Preparing for Worship - August 18, 2024

There are two possible Old Testament lessons this Sunday. The first is Proverbs 9:1-10. This passage describes Wisdom as a wise woman who built her house on a very firm foundation. (The number “seven” represents “completeness and perfection.”) She has prepared a banquet including meat and bread and wine, which represent the “insight,” “instruction,” and “teaching” that can be found by coming to where the real wisdom is, in “the fear of the Lord” and knowledge of the Holy One, the Lord Himself and His Word. Young women are sent out to invite everyone to come, though it is known that scoffers and the wicked might refuse.

Jesus Himself is pictured in the New Testament as the Power of God and the Wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), and even the demons recognize that Jesus is “the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24). Jesus also tells a parable of a wedding banquet, where many invited guests refuse to come. The king then invites many others, all kinds of people, who do fill up the banquet hall with wedding garments provided for them to make them acceptable (Matthew 22:14). Jesus Himself is the Way and the Truth and the Life and has earned all these blessings for us by His sacrifice on the cross and then bringing us to faith in Him by His Word and Spirit.

The rest of Proverbs 9 then tells of another woman, called Folly, who seductively sits at her door and tries to draw senseless people into her home to stolen water and bread eaten in secret pleasures that lead people only to death, away from the Lord and His will. That is the other way, apart from Christ.

The alternate Old Testament reading is from Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18. Joshua had led the chosen people of Israel into the promised land and helped them to get settled through the Lord’s Word and guidance. The Lord knew that some still had mixed up loyalties to the One True God and other voices and could also be led astray by the Amorites and others with false gods around them and other false influences and gods from the past. The Lord had Joshua make a strong call for the people to trust the LORD, the One True God, alone and not to “forsake the LORD to serve other gods.” That would be their downfall. As with the reading from Proverbs 9, that would be listening to the voice of folly instead of the voice of the Wisdom of the One True God. Both Joshua and the people affirm that they would serve the LORD, for He is their God.

The Psalm is Psalm 34:12-22. This continues the reading from last week of the opening verses of this psalm, which end with the words of David, “Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD” (Psalm 34:11). These are the same Words that Wisdom speaks in the Proverbs 9 reading, which added that these Words bring “the knowledge of the Holy One of God” and true “insight.” David speaks of “seeking peace and pursuing it” in God’s good will. When we are “broken-hearted” in our sins and “crushed in spirit,” the LORD is near and “redeems the life of His servants; none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.” God’s people will still have afflictions, as David did, but “the LORD delivers them out of them all.” There is even a prophetic Word from David in this psalm about our Lord Jesus, our ultimate deliverer, who, even in His terrible death for us, “kept all His bones; not one of them was broken.” (See John 19:32-36.) Above all, there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Roman 8:1).

The Gospel lesson, John 6:51-69, continues readings from the last two weeks about Jesus identifying Himself as “the Bread of Life that came down from heaven” (John 6:33,35,38,41). Jesus repeats this in John 6:51 and adds that “the bread He will give for the life of the world is His flesh.” At this point, Jesus is especially referring to the sacrifice of His flesh, His body, on the cross, in payment for the sins of the world, as the Lamb of God. (See John 1:14 and 29 and John 3:13-15 and later on, the explanation in Hebrews 10:5-14.) Jesus is calling people to hear His Word and trust in Him, even as Wisdom, in Proverbs 9:5,10 called out, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and live, and walk in the way of insight,” - “the insight of the knowledge of Jesus as the Holy One, given by God.”

Jesus puts the emphasis upon trusting Him and His Word, through the Holy Spirit. “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh (our flesh) is no help at all. The Words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and Life” (John 6:63). Jesus also says, “This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless it is granted him by the Father” (John 6:65). These seemed to be very hard words from Jesus, and we sadly hear that “many turned back and no longer walked with Jesus” and no longer followed Him. Even one of the original 12 disciples, Judas, was turning against Him (John 6:60,61,66,67,70-71). Simon Peter, however, spoke of what was really true. “Jesus has the Words of eternal life, and we have come to believe and have come to know that Jesus is the Holy One of God,” just as Wisdom had said in Proverbs 9:10.

When we read or hear this passage today, especially John 6:53-58,  we think also of God’s great gift of Holy Communion, where we receive in, with, and under the bread and wine the very Body and Blood of Christ Himself. At the time Jesus first spoke these words, though, He had not yet instituted and given this Holy Meal. That would not happen until at the Lord’s Supper, the night before Christ’s sacrifice of His flesh, His Body and Blood, on the cross. Christ Jesus certainly had in mind and was predicting the coming gift of Holy Communion, though, which now forgives our sins and strengthens our faith, as baptized and prepared believers, in fellowship with one another, so that we may “abide in Christ, and He in us,” as we receive the Lord’s Supper often (John 6:56-58).

The Epistle lesson, Ephesians 5:6-21, also continues readings we have heard for several weeks, from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. Paul warns His fellow believers not to be deceived by “empty words,” which are not of and from the Word of God. Once, we were “darkness” in our sins and sinful nature, but now we are “light in the Lord,” wanting to follow what is good and right and true and pleasing to the Lord. Ephesians 5:14 may be part of an early baptismal hymn of the early church. We were “dead” in our sins and “unfruitful works of darkness,” but now have been awakened in our baptism and through the Word of God, and Christ shines on us and the Holy Spirit fills us. Together, we sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, thanking the Triune God in the name of Christ. We try not to push our own selfish will but seek to submit to God’s ways in loving service to one another. (See Galatians 5:13 as another description of this, in reverence for Christ our Savior.)