Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent
“Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me”
It is really all about the turning, our turning back to God from whom we have turned away. Such are the realities of sin and grace. And yet, as the Psalmist indicates and as today’s disturbing Gospel illustrates, there can be no turning, no healing, no cleansing of our souls simply on our own merit and strength. Not only do “we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves”, but our attempts lead to greater dangers and, perhaps, to the greatest danger of all, despair. We give up on ourselves because we forget God. We give up on him and then we are in darkness and despair, depressive and depressing, oblivious to others because we are buried in our bitter resentments, worries, fears, and judgments about others.
Lent recalls us to the one who knows us better than we know ourselves and in being turned and turning back to him we find the truth of ourselves. It is the counter, indeed, the only counter to the depressed and depressing nature of our current concerns, our broken world, and our broken selves.
Jesus “himself knew what was in man”, John tells us just after the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee, just after the casting out of the money changers in the temple at Jerusalem, just after the prediction of his death and resurrection imaged in terms of the destruction of the temple and its being raised up in three days, just after “many … saw the signs which he did” when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover. Wonderful lessons, we might think, and ones which might awaken faith. Indeed, “many believed in his name” and yet, “Jesus did not trust himself to them, because he knew all men and needed no one to bear witness of man; for he himself knew what was in man” (John 2. 24,25)
