Preparing for Worship - April 14, 2024

The first lesson this week is again from the New Testament, Acts 3:11-21, and the history of the early Christian church. A man lame from birth was begging at a gate of the temple. Peter has no money to give him, but he gives him something much greater and better. Through Christ’s power, the man is healed. For the first time in his life, he can walk and leap, and he praises God and hears of Christ the Savior (Acts 3:1-10). People want to praise Peter and John, but Peter points to Jesus Christ, the Author of Life, who was rejected by many and died but rose again. Peter calls the people to repent of their sins and turn to Christ for forgiveness and to be refreshed and restored by the Lord and await His return and final restoration of all things on the last day.

The Psalm is Psalm 4. David knows that the Lord has given him relief when he was in many tight spots in his life, being shamed and attacked by vain words and lies of others. He has been angry but seeks not to let that lead him into sin.  He trusted the Lord, and the Lord heard his prayers and gave him renewed joy in his heart and more restful sleep. The light of God’s face was upon him and allowed him to dwell in safety, even in difficult times.

In the Gospel lesson, Luke 24:36-49, we hear more about Jesus’ appearance to His disciples and some others after His resurrection. At first, they thought they were seeing a spirit or ghost. Jesus gives them lots of evidence that it is truly He, alive again with them, in His resurrected body. They can see His pierced hands and feet and touch Him. He asked for some food and ate it in front of them. He also gave them His Words, the Words of Scripture that predicted all this, and He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. He showed them that “it is written” that He, the Christ, would suffer and die and rise again on the third day. Now it would be their job to call people everywhere to repentance and forgiveness through Jesus and His Name and Word, empowered by the Holy Spirit, who would soon come upon them from on high at Pentecost.

That is exactly what we see Peter and John doing in our First lesson for today, in Acts, Chapter 3. That is also how we have come to faith in Jesus to this very day, John tells us, in our Epistle lesson, 1 John 3:1-7. It is through the Word of God proclaimed to us and taught to us, along with the Word connected with water in the gift of Baptism for us. Through the love of God, in Christ, we have come to faith and are actually children of God now, as we also await Christ’s appearance on the last day, when we shall see Him as He is, as those first disciples saw Jesus on Easter. We are purified now through Christ’s forgiveness, but we also try to battle the sin, the lawlessness, to which Satan seeks to lead us astray. We live by God’s Word and confess our sins and live by God’s mercy and forgiveness and strength in Jesus.