Preparing for Worship - February 25, 2024

The Old Testament lesson is from Genesis 17:1-7, 15-19. In this reading, God renews His covenant promise to Abram, originally given in Genesis 12 and repeated since then. God promises blessings for his offspring in the land of Canaan, but now changes Abram’s name to Abraham, “father of many nations,” as the promise now goes to a multitude of nations and kings and an everlasting covenant. God changes Sarai’s name to Sarah and says again that she and Abraham will have a child, to be named Isaac (he laughs). Abraham laughs at this since he and his wife are far beyond child-bearing years, but God says it will happen and that the child of promise will not be Ishmael, but Isaac.

In the Gospel lesson, Mark 8:27-38, Peter makes a great confession of faith, that Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah, the Anointed One of God. Quickly, though, he struggles and tries to rebuke Jesus, when He (Jesus) talks about suffering and dying. That was not the vision of the Messiah that Peter had in mind. Jesus has to rebuke Peter, saying that he was following Satan in trying to block God’s saving plan, which did involve Jesus losing His life for the sake of the saving Gospel. Jesus called Peter and all of us not to be ashamed of Jesus and His words, in an evil and adulterous nation. (The world was very evil back then, too, even as it is now.)

As Peter and Abraham struggled at times to trust God’s plan and will, so we all do, our Epistle lesson, Romans 5:1-11, tells us. Christ died for us and for the world, not when we were perfectly strong in faith and understanding, but when we were “weak, ungodly, sinners, and enemies” of God. We were “justified” and forgiven by “Christ’s bloody suffering” on the cross, so that “the wrath of God” was taken away from us, and we were reconciled to God and “saved by His life,” His perfect life for us and His resurrection from the dead. We now “rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The opening verses of this passage also tell us that through Christ, we also have “peace with God,” and “access” to “God” and His “grace.” Even if we suffer at times, the Lord produces “endurance, character, and hope” in us, through God’s love “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, given to us” through the Word of God and our Baptism.

Psalm 22:22-31 reminds us that God would do His saving work for us through Christ Jesus not just to get us off punishment for our sins but for an eternal future. (He did do that for us, as verses 1-21 of Psalm 22 tell and predict many parts of His suffering and death for us. We will hear more about that in Holy Week and Good Friday.) We are also saved by God’s grace so that we can tell others of God’s grace “in the great congregation,” as we worship together and speak and sing God’s Word together and praise our Lord. We also seek to “tell of the Lord” to “the families of the nations” and to our children and others in “coming generations” and “to a people yet unborn.” We confess that we cannot keep ourselves alive on our own, but that Christ Jesus “has done it” all for us, that we may trust in Him and “our hearts may live forever” through Him.