3-11-2026  Midweek Lent 3

“FOR US HE SEEKS”

Text: Mark 1:35-39

Wednesday March 11, 2026 – Lent Midweek 3

Trinity – Creston

       Grace, mercy, and peace is yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

       Our text for this Third Midweek of Lent is from Mark 1 that was just proclaimed.

Let Us Pray: Dearest Jesus, send your Holy Spirit to remind us that you came down to  seek each of us who were lost and gone astray.  Acknowledging your saving work that you accomplished for us on the cross, give us a desire to seek you where you are always found in your means of grace.  Amen.

Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:

   Tonight, we will continue looking at the ancient hymn “O Love, How Deep” and how God’s work through the church leads to rejection.

The remarkable thing about this text from Mark 1 is how ordinary most of Jesus’ works are. He prayed, taught, and worked.

Now, to be fair, some of that work involved miraculous healings, exorcisms, and the like. But for the most part, Jesus was a traveling rabbi who brought the Word of God to the people He encountered. And in encountering the Word of God, everything changed.

There is a saying that people will always act according to their own self-interest. In other words, most people will only work, sacrifice, and do things if it will benefit them or their family. This is, in some way at least, the very heart of capitalism.

People are predictable. They will buy what they consider to be the best deal. Factors may include price, quality, availability, color, or other things. But at the end of the day, people will buy what is best for them.

That is no more obvious than when we look at the health-care system in the United States. Every time you get a bill, I’m going to guess that there is at least one part of you that thinks, “Aren’t they supposed to be there to help us?”

But as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. Because our health-care system is largely run by money and insurance, that means hospitals, doctors’ offices, urgent care centers, and everything else are run in order to make money.

When you and I go to get help, they give us help because it is being paid for. It may be paid for by insurance, the government, or patients directly, but you can be certain that someone, somewhere, is paying for it. That is how the world works.

But that is not how God works. As our hymn puts it,

4. For us He prayed; for us He taught;

For us His daily works He wrought,

By words and signs and actions thus

Still seeking not Himself but us.

In other words, everything that Jesus did on earth was not for Himself but for you and me. His teaching, His preaching, His defeat of Satan and His overthrowing of death and the grave, all of it was done for us.

In many respects, this is what makes studying the life of our Lord so worthwhile. Who else’s life can you look at and say is completely and utterly selfless in every way?

That is why the ordinariness of Jesus’ life is so important. He did miracles, yes, and we will continue to talk about them. But perhaps His greatest miracle is that He forgives our sins over and over again.

But this was not only Jesus’ work when He was here on earth. This is the work of the church, His Body, to this very day. Martin Luther put it this way in the Large Catechism:

Everything, therefore, in the Christian Church is ordered toward this goal: we shall daily receive in the Church nothing but the forgiveness of sin through the Word and signs, to comfort and encourage our consciences as long as we live here. (Large Catechism, Part 2, paragraph 55)

The daily work of God for us is to forgive sins in Jesus’ name over and over and over again. To the world, it looks ordinary—boring even. “They’re just words,” you might say.

But this is why God sent His Son out in the first place. He sent His Son so that He might seek us out, find us where we are, and care for us when we need it most.

Do you remember that scene with Jesus before Pilate, which we heard just a few moments ago? What was it that offended the council so? Again and again they tried to catch Him in His words, but the Word of life will not be tricked. He who is truth in the flesh has no reason to lie or deceive.

Ultimately, Jesus was judged to be crucified because He said He is the Christ, the Son of the God. Jesus admitted that He is the Messiah, the one who has come to save His people from their sins. And for that so-called blasphemy, they condemned Him to death.

It is hard for us to accept the ordinary work that God does in Jesus Christ. It is hard for us to believe that God works through simple words and ordinary objects to point us to who He is and what He does for us in His Son.

Our sinful nature rejects it as too easy, too obvious. Yet everything in the church is ordered so that you receive the forgiveness of sins and new life in His name here and now.

  The Messiah seeks you out. In “words and signs and actions thus,” as the series hymn puts it, He seeks you out so that you will repent of your sins and turn to Him.

Come, listen even now to His words of promise for you. Amen.

Now the peace of God which passes all human understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.  Amen.