Today is Leap Year Day. Imagine if time worked so that you could add an extra day when needed. What would you spend the time – catching up on work, catching up on sleep, catching up on…? Which is perhaps why, regardless of if it is a Leap Year of not, one thing people spend time doing is catching up on cleaning – Spring Cleaning we call it, perhaps because we’ve let things pile up from summer, fall, and winter to the point that something must be done.

In this Sunday’s Gospel reading from John 2, we’ll hear about Jesus doing some “Spring Cleaning” as He clears out the temple courts which had become cluttered with people doing all sorts of things that in their minds were associated with worship of the Lord but in, in fact, were keeping people from true worship. Even when it comes to sacred places, we can let things pile up (and sometimes not even know there’s a problem). David writes in Psalm 51: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Your presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” (Psalm 51:10–12 ESV) In essence, He is realizing that his sinfulness has piled up and Almighty God has every reason to throw him away. But David is pleading for mercy and that God would find him worth saving. He is confessing his sin, taking responsibility for it, realizing its consequences, and seeking forgiveness and a heart that now delights in God.

What about us? Do we always see how bad our sin has become? Do we always realize the consequences it deserves? When we do, we hate the clutter and want to be cleansed. We repent, hating the wrong we have done and wanting nothing more to do with it. We plead for mercy that God, who alone can cleanse us, would do just that – completely forgive us. God’s answer is the cross of our Lord Jesus. As Martin Luther puts it through words we’ve been using the past few weeks during our worship services: “He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in His Kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity.” If I might be so bold, I would like to add one thing to Luther’s explanation of the Second Article of the Creed: “serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, blessedness, and thankfulness.” What a wondrous God who does not throw us away, but gives us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. How can we not live a life which simply says, “Thank You!”