Preparing for Worship - April 27, 2025

The Easter celebration goes on for seven weeks, as we rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and what that means for us. The Psalm for this week is Psalm 148, a great song of praise to the Lord. Everyone and everything everywhere is called to join in this praise, beginning with the angels and all in heaven and the sun and moon and stars and all the clouds from which the rain comes, who are all created by the Lord. All on earth are to join in this praise, as well, on the land and the sea and all the creatures and living things who dwell here. All people, high and lowly, young and old, are to praise the Lord, too. Even the seasons, with their variety and storms and wind, fulfill the Word and will of God and show His power and control. He and His majesty alone are to be exalted, and most especially because He has raised up a “Horn” for His saints, His believing people near to Him. (Animals with horns and heads held high represented strength and victory for Old Testament people.)  How did this happen? It is referring to the coming of the Savior Jesus. See Luke 1:67-79, where Zechariah, through the Holy Spirit, prophesied of the Lord Himself visiting and redeeming His people by raising up “a Horn of Salvation” from the house of David. Zechariah’s son, John the Baptist, would prepare His way, and then Jesus would come, as the “Sunrise” and “Light for us sitting in the darkness of sin and death” and to bring us into “the way of peace.” Jesus would bring the knowledge of and accomplish salvation for His people, in the forgiveness of their sins.

The certainty of that forgiveness, life, and peace was proclaimed through the resurrection of Jesus, after He had completed His work of forgiving our sins on the cross. The Gospel lesson is John 20:19-31. The disciples had lost hope and were full of fear, when the Lord Jesus appeared to them on Easter evening and the next weekend and many other times. It was Jesus, with the marks of the nails and spear in Him, yet with a resurrected and glorified body, which could appear and disappear and go through locked doors, and yet be seen and touched. He gave his disciples of His Holy Spirit, that they might believe and began to prepare them to be sent out into the world, sharing the forgiveness of sins that Jesus had won for them and for the world. The disciple, Thomas, was not there and refused to believe until Jesus also appeared to him. Brought to faith, Thomas proclaimed the truth about Jesus: “My Lord and My God.” That’s who Jesus was! The apostle John, who wrote this Gospel, added the Words of Jesus for future generations, including us, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed“ through the eyewitness testimony of these early believers who saw the risen Lord alive. John says that he writes this Gospel for this very reason: “These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing in Him you may have life in His Name.” John proclaimed this same truth in Jesus in all His letters and other writings. (See the quotation from Jesus in John 5:24 and what John clearly says in 1 John 5:9-13, for example.)

Peter and the other disciples proclaimed the same truth and hope in Jesus in Acts 5:12-20 (21-32). After initial doubts and fears, they boldly proclaimed the Risen Lord Jesus as Savior. More people came to faith as the Holy Spirit worked through the Good News of Christ they proclaimed, and people were helped and healed by God’s power, in Christ. The Jewish religious leaders, and particularly the Sadducees, who denied that there ever would be resurrection and life after death (see Luke 20:27), were very upset and jealous and had these disciples arrested and thrown in prison. An angel of the Lord opened the prison doors for them, though, and sent them back to the temple to keep speaking “all these words of Life” in Jesus to the people. The religious leaders were very surprised and perplexed when Jesus’ disciples were not in prison, but in the temple again, and they had them brought again, without force this time, to them to be questioned. They reminded the disciples that they were “strictly charged not to teach in the name of Jesus.” Jesus was the real problem for them! Peter and the other apostles answered, “We must obey God and not men.” In Greek, the word for “obey” combines two words: to obey someone in authority. (See how the same word is used in Titus 3:1, where we are called to be submissive and obedient to rulers and authorities, and in Acts 27:21, where Paul says, “You should have listened to me" (as an authority on this subject). God is our ultimate authority, and in v. 31, Jesus is called not only our Savior but our Leader, our Authority, in giving us both repentance and forgiveness of our sins, by which we are saved. Peter also brings in the importance of the Holy Spirit, who works through the Word to bring us to faith and keeps us in faith. Peter says what Jesus says in John 15:26-27: “When the Counselor comes, whom I shall send you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness to Me; and you also are witnesses because you have been with Me from the beginning.” See also the emphasis on the Holy Spirit, together with the Father and our Lord Jesus, in John 7:39 and Acts 11:15-18. It is ultimately God who saves by His grace. We do not save ourselves by our decisions and efforts. To God be the praise and glory, as the psalm for today said!

We hear from the apostle John one more time in the reading from Revelation 1:4-18. John was exiled by the Romans to the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. He had worked with churches in the Roman province of Asia Minor (part of what is now modern-day Turkey). The Lord instructs John to write to seven specific churches there, representing all churches. John begins this message with a blessing of grace and peace from the Triune God: the eternal Father, “who is and was and is to come,” and God the Son, Jesus Christ, firstborn from the dead by His mighty resurrection and now living and reigning over all, and God the Holy Spirit, described here and in Isaiah 11:2 as the sevenfold Spirit at work in the seven churches to whom John writes. John focuses then on the saving work of Jesus, who “loved us enough to free us from our sins by His blood” and made all believers part of His kingdom and “priests” before Him. (See 1 Peter 2:9-10, for example.) To God be the glory for all this, now and when Jesus comes again with the clouds on the last day, and all will see Him, and some to their sorrow for rejecting Him. This one true God is the Beginning and the End, represented by the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, “the Alpha and the Omega.” (The same is said of Jesus in v. 17-18, though as a true man, as well as God, He lived and died and rose again to life forevermore, with victory over death and the grave and hell.

In Revelation 1:9, John reminds the churches to whom he writes that he is with them in living in tribulation because of believing in and sharing the Word of God and the Good News of Jesus. Yet he is still part of Christ’s kingdom, and was called to write to the seven churches identified in v.11. He was called to write by Jesus Himself, now in glory in heaven and pictured in an amazing way, which combines pictures of God the Father, the “Ancient of Days,” and God the Son, “the Son of Man,” described in Daniel 7:9-14 and 10:5-19, etc. (This is a highly symbolic picture, which indicates from the start that much of Revelation uses such symbolic images. If you look at Revelation 1:12, 16, and then look at v.20, you’ll see that the stars and lamp stands represent angels and the seven churches. Jesus does not literally have a two-edged sword in His mouth, but His Word has great power, as pictured in Hebrews 4:12.)

All this is to say that Jesus instructed John to write the letters to the churches and the entire Book of Revelation to give them the Law, warning about sin, but above all, the Gospel, in Jesus and His saving work and victory for them, in a time of tribulation and difficulty. Much more could be said, obviously, but this could be summarized in the Words of Jesus, recorded also by John, in passages like John 16:20-22 and 16:33: “I have said these things to you that in Me you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” We are called, still today, to hear the Words of Revelation 1:17, when we sometimes feel like John and fall down as though dead, overwhelmed by the troubles and difficulties of this life. “Fear not,” says Jesus, as He points us to His Words and promises and His love and His victory already won for us for life and hope now and in eternal life to come in heaven.