The Fourth Sunday of Lent – March 10, 2024
The final section of today’s first reading is the Emperor of Persia’s decree allowing the exiled Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild their temple. After years of rule by evil kings from among their own people, leading to the destruction of the temple, the fall of Judah, and the Jewish people’s exile into Babylon, God moves the spirit of Cyrus, a foreign ruler, to let the Jewish people go back home.
This decree, which is the final verse in the Hebrew scriptures and also begins the following Book of Ezra in the Christian canon, signifies the restoration of not only God’s dwelling place among his people but also their relationship to God, broken by disobedience.
Restoring a relationship that had been broken by sin calls for a brand-new way of being with one another.
But restoration doesn’t mean going back to the way things were. In God’s plan, restoration, like forgiveness and resurrection, means something completely new, a whole different way of living. Restoring a relationship that had been broken by sin calls for a brand-new way of being with one another—one that acknowledges the past and what could never to be regained again, repairs what can be mended, and commits all of us to a different, never-before-imagined future.
As we come to the midpoint of this season of conversion, let us look forward with Easter joy in Christ whose love ever calls us home to begin again anew.
Leave a Reply