Tag Archives: sin

A Prayer Prompted by Luke 5

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Father in Heaven,

We thank you that Jesus did not come to call the righteous, but rather sinners in need of repentance.  If you were looking for righteous people, you would never have chosen us.

We now ask you for your forgiveness, healing, cleansing and complete transformation.  We want to know that we are new creatures in Christ.  

And then, just like those earliest disciples, we want to be used by you to draw others into a relationship with Jesus. We ask that you would help us to “fish for people.”  Like Levi’s friends, let us have the blessing of seeing our friends and family come to know you.

We know that we come to you as sinners, but that you have the ability to make us saints. Make us holy, please.

In Christ,

Amen.

Cleansing a leper – Luke 5:12-14

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12 While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” 13 And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him. 14 And he charged him to tell no one, but “go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to them.”

The leprous man expressed his faith by coming to Jesus and falling on his face before him.  In response, Jesus reached out his hand to touch him.  Normally this was prohibited because anyone touching a leper would become unclean.  In this case, the opposite happens, the leper becomes clean.  Christ’s ability to cleanse the leper was greater than any power the leprosy had to make Christ unclean.

Then Jesus sent him to the priest.  There was an offering specified for those cases in which a leper was cured, by which the priest would declare him clean.  The biblical definition of leprosy seems to have been broader than ours, so we need not conclude that people were constantly being healed what of we would call Hansen’s disease today.  The offering, however, is instructive for us regarding the cleansing work of Christ.  We find it in Leviticus 14:3-7.

3 …Then, if the case of leprous disease is healed in the leprous person, 4 the priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed two live clean birds … 5 And the priest shall command them to kill one of the birds in an earthenware vessel over fresh water. 6 He shall take the live bird …, and dip … the live bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water. 7 And he shall sprinkle it seven times on him who is to be cleansed of the leprous disease. Then he shall pronounce him clean and shall let the living bird go into the open field.

Cyril of Alexandria 376-444

Cyril of Alexandria (376 – 444)

It’s a fascinating parallel. One bird is killed, the other is dipped in the slain bird’s blood and then released.  As Cyril of Alexandria once said it, 

We may see then, in the birds, Christ suffering in the flesh according to the Scriptures … That the one bird was slain, and that the other was baptized indeed in its blood, while itself exempt from slaughter … For Christ died in our place, and we, who have been baptized into his death, he has saved by his own blood. *

Each of us is a lot like this leper.  We are unclean because of our sin.  Jesus touches us, but never becomes unclean or sinful himself; he makes us clean instead.  Christ’s ability to cleanse us is greater than the power of sin, by which we make ourselves unclean.

* Found in Arthur A. Just Jr., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003, 91.

A Prayer Prompted by Luke 3

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Dear heavenly Father,

We certainly know that, unlike Jesus, we are in dire need of repentance and forgiveness of our sins.  Help us to truly and deeply repent, and then help us to live lives that bear fruit worthy of repentance.  As James would later say, let us be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving ourselves.

Please also empower us with your Holy Spirit, so that we can faithfully be your witnesses in this present day.  And help us to fully and faithfully entrust ourselves to your Son Jesus Christ, the King and Savior you sent to deal with our problem of sin – who we know will reign forever.

To him and to you be all the glory both now and forever.

In Christ,

Amen.

A Prayer Prompted by Mark 15:22-41

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Dear Lord Jesus,

You said during the time of your ministry, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  Little did your disciples know at the time how that would happen or how it would look.

Now, having been accused, tried and sentenced, we see what you went through for us.  The humiliation, the pain and the suffering were all to pay the price for our sins.  You paid this ransom so that we could walk free.

You refused to come down from the cross.  You endured the abandonment of your disciples, which was tragic, but also of the very Father who sent you, at your greatest moment of need.  Such grief is thankfully beyond our experience. 

How fitting that those who passed by derided you, illustrating how badly we all needed the work your were completing at that moment.  How perfect also was the darkness that descended, dimming the view of the worst of your suffering from those present, and likewise from the rest of us who would read of it later,  And you died among thieves, like the worst of common criminals.

All of this you did for us.  We thank you for bearing our sin.  We thank you for paying the price for our salvation.  We thank you for the humility you expressed so that we might be glorified with you someday, and will know that glorified state for all eternity.

This is how we know what love is.

Thank you Jesus.

Amen.