Turn from contempt of his word
Merciful God,
your desire is not for the death of sinners,
but rather that they might turn from their wickedness, and live;
have mercy upon all those who deny, revile, or malign your name,
take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of your word, and so bring them home to your fold,
that we may all be one flock under one shepherd,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
The apostle Paul reminds us that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23); something that all mankind in its fallen state is facing. And yet on a day where we remember the Lord Jesus’s death, we rejoice in a merciful God, who gave his only Son to rescue us from the death we deserve.
The Good Shepherd, as we read in John 10, came to lay down his life for his sheep, so that we might follow him and have life to the full. God was not looking for sacrifices and an exemplary life to make us worthy of this; his desire was to show mercy — a removal of the punishment that should have been meted out us. A punishment that fell instead on our perfect Lord Jesus — a shameful death on a cross, a necessary act of propitiation — to make us right with God.
Where other shepherds had failed before, because of self-interest, moral failure, and disobedience, Jesus, alone was “good enough” — words that come to mind from the hymn There is a Green Hill Far Away: “There was no other good enough, to pay the price of sin; he only could unlock the gate of heav’n, and let us in.” He left his throne in heaven and entered our messy world to go after the lost sheep to bring them home. He is still bringing in the lost sheep. So we pray that his mercy would be preached and lived out in our world and in our own lives.
We pray for those who are enemies of the gospel, who wilfully reject, distort, and misrepresent it. Some do this by dismissing it out of hand; they worship gods of their own making (we all worship something or someone!) and have no fear of the true God. Others preach what “itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3) and revise the gospel to fit with the prevailing culture because they have not believed the word or are not prepared to suffer for it.
As we think of the cross-shaped life which Jesus calls us all to, we remember a merciful God who died the death we deserved to bring us life — the best kind of life that stretches into eternity. Let’s pray that we might keep trusting in that mercy and hold it out to others.
So pray this with me:
Merciful God,
your desire is not for the death of sinners,
but rather that they might turn from their wickedness, and live;
have mercy upon all those who deny, revile, or malign your name,
take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of your word, and so bring them home to your fold,
that we may all be one flock under one shepherd,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.