Psalm 119:145-176; 2 Kings 22:14-23:3; 1 Cor. 11:23-34; Matt. 9:9-17
What is the proper attitude towards our sin? Here the prophetess sends word to Josiah that his attitude was the right one and due to that the Lord would not execute His judgment against Judah at that time, “because your heart was penitent, and you humbled yourself before the LORD.” The Lord promised this very thing to Solomon in 2 Chronicles 7 after Solomon’s prayer in dedication of the temple and here we see that when we truly humble ourselves and confess our sins with the desire to change our lives we will receive forgiveness for those sins. Confession isn’t simply a matter of saying, “Lord I know that you don’t approve of such and such a thing I did so I confess I did it.” True confession sounds like, “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, By thought, word, and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, And are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; The burden of them is intolerable.”
The main question early in Jesus’ ministry was “Why does he…?” Later it becomes who gave you authority to do… What He was doing was out of step with what rabbis normally did and they wanted to understand why. Why did He call a tax collector to be a disciple? Normally the rabbis chose young men who had devoted themselves to the study of Torah and who had studied under the right people to be their disciples and Jesus is calling men who have already chosen another vocation in life to come be His disciples. The right people shunned tax collectors and sinners, they didn’t seek them out and enjoy their company and hospitality. It must have been a stretch for the other disciples as well, they had been taught to keep their physical and emotional distance from tax collectors and now here they were in the midst of them. The Pharisees’ question must have been on their minds as well and they would have had no idea why so Jesus speaks into the situation, not that they would have understood the answer very well. You don’t call tax collectors and sinners, you call them out. Jesus’ notions of righteousness were quite different than the religious leaders.
What does it mean to discern the body? In our worship we never partake of communion without first passing through confession of sins. We are guilty of the body and blood of Jesus if we fail to deal with sin, we do violence to His sacrifice, we nullify its effectiveness on our behalf and remain guilty of murdering an innocent man when we fail to confess our guilt. His blood then does not atone for sin, it convicts of sin. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says that we have filled the world with cheap grace in this way, we have given communion without confession and repentance. We live in a world and in a time that does not take holiness and righteousness seriously, surrounded by decadence in popular culture and the church needs to be a counter-cultural place of humility and brokenness over sin if we are to be salt and light.
O enter then His gates with praise;
Approach with joy His courts unto;
Praise, laud, and bless His Name always,
For it is seemly so to do.
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