The Lord and His Offerings

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the LORD your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
and he relents over disaster.

Each year, as we begin this season of Lent, as we mark the occasion called Ash Wednesday, the Church hears again the words of the prophet Joel, calling the people of God to repentance and faith in the Lord God of Israel.

Such is the portrait of repentance the Holy Scriptures teach you. Return to the Lord with all your heart. Rend your heart, and not your garments. Be broken inside, where the Lord sees and knows what is in your heart.

This is the work of the Law. You look in the mirror to see a reflection of yourself. You expect to see a true reflection, to see yourself as you truly are. Of course there are trick mirrors, like at the carnival fun house, that show you a distorted image for you to laugh at. But those are merely caricatures, a warped version of the real image. The Law of God, on the other hand, holds up no trick mirror. It holds up the bright, clear, shining glass of the Word of God, and reflects your own sorry image next to this gleaming perfection. And, just like looking at the models in a fashion magazine, you know that you will never live up to the standard of the Law.

And so, the prophet calls for repentance. Return to the Lord. Turn back. Turn around. Turn your back on all that your heart desires. Turn your back on all that tempts. Turn back from the sin which your heart wants and your hands do. Repent. Leave off doing evil, and turn to doing good.

Rend your hearts, and not your garments. That is, feel the terrors of conscience stirred up by the Law's demands and threats. Be broken by the condemnation of the Law for your failures. Forget the manufactured penance drummed up in some show of outward piety. Tearing your garments, giving up things, fasting, and all that are of no avail if the heart is not first broken by the Law of God. The true repentance which the Lord requires of you is not in outward displays of sorrow, but in the broken and contrite spirit which turns to God in utter poverty and begs for mercy.

Return to the Lord, for He is gracious and merciful. This is the second, joyful part of repentance – faith which trusts in the grace and mercy of the God who forgives sins. You turn to the Lord with the utter poverty of your heart, devoid of anything worthy to offer Him, and confess your sins. And upon your confession He speaks to you the words of eternal life. He bestows upon you His grace and mercy, filling you with all good gifts. He marks you with the sign of His cross as the sign of His favor.

Joel instructs the faithful to repent and face the accusations of the Law without excuse, then to hold firmly in faith to the promise that the God of Israel is faithful when you are not and merciful when you do not deserve it. Then he offers a rationale for this: “ Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD your God?” Return to the Lord with all your heart and trust in His mercy and grace, which never fail. Perhaps He will not bring disaster upon you.

The Lord relents over disaster, and leaves behind a blessing, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God. The Lord is gracious and merciful enough to relent over disaster for His people who turn to Him in repentance and faith. And He also leaves behind a blessing, and offerings for Himself.

What does this mean? The Lord leaves behind an offering for Himself? How does that happen? This is the mystery of the great love and mercy of our God. He does not command any worship which He does not first enable you to do. And that is because the worship of God is not about what you do. It is about what you cannot do – come to Him under your own steam, believe in Him, or trust in Him. True worship of God is about recognizing your own utter poverty and depravity, and trusting in Him to fill you with His grace and mercy, with every blessing.

Joel commands you to return to God “with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” These are signs that the Law is having its way with the sinful heart. Mourning over sin is the sign of a conscience terrified by the accusation of the Law. If you do not mourn over your sins, then, as Luther says, pinch yourself to see if you are awake and if you still have flesh. For as long as you have flesh and blood, you will have sins.

Thus, David prays in our Psalm, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” That is, take this depraved heart, this heart filled with sins and evil desires, this heart alienated from the things of God, this heart full only of death. Take it away, and give me a clean heart, O God. Give me a heart full of Your love and grace and truth. Fill it with a desire to do Your will. Fill it with an understanding and a hunger for Your Word. And teach me to worship You rightly.

David recognizes that the Lord is not interested in lip service, or in mere piling up of sacrifices. “For You will not delight in sacrifice, or I would offer it … the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.” This is what God accepts – the heart which He has broken, which He fixes.

But David says, “You will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.” The offerings of the hands of men are worthless before God, and these He does not reckon. But there is an offering, a whole sacrifice which the Lord does accept and in which He delights.

This offering is the Lamb of God, who was slain but now is raised. The offering which the Father accepts is the offering which He Himself makes. He offers up His Son, His only-begotten and beloved, so that there might be at last – once and for all – an offering which is acceptable and pure. He provides the lamb of price, so that the sins of the world might be atoned for. This offering, made upon the wooden altar of the cross, is satisfactory. It satisfies the demands of the Law, and it takes up the wrath of God due for all sins. The whole burnt offering which is wholly pleasing to God is Jesus.

The Lord will indeed turn and relent of disaster. He will, because He in fact already has. He has relented over the disaster He threatens on account of sin, because the disaster has been visited on Jesus instead. He turns and relents of the wrath to come for sin, not for your sake, but for the sake of Christ who died and rose for you. And He does indeed leave behind a blessing.

He leaves behind the Holy Spirit, who is always with you. The Spirit is your comforter, your advocate, your helper. The Holy Spirit declares to you that your sins are forgiven. He creates and sustains faith in your heart, and keeps you focused on Jesus.

And the Lord leaves behind for you a grain offering and a drink offering for Himself. He gives to you bread and wine which He Himself offers. “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16) The Lord has provided the food for the banquet, the grain and wine for the offerings, and now He offers them to You to eat and drink in blessing.

All this the Lord does not because of any merit or worthiness in you. Rather, He does it precisely because there is nothing worthwhile in you. The Lord gives His grace and mercy, showers you with His love and favor, and feeds you with His own Body and Blood because “He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” This is His good and gracious will. Return to the Lord, because He has turned His face to shine upon you and be merciful to you.

Though great our sins, yet greater still

Is God's abundant favor;

His hand of mercy never will

Abandon us, nor waver.

Our shepherd good and true is He,

Who will at last His Israel free

From all their sin and sorrow (LSB 607.5).

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.