Week 2: Freedom From Our Stories
Welcome to the second in our series of Lenten reflections designed to help you go deeper this season using the Sunday sermon, the Gospel reading, and our 5 Weeks of Freedom small‑group study. Whether you’re following along on your own, gathering with family around the dinner table, or simply looking for a moment of grounding in a busy week, our hope is that these reflections help you experience God’s healing and freedom in new ways this Lent.
This week, we explore a theme that touches every one of us: the stories we carry—family stories, personal stories, painful stories—and how the Gospel meets us in the midst of them, not to judge us, but to free us.
How to use this devotional
Use this in whatever way serves you best:
Use as much or as little as you wish: One question may be enough for the whole week.
Preparation:
Read the Gospel John 3:1–17 (NRSV alongside The Message translation)
If you’re with others, pray this aloud. If you’re alone, read it slowly as a meditation.
Gracious God, as I/we gather this week, open my/our hearts to your presence and to the freedom your love offers.
Meet me/us in the places where I/we feel burdened or unsure.
Draw me/us closer with gentleness.
Help me/us come to you with what is real within—my/our hurts, my/our hopes, my/our questions.
Remind me/us that your desire is not to condemn, but to heal.
Not to judge, but to free.
Be with me/us now; help me/us listen with compassion, speak with honesty, and grow in your grace and love.
Amen.
The sermon began with something deeply human: the stories that shape us. Stories of family, loss, complicated relationships, and the long shadows cast by the past. Many of us know what it is to hold both gratitude and grief at the same time.
Some stories bless us.
Some stories wound us.
Most stories do both.
And yet, the Gospel meets us right there—not to shame us, but to free us.
Reflection:
Martin Luther once called John 3:16 “the Gospel in a nutshell” – For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
God the Punisher? The sermon reminds us that in many standard interpretations of Scripture, God is so angry at our sin, that God does not seem to want to forgive and instead demands punishment. And so the Son of God, is tortured and killed in our place, to appease God’s need to lash out.
God the Liberator? An alternative interpretation is that Jesus was rejected and killed because his way of love threatened those whose power relies on domination and violence. God raises and restores him to show all who would follow him, that violence, fear, and control do not have the last word – God does – and that last word is eternal love.
When you feel weighed down this week, pause for one breath and pray:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Let it be a small doorway into freedom.
Take a moment to reflect or share:
Close with the Lord’s Prayer if you wish.
Questions? Comment? Contact The Rev. Chris Harris at charris@christchurchcranbrook.org