Remember Lot's Wife!

 Jesu Juva

Luke 17:32                                                      

March 19, 2025

Lent Midweek 2                        

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        Do you remember Lot’s wife?  You should.  You’re supposed to.  Jesus says exactly that:  Remember Lot’s wife.  She was from the city of Sodom.  Lot had taken her as his wife after Uncle Abraham had let him choose the land where he and his flocks would settle. 

        Later on, we learn that both Sodom and Gomorrah were terrible twin cities—notoriously evil.  The wickedness of those places was so great that the Lord decided to destroy them both.  Two angels told Lot not to linger.  Get out fast and don’t look back!  But as fire and brimstone rained down from heaven—as Sodom and Gomorrah were consumed by God’s righteous wrath—Lot’s wife—she looked back.  And she became a pillar of salt.

        Why did she look back?  And why should we remember her? 

        As a little boy this story always bothered me because I was a little pyromaniac.  I was very fascinated by fire and flames and fireworks.  I feared I would have been just like Lot’s wife—rubbernecking with eyes wide open to take in the divine pyrotechnics.  Who could keep from looking at a firebombing so fierce?

        Of course, now I know that I was remembering Lot’s wife for the wrong reason.  Her looking back had more to do with her heart than with her eyes.  Her heart was attached to the things of her past—to what she was leaving behind.  Her forward momentum halted because her faith was faulty. At some level, she loved her life; and lost it.  She became a statue of sodium—a pillar of salt.  Remember Lot’s wife!

        The lesson of Lot’s wife isn’t easily learned.  For in fact, we are all a lot like Lot’s wife.  It doesn’t seem likely that Lot’s wife was attracted to the vices and depravities of her doomed city.  Perhaps what led to her downfall was the powerful pull of home—a nostalgia for the comforts of the past.  She was likely leaving behind a nice house like yours.  Perhaps on some doorframe was inscribed the heights of their growing daughters at various stages and ages.  A table where birthdays and holy days had been celebrated with love and laughter.  A well-manicured garden with spices and produce and flowers, surrounded by an elegant wall of stones.  We all crave that kind of carefully crafted normalcy.  Who among us could just walk away as it all goes up in smoke . . . without looking back?

        The life of the Christian is always a life of forward momentum.  Jesus doesn’t say, “Stay put.”  He says, “Follow me.”  He teaches that His followers should always be prepared and ready to let go and get going.  Just as it was in the days of Noah.  Just as it was in the days of Lot.  We must be cautious about becoming too comfortable with the status quo.  We must be careful with our attachments to the things of this world (even when those things are good things).  We must practice the difficult discipline of not lingering too long.

        It’s no coincidence that the Christian life is likened to running a marathon in Paul’s epistles.  It’s no surprise that the author of Hebrews is at his most memorable when he writes:  Let’s run!  Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.  Are you ready to run?  Are you “good to go” with the life of faith you have been given?  Are you able to say together with St. Paul, “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal?”  Are you ready to really remember Lot’s wife?

        Contentment is good; but contentment can quickly evolve into complacency.  Nostalgia for the comforts of the past can quickly crumble into the weary boredom of stagnation.  And that quest for comfort can quench the flame of faith.  Don’t stop and smell the roses!  (You heard me. Don’t do it!)  Don’t linger longer!  Don’t look back.  Let go and get moving!  Let go and get growing!  Follow where Jesus is leading!

        Where can you go?  Where can you grow?  Where is the Lord leading you?  In what ways are you called to lose your life so that you may keep it for eternal life?  Is it growth in giving?  Growth in service?  Growth in a life of prayer and Bible study?  Are you called to make big strides in your marriage, in your calling as husband or wife, son or daughter?  What steps can you take to be a better steward—to be generous toward God for all His benefits to you? 

        And just as importantly, what’s holding you back?  What sins are entangling you, keeping you from a deeper, richer life of discipleship?  What’s causing you to look back like Lot’s wife?  What do you need to lose—to leave—to let go of?  To remember Lot’s wife is to prepare our hearts to be painfully severed from even those things we hold near and dear.  Sometimes even blessings must be left behind.  And remember, you can never outrun temptation.  The further you go in running the race of faith, the more miles you put in the rear-view mirror—the more tempting it becomes to slow down—to stop—to look back.  Sadly, it’s never too late to turn into a pillar of salt.

        So see the Savior go and blaze the trail before you.  Watch Jesus just walk away from the kingdom, the power, and the glory that were His as the royal Son of God.  See Him humble Himself, to take on our flesh, to walk the way of humanity, surrounded by trials, temptations, and loss.  But Jesus never lingered long in any one place.  He was a man in motion.  He set His face to go to Jerusalem, to suffer many things and be rejected by His own people. 

        Nothing could deter Him from His rendezvous with the cross.  Not the applause of the crowds, not the distractions of demons, not the disappointing conduct of His own disciples.  His forward momentum never failed.  He never looked back.  He never stopped placing one foot in front of the other until those feet were nailed to the cross.  He came to save us from our sins by becoming sin for us.  He lost His life for us at Calvary so that He might share His life with you—in the water of your baptism, in the bread that is His body and the wine that is His blood.

        Seek to preserve your life, and conserve your life, and hang on to your life; and you will lose it.  But lose your life in Jesus—follow where He leads—and oh, the places you will go.  Tonight He extends His nail-scarred hands to you, to pull you ever forward, deeper into discipleship, closer to Him, through death to life everlasting.  And as you go on your way, remember Lot’s wife.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.