Preparing for Worship - January 4, 2026

This Second Sunday after Christmas continues the Christmas season and the early days of our Lord Jesus. It has nothing to do with the popular song about The 12 Days of Christmas: “On the first day of Christmas… etc.” The Scriptures continue to tell the story of the early days of Jesus and His family and how they endured danger and suffering and had to make long journeys to Egypt and then back to Nazareth. We hear of others in their challenges and journeys, and how the Lord will help and carry us, too, whatever the days ahead will bring for us.

The Psalm is Psalm 77:11-20, a psalm of Asaph. Asaph was a musician serving David and God’s people. See 1 Chronicles 15:16-19 and 16:4-5,7. Asaph also wrote Psalm 50 and Psalms 73-83. Read the first 10 verses of Psalm 77 to see how discouraged and troubled Asaph was, at times, wondering if God had forgotten to be gracious to him and his people. Finally, he wakes up to his need to listen to the Scriptures and to God’s Words and promises. In v.11ff, he remembers the holy way and the mighty deeds of the Lord and how He had redeemed His people from slavery in the Exodus from Egypt. He had carried His people through stormy times and great waters and led His people like a flock, through Moses and Aaron and others. This is prophetic of Jesus, too, when He came as the Good Shepherd and Savior and made His way through the stormy sea, walking on water and showing no footprints, and rescuing his disciples and Peter. See Matthew 14:24-33, for example, and Christ’s preparing for us an unshakeable Kingdom, as spoken of in Hebrews 12:26-28.

The Old Testament lesson is Genesis 46:1-7. Jacob (Israel) and his family had been through many troubles, including the seeming death of his son, Joseph. Now he is told that Joseph is alive and is a leader in Egypt, and that he and his family will be blessed and become a great nation there, by God’s grace. The Lord God Himself told Jacob this in a vision and promised that He would be with His people in Egypt and would make sure that Jacob would be buried in a place prepared for him in Canaan. (The Lord kept His promises and later on, of course, rescued His people from slavery in Egypt and brought them back to the Promised Land, through Moses and then Joshua. You can also read comments on this made by Stephen in his speech to Jewish religious leaders in the New Testament in Acts 7:14-17.)

The Gospel lesson is from Matthew 2:13-23. Once again, there is danger and trouble, this time for Jesus Himself and His family. An angel appears to Joseph in a dream and warns him to take Jesus and His mother with him to Egypt, because Herod wants to find Jesus and kill him. The family quickly left and stayed in Egypt until the death of Herod. (The family could, in this way, fulfill the prophecy of Hosea 11:1, when they returned from Egypt to Israel, after Herod died.) The wise men were to report back to Herod after they located Jesus, but they were warned not to do so. Herod is furious that the wise men did not tell him the location of Jesus, and as a very cruel man, he decides to take no chances that he would miss killing Jesus and orders that every baby boy in Bethlehem and the surrounding area, two years old and younger, should be killed. (This is totally in character for Herod, for other sources report that Herod had several of his own family members murdered because he feared that they might be a threat to him.) This event also fulfilled a prophecy of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 31:15, connected with the sorrow and weeping by Rachel, wife of Jacob, who dies in childbirth, during the birth of Benjamin, the “son of her troubles.” (At the time of Jeremiah, many mothers would weep at the death of their children, at the hands of the Babylonians. At the birth of Christ, others would weep at the death of their children at the hands of Herod, very near where Rachel had wept, long before.) After Herod died, an angel appeared again to Joseph in a dream and told him to take the child and his mother and return to the land of Israel. Since Herod’s son, Archelaus, was now reigning in Judea and having received another warning in a dream, Joseph did not go to Bethlehem or near Jerusalem, but settled in Nazareth, since that was his hometown and the hometown of Mary. (See Luke 1:26ff.) Jesus grew up in Nazareth and is referred to as a Nazarene in this passage and in Mark 14:67. Since this northern area of Israel was also known as the District of Galilee, Peter was sometimes called a Galilean. (See Mark 14:70.) Galileans were often looked down upon by Jews from the Jerusalem area. When told of Jesus, Nathanael said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). This location, where Jesus grew up, was something of a barrier between Jesus and the Jews in Judea and Jerusalem, but it was where God the Father wanted Him, for much of His ministry.

The Epistle lesson is 1 Peter 4:12-19. We have already heard in our other readings of the changes and challenges and troubles that come at times for those following the Lord. Jesus experienced those things in the fullest way, as our Savior, doing His Father’s will in a perfect way in this sinful world. Peter had talked about this again and again in this letter. In 1 Peter 3:17-18, he wrote, by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, “It is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.” In 4:1, Peter also wrote, “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same thought.” Now in this passage, 4:12ff.,  Peter says, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you.” This is not “something strange,” but what Christ went through for you and me in the fullest way. We may be “insulted for the name of Christ,” but we can rejoice in that, for the Spirit of God is keeping us in faith, for eternal life. We are not to do evil, bringing on consequences we deserve, though that happens at times to us because we are struggling sinners. However, if we suffer for being a Christian, God is glorified in the name of Christ. Such suffering can happen “in the household of God,” as it did with Peter (and Paul) and other early Christians. James wrote, in his letter, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” The Lord will carry us through to salvation, though, unlike the ungodly, who have no one to save them. So, Peter says, “Those who suffer, according to God’s will, submit their souls to a faithful Creator” while still seeking “to do what is good.”  Our future is secure in Christ.