Preparing for Worship - February 8, 2026

This Sunday is Sexagesima (“sex” is the Latin word for the number “six”) Sunday in the One Year Series of Scripture readings, and the countdown continues toward Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten season. This week, the readings focus on the importance of hearing God’s Word and staying in that Word, as we have the opportunity for additional services and study during Lent.

The Old Testament lesson is from Isaiah 55:10-13. God promises that, as we have rain and snow to water the earth and cause seeds and crops to grow, so He sends out from His mouth the seed of His Word. The Word will accomplish His saving purposes and succeed in bringing faith and spiritual growth in people, who will find joy and peace in Him. The creation will sing and rejoice, and good growth, instead of thorns and thistles, will come forth. Above all, the Name of the LORD, the one and only true God, will be proclaimed, and the everlasting Sign of His promises will be seen and not cut off (in our Savior, Jesus). People can resist and reject God’s Word, as we will hear in later readings this week, but if you want other Scriptures that assure us that God’s Word will never return “empty” and devoid of any results, see Isaiah 45:22-23, 46:9-10, Psalm 33:8-11, Jeremiah 1:9-10, and Hebrews 4:12.

The psalm is Psalm 84. The psalmist, who helped provide music, rejoices in the courts of the Lord, the dwelling place of God with His people. His “heart and flesh,” his whole being, sings for joy to the Lord. (That suggests that we can all make “a joyful noise” to the Lord, even if we are not good singers, as Psalm 100:1-2 says!) If even birds can find a home and nest there, how much more blessed God’s people can be, finding strength in their God and King. The psalmist hopes that the hearts of people would lead them on the highways to Zion, the place of worship and prayer, and to appear before God. They can hear God’s Word, and He will “give ear” and listen to their prayers. He will especially point them to “the face of His anointed One,” our Lord and Savior, Jesus. Every day in the Lord’s house is a blessing, in contrast with the “tents of wickedness” that we find all around us, still today. The Lord provides favor (His grace and forgiveness in Christ) and good things for us, and sunny days for us, as our “Sun and Shield” in this dark world. Above all, He can bless us with greater trust and confidence in Him through His Word.

The Gospel lesson is from Luke 8:4-15. Great crowds were gathering to hear Jesus, and He spoke a parable, calling them to keep hearing His Word and to ask the Lord to help them be open to that Word in faith, because there were many enemies of Him and His Word, and many distractions to hearing that Word. Jesus used the example of what people at that time were very familiar with: small plots of land where seed was sown by hand. The seed was scattered and landed in different places: some on hard paths between the plots, some on rocky ground, some among thorns and other weeds, and some on good soil. Only the seed in good soil grew bountifully. Jesus then said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Jesus told parables like this primarily to keep people’s attention and make them think, using examples they could relate to, but even then, people, including His disciples, could not always understand or get the point. Jesus then explained that the seed was the Word of God. The devil snatched away the Word from people where he could, so that they would not believe and be saved. The Word on rocky soil represented people who began to believe but had no roots and fell away from faith in times of trial and testing. Thorns, the cares and riches and pleasures of this life, choked out others, and they did not mature in faith and continue in it. Other things seemed to become more important than faith in the Lord and His Word. There were those, though, who heard the Word and held it fast in an honest and trusting heart, by God’s grace, and bore fruit with patience, through Christ and the Holy Spirit, even in difficult times. That is what we ask the Lord to continue to help us believe and do, through His Word and Sacraments, and to keep us close to that Word in our daily lives. The Lenten season can help us with that, as we remember how much Christ has done for us in His saving work.

The Epistle lesson is one of the longest readings of the year, from 2 Corinthians 11:19-12:10, as Paul writes of God’s grace at work in him, through the Word. He could boast of His strong Jewish background, as he also does in Philippians 3:4-9. But he knows that it is only worthless rubbish compared with Christ, his Lord, and what Jesus has done for him. He could speak of the many troubles and sufferings he has gone through, as he does in this passage, from 2 Corinthians 11:23-27. But those sacrifices and struggles do not help or save him. Instead, he must speak of the things that show his weaknesses and his need simply to trust in the mercy and work of Christ His Savior, for him. He teaches, “Do not be anxious about anything” (Philippians 4:6). Yet he has to admit to his own anxiety for all the churches” and his “daily pressures” (2 Cor. 11:28-29). He was still a poor miserable sinner and calls himself the “foremost,” the “chief“ of sinners (1 Timothy 1:14-15) and is saved only by God’s grace. Paul then speaks of visions and revelations of the Lord and even being caught up to see a glimpse of heaven, of “paradise” (12:1-4). Some think that he may have needed these special revelations and more teaching, as a fairly new convert to Christ after being a Pharisee. At the same time, God gave him a “thorn in the flesh” to keep him humble and not conceited (12:7). What it was, we do not know, but even when he prayed three times for it to be taken away, God did not do so. God said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul then says, “for the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” - strong not in himself, but in Christ as his Lord and Savior, and Christ’s Word, the Scriptures, and His guidance and forgiveness. That is how we, too, with all our weaknesses and struggles, at times are strong in Christ, confessing our own sins and weaknesses, and trusting His mercy, forgiveness, and strength for our future as we continue to listen to the Word. The coming Lenten season, then, gives us another good opportunity for that, as well as in our regular worship.