Just Whose Steadfast Love Does God Delight In? Series

Saturday of Second Week in Lent 2024

Our Scripture from the prophet Micah comes in the middle of a chapter that begins inauspiciously, “what misery is mine.” And it goes on to tell the tale of fruitless fields, uninhabited lands, roads populated by robbers and muggers, courts led by judges that take bribes routinely, sons dishonoring fathers. It even has the line “A man’s enemies are the members of his own household,” quoted by Jesus when discussing the fate of His own disciples. We read an acknowledgment of personal sin by Micah, and then turn around when he affirms that the Lord will Himself plead for the sinner. Micah then pictures the Lord as a good shepherd pasturing His people like sheep on the rich grasslands across the Jordan River, while God’s enemies, shamed by their guilt, cover their mouths and lick the dust. God cannot be angry forever, “because he delights in steadfast love.”

Wait a minute? Steadfast love? The OT is a catalog of Israel’s frequent, habitual disregard of the God who created and saved them from slavery. So it’s not the steadfast love of His people that God delights in. It’s His own steadfast love. God has joy in that fidelity He enjoys within the Blessed Trinity of love and faithfulness. So that’s why God forgives. He likes to forgive our transgressions and show us His mercy. He really loves that because He really loves us.

The psalmist celebrates that age-over-age mercy: “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor requite us according to our iniquities.” For this reason do we give Him praise and thanks, and pledge to God our own faithfulness, our intention to hate even the pleasure we take in habitual sins, and love Him above all things.

This leads into what is the Jesus parable most Christians love above all, because most Christians find themselves to be just like the Prodigal Son. That lad, probably one in his late teens, thinks he knows everything. Didn’t we all think we knew better than our parents when we were sixteen? He takes advantage of his dad’s loving kindness and talks him into giving him half of everything so he can live the life he thinks will satisfy. I suspect it was like the life a lot of my generation sought back in the seventies of the last century–sex, drugs and the first-century version of rock and roll. Sensory pleasure, fame, power over others–that’s what is so attractive to the vapid adolescent mind. It satisfies how long? A week? A day? An hour? And it’s not even true satisfaction, certainly not true joy. It leads to the kind of misery that doesn’t even get any company. The boy ended up with the pigs, but though hungry could not even afford the swill the swine consumed. He plotted to go home to his dad and plead to be one of the farm slaves, and just get three squares and a roof to sleep under. That’s the first step–admit you messed up badly and ask for forgiveness and return.

He got that, and so much more. Forgiveness, mercy, the embrace of a father who never stopped loving him. And as we finish the second full week of Lent, why not investigate our own life, our consciences, and see if there’s anything we need to repent of, confess our sins, unload our guilt on Christ, and return to communion with the Blessed Father of all?