Matins Devotions: May 5-9, 2025

MONDAY

Luke 7:1-17

Something I’ve noticed in my years as a pastor is that people who don’t know how to be “a man set under authority,” as the Roman centurion calls himself, very much struggle to be Christians, if they even make any effort to begin with. Whether they come to church or not, they’re open to the ideas of the Christian faith, open to the various doctrines and teachings. But the second the church and the scriptures call them away from whatever idols they want to keep, they get angry and insist that the church must yield to them, that the Bible must get out of their way, that everyone who would dare tell them what to do is a fool.

That’s the common behavior you find in people who don’t know how to be set under authority, people who didn’t learn how to do that from their fathers, from their mothers, from their communities. And it makes sense. When you learn to obey your parents and other authorities, that gives you the framework for learning how to obey God. And so, if you won’t obey men, obeying God isn’t going to come very easily. 

And in the end, this is probably the answer to the riddle of why the Roman Centurion believes in Christ but the Chief Priests and Pharisees don’t. The Roman Centurion trained for the faith by taming his pride and learning to follow another’s commands. The Chief Priests and Pharisees invented their own commands and thus couldn’t figure out how to change course when the Great High Priest arrived. 

And so, as families fall apart throughout the world, as more and more children are raised without parents or by absent parents or faithless parents who won’t teach them how to live under the authority of God, let us pray that the Holy Spirit may turn their hearts, and may give them the strength and wisdom to teach their children how to be under the authority of our Father in heaven. And let us also pray that the Holy Spirit would fill our hearts with that same faithfulness. May we rejoice to die to sin every day, to turn away from our arrogance and pride, our foolish belief in our supposed superior wisdom. And every day, may we hunger for the healing that our Lord Jesus Christ so graciously poured out upon the unworthy, the grace His Father sent Him to give us, the grace that has made us children of God who will live with Him in His kingdom forever.

TUESDAY

Luke 7:18-35

Congregations sometimes get a little too worried about how visitors perceive them in terms of friendliness. We want people to think that we’re warm and inviting, but we also don’t want to smother people. And while it’s good to be mindful of striking a healthy balance, the truth is that visitors, quite strangely, will often visit looking for an excuse not to come back, either because someone else dragged them there or because they’re momentarily yielding to the Holy Spirit’s call to return to the church before once again concluding no other Christians on earth are worthy of their presence.

And when people are of that mindset, there’s no perfect way to approach them because they will just tell you that you should have done the opposite of whichever approach you chose. If you fell all over yourself greeting them, they wanted space. If you gave them space, they wanted you to fall all over yourself. Heads they win, tails you lose.

This is the same mindset that Jesus speaks of concerning His ministry and John’s. John came playing a dirge, calling the people to repentance. The unbelievers then say they wanted someone to arrive with a message of joy. Then Jesus arrives joyously casting out demons and raising the dead and the unbelievers insist that, now, actually is the time for a message of sorrowful repentance. Heads they win, tails Jesus and John lose.

So don’t go out of your way to offend people. Don’t ignore them or love-bomb them. But don’t be too concerned with how those outside the church perceive the church. Cling to the message of Christ crucified for your sins and the sins of the world, and echo that message in your worship and your treatment of others. Every day, sing the funeral dirge of sorrow over your own sins and then run to the flutes and tambourines and shouts of joy surrounding the Savior who has taken those sins away forever. And in all things, trust that the Holy Spirit will use your songs of sorrow and joy to guide the lost back into the arms of Christ. Heads, He wins. Tails, so do you.

FRIDAY

Luke 8:22-39

Sometimes the best way to understand a thing is to see the opposite of the thing first. The best way to understand beauty is to first stare at hideousness. The best way to see the glory of hope is to stare into the pit of despair. The best way to understand the eternal victory of Jesus is to look at the momentary victory of Satan. And this is something we’re blessed to do in our reading from Luke this morning.

Here, in the land of the Gerasenes, our Lord and His disciples come across a man possessed by a horde of demons named Legion. Here you have a man who prowls around naked, using his strength to frighten and attack men. Here you have demons in graveyard, mocking and humiliating the children of Adam, the naked man their father the devil clothed in condemnation. In all of this, you have a hideous inversion of the day of the resurrection.

And so, when we look upon the beauty of Easter Sunday, how much more beautiful is it by comparison? Because here, on Easter Sunday, you have angels in the graveyard, announcing that the Son of God who loves you is risen. Here, you have the Savior of the world walking among the tombs, proclaiming to Mary Magdalene that all of her sorrows are gone, that His God is now her God, His Father now her Father. Here, the Son of God is using His strength not to hurt us or terrorize us, but to crush the writhing serpent at our feet, and to clothe us. Here the King who is clothed in righteousness has come to take away our nakedness and shame, come to clothe us in the glory of His triumph.

It’s a glorious image, made all the more glorious by first starting at the ugliness of Legion, who has lost. And Satan has lost. But Christ has won. Alleluia, Christ is risen.