Evening Prayer Wednesday Lent 1

Reading:
Mark 4:1-20

"The Sower"

As we go through the season of Lent, there is much talk about repentance.  Repentance is the turning away from sin and moving in the complete opposite direction.  So for us it is turning from our sinful desires and nature towards God who is loving and ready to give us the righteousness, not the righteousness that we think we posses, rather He is giving to us the righteousness of Christ.  But who does the turning?

In today's parable we see the sower who goes out and spreads the seed.  Some fall on different soil.  Some fell along the roadside and are picked off quick.  Some fall on ground but have no roots and die off quickly.  Others get choked with cares of this world.  Finally some fall on good soil.  But what is the good soil?

The good soil is a person who is broken, who realizes that they can not of their own reason and accord come to God.  It is a person who realizes that they are a sinner and that their sin separates them from God.  This person when they hear the Word of  God, they will be changed by the Word because their soul will be comforted by the fact that it is no longer about their works, but rather it is about the work of God.  We are passive in salvation.  It is God who calls us by the Spirit, the Spirit brings us to the Son, and the Son shows us the Father.  We can not do anything but decide to walk away from God's grace and mercy.  That is what the other soil showed us.  Those that choose to not hear the Word at all are easily picked off by Satan.  Others receive it with joy, but then they realize that it is not about them and their works, or the temptations get to great or the suffering too much and they die off because they feel they are unworthy.  Others start to sprout up but get distracted.  In all of these it is man choosing to walk away from God.  God is there with His mercy in the face of His Son.

But to those that are broken, the Word of God becomes powerful and alive.  For they realize that by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that the Gospel is not a theory, it is a Person and that Person is Jesus Christ.  He is the one that died on the Cross to save you from your sins and make you right with His Father.

May we continue to repent daily of our sins, return to the promises of our Baptism and allow the Spirit to change the soil of our hearts so that we can produce good works for the Kingdom.