Preparing for Worship - December 31, 2023

This Sunday is the First Sunday after Christmas, and later in the day, it is also New Year’s Eve. I will give you only some notes on the morning worship for this day. (I’ll also give you a correction from last week. God’s “house” at the time of David was still a tent, the tabernacle, and not a “tension,” as my podcast mistakenly said.)

The Psalm for this Sunday is Psalm 111, a great song of thanksgiving and praise to the Lord for His “great works.” His “wondrous works” and “the power of His works” are mentioned in v. 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7. He “commands His covenant” and “remembers” it. He is “gracious and merciful” and “sends redemption” to His people. “The beginning of wisdom” and “good understanding” is in “fear of the Lord,” honor and respect for His “holy and awesome Name” and His “faithfulness and uprightness.”

In Isaiah 61:10-62:3, the Old Testament lesson, Isaiah “greatly rejoices in the Lord” because He clothes people with “robes” of “salvation and righteousness.” In the future, “righteousness and salvation” shall “go forth” from Jerusalem “as a burning torch,” that other nations can see. God’s people will be “called by a new name” and will have a “crown” and “royalty” as they are in “the hand of the Lord.”

Paul speaks, in the Epistle lesson, Galatians 4:4-7, of that promised time, when God sent forth His Son, born of a woman (the Virgin Mary), to do the work of “redeeming” people (from their sins) so that they might be “adopted” as the children of God, as “the Holy Spirit is sent into their hearts” to enable them to call God their “dear Father” and trust in His Son and be “heirs” of eternal life. All this is through God and His work for them (and for us).

We see all of this beginning to happen in the Gospel lesson, Luke 2:22-40, as Jesus is brought into the temple as a young child, and a “devout” man, Simeon, sees Him and by the power of the Holy Spirit recognizes Him as the Savior, the Light (the burning torch) for Jews and Gentiles, for “all peoples.” Simeon predicts that people would either “rise or fall” in relationship with Jesus (trust Him or not trust Him), that Jesus would be “opposed,” and that He and His mother would have much sorrow (His suffering and death) before His work would be completed in “glory.”

A woman, Anna, led by God, also came at the same time and gave thanks to God for the coming of Jesus as Savior and went out to tell others who were also waiting for the “redeeming” work of God through Him. The fulfillment of God’s great work in Jesus was already beginning and people were already receiving the robe of righteousness and salvation He came to earn for them (and for us).