Crying to The Lord

​1st Sunday in Lent – C                                                                                    LSB #’s 419, 355:1, 4-6; 761
Text – Deuteronomy 26:6-7
 
And the Egyptians treated us harshly & humiliated us & laid on us hard labor.  Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, & the Lord heard our voice & saw our affliction, our toil, & our oppression.
 
CRYING TO THE LORD
 
 
    “…turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”  (Ezekiel 33:11 ESV)   From the moment God rescued the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt, He continually warned them about the dangers of forgetting who it was that delivered them.   He pleaded with them, “…why will you die, O house of Israel?” 
Once the people of God entered the Promised Land, they became prosperous because of the Lord’s blessing.   Sadly, that prosperity caused them to forget how dependent their existence was upon the God who had rescued them from slavery & poverty. 
While they lived under the iron fist of Pharaoh, there was no hope of escape & no chance of prosperity.   Exodus 2 tells us, “During those many days the king of Egypt died, & the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery & cried out for help.  Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.”  (2:23 ESV) 
By the time you’ve read through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus & Numbers, in Deuteronomy 26, Moses is giving a summary of their history as a people.   He begins with Jacob, “A wandering Aramean was my father.  And he went down into Egypt & sojourned there, few in number, & there he became a nation, great, mighty & populous.”  (26:5 ESV) 
As Moses recounts their history, he reminds them of the turn of events that put them into desperate straits, “And the Egyptians treated us harshly & humiliated us & laid on us hard labor.  Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, & the Lord heard our voice & saw our affliction, our toil, & our oppression.”  (Deuteronomy 26:6-7 ESV)   It was not the Israelites who made a name for themselves.  It was Yahweh who called them out of the land of Egypt & gave them their identity as His people. 
Each of us has many different identities, depending on the group we’re with.  For just a short list, we can be child, parent, coworker, employer, citizen & church member all rolled up into one.   Each of them, or all of them, can be our identity depending on the circumstances at the time.   Yet, because of sin, none of us can live out those identities perfectly. 
However, there is one identity that matters infinitely more than any other.  That identity is child of God.  It matters more than any other because that one is our ticket to heaven.  The other factor that is supremely important is that in Christ, we can perfectly live out our identity as child of God.  We can say that because Christ lived out that identity for us, & He did so perfectly. 
It’s not what we do that counts.  It’s whose we are.   Belonging to Christ means we get credit for everything He has done.   What our sinful nature does with that news is not pretty.  In our weakness, we see God’s mercy & forgiveness as something to be taken advantage of.  We reason that if Jesus did it all, then we can just kick back & relax. 
To counter that, Moses gives the people of God instructions before he dies.  When they enter the Promised Land:
“…you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, & you shall… go to the priest who is in office at that time & say to him, ‘I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.’  Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand & set it down before the altar of the Lord your God.”  (Deuteronomy 26:2-4 ESV) 
 
Moses is not laying out requirements to get to heaven.  We often take it that way because our sinful nature is corrupt & incompetent.    What Moses is spelling out for us is how our saintly nature responds to God’s mercy.  It responds by joyfully giving back to our Lord, a portion of everything Yahweh has given to us.  It’s a reflection of how corrupt we are, that Moses needs to tell us how a child of God lives.  That’s how often our sinful nature drowns out the desire of our saintly nature to thank God for His gifts.   We are much more familiar with this aspect of our saintly nature – when life takes a turn for the worse, we know what to do.  We cry out to the Lord for help. 
Even then, our sinful nature may tell us it’s hypocritical to seek God’s help when we’re in trouble if we don’t thank Him when life is going well.  The flaw in Satan’s temptation is the suggestion that we’re only hypocritical when crying to the Lord for help.  The truth is, as sinners we are hypocritical 100% of the time.  The only solution to that is crying to the Lord for help. 
As Ezekiel wrote, “…turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”  (33:11 ESV)   God longs to hear our cries for help, because it is His holy desire to save us from sin, death & the devil.  It is God’s holy desire that we learn what it is to live as a holy child of God.   For this life, we see that but dimly.  In heaven, we’ll know it in perfection. 
For this life, we should never be ashamed of crying to the Lord for help.   Satan wants our pride to get in the way, but, as St. Paul wrote in the Epistle lesson, “…everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  (Romans 10:13 ESV)  
God has blessed our nation tremendously, & with that comes tremendous temptation.  Wealth & a life of leisure get in the way of humility.   They foster pride in what we’ve accomplished.  God knows the temptations we face, so Jesus came to take our place, even in crying out to the Lord:
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”  (Matthew 27:46 ESV)   In the distress of crucifixion, Jesus cried out to the Lord.  He did so out of perfect obedience to the heavenly Father, but that perfect obedience is credited to all who trust in Jesus as Lord & Savior.  Jesus was perfectly living out His identity as the Son of God, & you & I benefit from that in every way.  As Moses considers the benefits we receive from our Father, he shows us that the only proper thing for us to do is to take our offerings to the Lord.  Those offering are, as is often said – time, talent & treasure.  When we refuse any or all of them, we are following Satan’s lead. 
To that attitude of the heart, God calls out, “…turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”  (Ezekiel 33:11 ESV)     Following the Holy Spirit’s lead, we willingly offer our time, talent & treasure out of gratitude & not because of coercion or feeling guilty.  Jesus came to offer His life & He did so willingly, because of His great love for us. 
Moses taught his people how to live.  Jesus taught us, & lived it for us, to set us free.  Yes, we still fail, but we fail in confidence knowing that Jesus did everything on our behalf.  In being set free, we are now able to serve our Lord willingly out of joy & gratitude.  That is what Moses wants us to focus on. 
Satan wants us to focus on our failures.  Jesus has erased them so they can hound us no more.  Your chief identity is child of God, & your Father in heaven is taking care of all things for you.  Amen. 
 
 
 
O Fount of hope, how long, how long?  When will You come with comfort strong?   O come, O come, Your throne forgo; Console us in our vale of woe.    O Morning Star, O radiant Sun, when will our hearts behold Your dawn?   O Sun, arise; without Your light we grope in gloom & dark of night.     Sin’s dreadful doom upon us lies; grim death looms fierce before our eyes.   O come, lead us with mighty hand from exile to our promised land.  Amen.  LSB 355:4-6.