Preparing for Worship - January 26, 2025

There is the possibility of two different sets of readings being used in churches this week. I will begin with the regular readings for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany and then comment on the readings that recall the ministry of Paul’s co-worker, Titus. I will try to keep this shorter, as we have eight different readings to consider.

The Old Testament reading for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany is Nehemiah 3:1-3, 5-6, 8-10. Nehemiah was the cupbearer for King Artaxerxes when he heard that the Jews who had returned to Judah after the Babylonian exile were in great trouble and shame. The walls and gates of Jerusalem were still in ruins, and little had been done on repairs and restoration. Nehemiah went to Judah but found strong opposition from the non-Jews of the area to any help for the people of Israel. His own fellow Jews were doing little to help rebuild anything other than their own homes. Nehemiah encouraged his people and prayed to the Lord for them, and the Lord strengthened their hands for this good work. Different groups of Jews worked on each of the gates into the city of Jerusalem, and others worked on the walls in spite of continued threats. As they worked together, the Lord blessed them, the city walls were repaired, and a temple area was built.

The Psalm is Psalm 19:(1-6) 7-14. David speaks in a poetic way of how the amazing universe God created declares the glory of God and His handiwork. There is no speech, but there is a natural knowledge of God that all people recognize in the created world. This marvelous and intricate universe could not have just happened on its own. There had to be a Creator, a Supreme Being, or Beings behind all this, but people developed all sorts of ideas about such beings or gods. The One True God, the God of Israel, revealed the Truth through His Word, through the prophets and their writings, the Scriptures. The laws and testimonies and precepts and commands and all the Word of God show us the truth about the Lord. His Word shows our sins and errors and our need for Him, but it also rejoices our hearts with good news sweeter than honey, showing that the Lord is our Rock and our Redeemer, who rescues us from our troubled world.

In the Gospel lesson, Luke 4:16-30, there is another Epiphany, as Jesus goes to the synagogue, the worship center in His hometown of Nazareth, and reveals Himself as the promised Redeemer. He quotes from Isaiah 61:1-2a, a prophecy of the Christ, the Anointed One of God (that’s what the word “Christ” means), coming to proclaim Good News (Gospel) to poor and captive and blind people (that’s what we all are, spiritually, on our own, because of our sins) and to proclaim the Lord’s favor, His grace and love still given to us. Then Jesus said that this prophecy was being fulfilled that day in Him, as he had come to be that Redeemer and Rock of salvation. So, sadly, Jesus is quickly rejected by people from His hometown, who try to kill Him. But, as we heard last week, His “hour” had not yet come to suffer and die to pay the penalty for our sins on the cross and then to rise in victory. Jesus is thus able to escape at this point, but what was coming for Him was predicted - the rejection of Him by many of His own people, and rejection of this Good News going beyond Israel, as it did in the time of Elijah and Elisha, the prophets, and finally came even to us today.

The Epistle lesson continues a reading from last week from 1 Corinthians 12:12-31. In the One Holy Spirit, we were all baptized into one Body, the Holy Christian Church, no matter what our background, when we were brought to faith in Jesus and were baptized. As our human bodies have many parts all working together, Christ’s body, the church, has many people with different abilities, ideally working together. We need each other, even as Nehemiah had to get lots of people working on different projects to get all the walls and gates of Jerusalem rebuilt. Ideally, we care about each other in the church in times of suffering and in times of joy. (Obviously, only Jesus ever had this perfect love and care for us all as our Savior. But we are called to grow in such faith, hope, and love through Christ and His Holy Spirit, as we will hear next week in 1 Corinthians 13.

Churches that focus on the ministry of Titus this Sunday will use the following readings.

The Psalm is Psalm 17:1-14. The psalmist knows that there are many wicked, unjust, and cruel people in this world who oppose the Lord and His followers and accuse and attack them. The psalmist trusts that the Lord is his Rock of Refuge to whom he can continually come. The Lord is his Savior and Fortress. The Lord has been with him before he was born, in his mother’s womb, and will not cast him off in the time of old age or forsake him when his strength is spent and he’s not sure if he can go on. The Lord has been his hope and trust since His youth. He prays, “O God, be not far from me; O my God, make haste to help me.” He will seek to hope in the Lord continually and praise Him more and more, no matter what his circumstances are at the moment.

This is the hope that the Lord is seeking to instill in His leaders and, through them, in all His people. In the Gospel lesson, Luke 10:1-9, Jesus sends out 72 disciples, two by two, to the towns and places where He would soon be going to prepare the way for Him. He warns them that they are going out as “lambs in the midst of wolves.” He would be taking care of them, though, through the people they would reach out to. They should expect opposition but keep reaching out to those who will listen and make it clear that “the Kingdom of God has come near to you.” (It would come fully, of course, in Jesus and His Word and  ministry and His saving work for the world.) The disciples were also to pray earnestly for more laborers to tell of Christ, for He was the Lord of the Harvest and would be the One to bring people to faith through His Word and work and the work of the Holy Spirit.

There is no Old Testament reading but a reading from Acts 20:28-35, the history of the early Christian Church, as we also have in the Easter season. Paul was heading to Jerusalem, where he knew there would be trouble for him. He calls together the elders, the church leaders from Ephesus, and prepares them for what is ahead, as Jesus had prepared His disciples. Paul also warns, as Jesus did, of fierce wolves who would want to destroy the flock, the church of God. Some would even come from within, teaching twisted things, seeking to draw people away from the truth to their false ideas. Paul commends these true leaders to the Lord God and His Word. His grace would build them up and keep them in Christ and His eternal inheritance He had earned for them. This meant hard work, caring for the weak, struggling, and remembering that, as Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Jesus, of course, is the One who gave up everything for us, even His life, to be our Savior, sent from God the Father, and as the Risen Lord is the One who truly helps people through His saving work and through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Triune God saves, not us or any of our leaders.)

With the Epistle lesson, Titus 1:1-9, we finally hear of Titus, though he would have been hearing the same Word of God brought through the psalmist and Jesus and Paul. Here is what the Lutheran Bible Companion, Vol.2, CPH, p.979, says about Titus in a summary way. “A Gentile convert to Christianity who became Paul’s friend and helper. Titus went with Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem at the time of the council. Since Titus was born of Gentile parents, he was uncircumcised (Galatians 2:3-5). This offended the Judaizers at the council; however, the Church refused to make Titus submit to circumcision, siding with Paul, who maintained the freedom of Gentiles from the Mosaic Law (Galatians 2:1, 3-5). Titus was sent to Corinth to solve the problems there and then rejoined Paul in Macedonia (2 Corinthians 2:13, 7:6, 13-14, 8:6, 16, 12:18). Later, Titus was left behind in Crete to organize the churches there. Paul wrote his letter to Titus while Titus was in Crete (Titus 1:4-5). The last mention of Titus indicates that he went to Dalmatia (2 Timothy 4:10). According to tradition, Titus was the Bishop of Crete.”

In Titus 1:1-9, Paul calls Titus His true child in a common faith, which brings the hope of eternal life that God had promised and now shown in the coming of Jesus Christ our Savior and manifested in His Word. Paul had left Titus in Crete to help organize the churches and appoint elders (overseers equivalent to our pastors) in every town as leaders. The personal qualities of the leaders are described. (Though no pastor is perfect and lives by God’s grace and forgiveness, as we all do, these are qualities that Paul must have seen in Titus, too, with this responsibility.) Most importantly, a pastor should “hold firm to the trustworthy Word of God and be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also able to rebuke those who contradict it.” That’s a crucial responsibility- trying to keep people in God’s true and faithful Word.

You will likely hear only one of these sets of readings. You can still read and study the other set, too, if you have time, as there is much of importance in both.