Preparing for Worship - January 11, 2026

We are now in the Epiphany season, where we think of the light of Christ shining forth through the Word of God and through His own Words and deeds for us, as our Savior. It is also a time for thinking about sharing our Christian faith with others in whatever ways we can. We continually need God and His Word, as the psalmist reminds us in Psalm 42:1-7. When our souls are cast down and troubled by the cares of this life, we can hear the unbelieving world say, “Where is your God?” and we can become discouraged. Three times the psalmist says this, in Psalms 42 and 43. But each time the psalmist finally realizes that he needs to “hope in God,” for He is our “Living” Lord and our salvation, most especially in Christ Jesus, in His Word and Sacraments, as the New Testament makes clear. We need to keep reading and hearing the Word, to quench our spiritual thirst, and to come when we can and are able “in procession to the house of God.”

The Old Testament lesson is 1 Kings 8:6-13. We hear of how Solomon was able to build the temple in Jerusalem and then made sure that the ark of the covenant was moved from David’s tent of meeting into the Most Holy Place of the temple, where God would appear to His people in a cloud of glory. In the Ark were only the two tablets of stone given at Mt. Sinai by God, representing all of His Word and will and promises He gave to His people. How important that Word of God is to us, still, now found completed in the Scriptures of the New Covenant, New Testament, as well as those of the Old Testament, centered in salvation in Christ.

The Gospel lesson is Luke 2:41-52. We hear of Jesus as a 12-year-old, accompanying Joseph and Mary to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. This is the only Scripture in the Bible about Jesus in his youth, from the time He returned from Egypt as a little boy until He began His public ministry and was baptized at about age 30. Joseph and Mary seemed to be faithful in following Jewish tradition through the years and in teaching Jesus the same. This year, though, when Passover days were ended, and the family started home in a caravan of people, Jesus did not go with them, but stayed behind in Jerusalem. When they realized that He was not with their group, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for Him. They finally found Him in the temple with the teachers, listening and asking questions. “And all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding  and His answers.” Also astonished, Mary asked Him, in a kind of rebuke, “Child, why have you treated us this way? Your father and I have  been searching for you in great “distress.” (The only other time in Luke’s Gospel that this word is used is when Jesus uses this word  in describing the rich man’s “anguish” in hell in Luke 16:24-25.) Jesus responds with a question. “Why were you looking for Me? Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?” Joseph and Mary do not understand what He is saying and meaning. Already at age 12, though, Jesus knows that He is the Son of God and must do His Father’s will and be about His Father’s work, but He also must be submissive to His Heavenly Father’s plans and timetable and to Joseph and Mary. He returned home and was a faithful child. He increased in wisdom and favor with God and man and grew in stature, too, to be a man. Mary kept all these things in her heart and pondered them, as she had done earlier, with the birth of Christ and the words of the shepherds, in Luke 2:19. She did not understand everything, though, and was not perfect. Early in His ministry, we read that Jesus didn’t even have time to eat, and when his family heard it, they went out to seize Him, for they were saying, “He is out of His mind” (Mark 3:20-21). And soon after, in Mark 3:31-34, Mary and His brothers came and called out to Him. Jesus ignored them and said to those listening to His teaching: “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.” John 7:5 also says that “not even Jesus’ brothers believed in Him.” Mary seemed to have her ups and downs, but she was saved by faith through God’s saving grace for her, as were Jesus’ brothers. See Luke 1:46-47 and Acts 1:14. (Most think that Joseph died and that Jesus, as the oldest son, had learned and practiced Joseph’s skill and worked as a carpenter, thus caring for His family, until His public ministry began. See what is said of Him, as He goes to His hometown of Nazareth and teaches in the synagogue in Mark 6:3, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us? And they took offense at Him.) Yet He faithfully carried out His Father’s will and finally went willingly to the cross to pay for our sins and save us, too, through the gift of faith in Him.

The Epistle Lesson is Romans 12:1-5. For eleven chapters, Paul has been writing the Good News of Christ as Savior to people in Rome. He appeals to God’s mercies for them, now, that they may, by the grace of God, have their minds transformed and renewed and may worship and trust the Lord Jesus and His saving work for them. As he had written early in this letter, “The Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,” as “the righteousness of God is revealed and given to us,” not by what we do, but by what Christ has done for us, and “our living now by faith in Him” (Romans 1:15-17). Paul knew that he lived only by the grace of God given to him in Christ. And he encourages the believers in Rome also not to think highly of themselves, but to think about the measure of faith that God had given and assigned to each of them, and how they can serve Christ together. Every Christian is a part of one body in Christ. We have different gifts and abilities, given by God’s Spirit, but the same faith and confidence, not in ourselves, but in our Savior. In Him we trust, because of what He has already done and accomplished for us, and we ask Him to conform us more and more to Him and His Word. That is our spiritual worship, as He works in us and strengthens us through His Word and the blessings of our own baptism and the Lord’s Supper. And we can keep reading and studying that Word on our own, for the strength our Lord provides in that way, too.