February 23, 2025

Daily Lectionary: Job 18:1-21; John 7:32-53

[Jesus said,] “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.” (Luke 6:27b-30)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Okay, time to explain away Jesus’ words. Time to find a way to make them say something different than what we just read. Surely Jesus doesn’t mean for us to literally do these things, right? We would just end up a doormat. People would walk all over us. And we would be abused. There has to be a way out of these words. A way that we would be safe from them. A way to break these Commandments without, you know, breaking these Commandments.

But that’s not the way it works.

We think that the more difficult something is to do, the greater the person who can do it. Loving your enemy is hard, so the love it takes to pull it off must be accomplishing a great work. But Thomas Aquinas puts it this way: “[I]f the love were so great as completely to remove all difficulty that would be a still greater love.”

For us, Jesus’ Word here is Law. Our love, apart from Christ, is not great enough to do this at all, much less with great difficulty. But in Jesus, we see the one who has the greater love, in that He loves us without it being difficult for Him.

For it is Jesus Christ who has done good to us who have hated Him. He has blessed us with forgiveness as we cursed Him with our sin. He has prayed for us to the Father that we would be saved, even as our sin put the nails in His hands and feet. He has received our strikes by whip and cord. He has had His garments divided and His tunic taken away by lot. And for this, He has demanded none of it back. But died on a cross for our sake.

That is the love with which Jesus loved. Not with difficulty, but with more of it than we could ever imagine. That is the love He has for you. That is the love which sacrificed Himself for your sake. That is the love that covers all your sins with His blood. And that’s the love He has for you even now.

And now, with that love, we return to Jesus’ Word. His love in us loves our enemies, and He counts it as ours. His love in us endures, and He counts it as ours. His love gives, and He counts it as ours. And we don’t always realize we’re doing it. Jesus keeps the Law for our sake. And He also keeps it in you.

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

For us by wickedness betrayed, For us, in crown of thorns arrayed, He bore the shameful cross and death; For us He gave His dying breath (LSB 544:5)

-Rev. Eli Davis, pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Grants Pass, OR.

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.

What makes a church "good?" Come join the fictional family as they test out eight different churches in their brand-new town and answer this question along the way. Will the Real Church Please Stand Up? by Matthew Richard, now available from Concordia Publishing House.