Preparing for Worship - December 7, 2025

This is the 2nd Sunday in Advent, as we continue to hear of the “comings” of Christ for us in His saving work, first in Old Testament prophecy and then in His redeeming sacrifice for us and bringing us to faith through His Holy Spirit, and continually guiding us through His Word and Sacraments, and then finally His promise to return on the last day. We had the Old Testament lesson, Malachi 4:1-6, just a few weeks ago, on November 16, and so I will just repeat much of what I wrote about that lesson at that time. A fire of judgment is coming, when all arrogant and evildoers, who have rejected the Lord, will be stubble, with neither root nor branch. For those who fear and trust the Name of the Lord, though, and his Word through Moses (and others), the Sun of Righteousness will come with healing, and the wicked, apart from the Lord, will be like ashes under the feet of God’s people. (See Romans 16:20.) Someone like Elijah will come and turn the hearts of many back to the Lord and to fellow believers, before a day of utter destruction comes. (See Luke 1:13-17, where John the Baptist is clearly identified as the prophet who would come in the Spirit and power of Elijah to do this preparatory work for the coming Savior, our Lord Jesus. See also Luke 1:67-79, and consider Matthew 3, where John preaches of the judgment to come while also proclaiming Jesus as the Son of God and the Savior. See how Jesus also identifies John the Baptist as “the Elijah who is to come,” in Matthew 11:2-15.)

The psalm is Psalm 50:1-15. God the Lord comes, and He does not keep silence. He speaks and summons the whole earth to listen. He speaks to His own people of Israel and says that he will testify against them. They have been making sacrifices to Him, but acting as if they were earning God’s favor, and, as Martin Luther wrote, thought that “God must surely be thankful and indebted to them.” Instead, God reminds them that He is their God and the Creator of all things and owns everything. They could only offer what was already His, and with which he had blessed them. He did not get hungry and did not eat and drink of what they offered Him. Instead, they were living by His grace and mercy for them and should realize how indebted they were to Him. They should offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise to Him for His goodness and mercy to them and serve Him with gratitude, and they needed to realize how much they needed His help in days of trouble and glorify Him for His deliverance, again and again. As the psalm ends in v. 23, God says, “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies Me.”

The Gospel lesson is Luke 21:25-36. Jesus speaks of the end times, and “distress of nations in perplexity” and “people fainting with fear and with foreboding on what is coming on the world,” when they do not have hope in “the Son of Man,” Jesus Himself. If people trust solely in themselves and their purely human answers and efforts, they will have no genuine hope. Doesn’t that sound like the situation of so many in our troubled world today? However, Jesus says that He came into the world to bring the Kingdom of God near and to accomplish the work of redemption for us through His death and resurrection, as other Scriptures clearly indicate. We are called to faith in Him as our Savior and to trust His Word of promise and salvation, which will not pass away. We are called by His grace and power, not to be weighed down by evil or by the cares of this troubled life, but to “straighten up and raise our heads high,” standing confident before “the Son of Man,” our Lord and Savior, and His Word. We will receive the fullness of our redemption either when we die and are taken in faith to eternal life in heaven, or when we and all living believers are caught up to be with Christ, body and soul, on the last day.

The Epistle lesson, Romans 15:4-13, also calls us to have confidence in “the living and abiding Word of God, which will not pass away.” (See the Words of 1 Peter 1:23-25, also.) Paul reminds us that “through the encouragement of the Scriptures we have hope and can endure in faith in Christ,” as we glorify God with our fellow believers. Paul also reminds us that Jesus “became a servant to the circumcised,” to His fellow Jews, in His Words and deeds and saving work for them on the cross, to confirm His Old Testament promises. Then Paul quotes from numerous other Old Testament promises, showing that the Gospel was also for non-Jews, the Gentiles, for whom Jesus also died. Gentiles can glorify God for His mercy, which is also extended to them, as they are brought to trust in Christ Jesus. Note passage after passage from the Old Testament that Paul quotes to show that Gentiles also can rejoice in Christ and find eternal hope by faith in Him and His saving work for them, too. (See Psalm 18:49 and 2 Samuel 22:50, Psalm 117:1, Isaiah 11:1-10, Isaiah 42:6-10, and in the New Testament, Revelation 5:9 and 7:9-10, etc.) Paul concludes this passage, then, with Words of great hope in Christ for Jews in Rome and many more Gentiles there, as well,  as Christ “gave Himself as a ransom for all” and “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” through faith in Him. (See 1 Timothy 2:3-8.) Here is Paul’s wish and promises for each of you reading or hearing this, too. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” - in this life and in eternal life to come.