunday in Lent

"Lection Reflections" is a short review of the themes of the coming Sunday's scripture readings as written in the Common Lectionary, Year B. For more information on the Lectionary, and how it can work to aid your Bible knowledge, click here!

This week's Sunday readings are full of timely challenges!

The first reading (in the order of appearance in the Bible) is II Chronicles 36: 14-23, and it records the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and the exile of the people to Babylon, as foretold by the prophet Jeremiah.

There are two obvious lessons in this text: (1) Before crushing the rebellion of His people, God sends messenger after messenger to encourage their repentance because of His "compassion on His people and on His dwelling place"; and (2) God may use, as he did in this case, our circumstances and the most unlikely of people to bring us to repentance. You see, not only were the Babylonians the captors of God's people, but through King Cyrus the Babylonians made possible the re-building of the Temple. God, indeed, has a sense of humor.

Psalm 122 is a song of ascents, which is a song the faithful would sing as they made their way to Jerusalem and the Temple of the Lord. It begins: "I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the Lord.'"

A question: Does the opportunity to attend worship gladden our heart? To be sure, public worship is a privilege that we in the United States view as a right. We need only look at other nations in the world to see that the freedom to worship as we choose is not guaranteed.

The Gospel reading is found in John 6: 4-15, and records the familiar account of Jesus feeding 5,000 people with a little boy's lunch consisting of two fish and five small barley loaves. The final verse is one that caught my attention, because it reminded me of the temptation to sacrifice the "best" for the "good."

Jesus, seeing the intention of the multitude to make him King, immediately withdrew to the mountain. Do you and I have the same focus on the mission of God, and the same commitment to the purposes of God, to run from the entreaties of those who want us to do good things, but at the expense of the long-term, big-picture, best things? Or do we entertain the proposition in hopes that we can "fit all of it in"?

The final reading, Ephesians 2: 4-10, is full of encouraging words! The final verses, 8-10, will resonate with many people: "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. . . "

However, I encourage attention to the beginning of the passage: "But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us. . ." (Verse 1) Mercy. Great love with which He loved us.

To be sure, all such messages of affirmation and assurance give us reason to worship. I hope you have a great Sunday!