Preparing for Worship - July 21, 2024

The Old Testament lesson this week is Jeremiah 23:1-6. The Lord condemns shepherds who have not attended to their sheep, God’s people, but, through evil deeds, have scattered and destroyed them. The Lord Himself will gather the remnant of His flock and bring them back and set shepherds over them who will care for them. And days are coming, declares the Lord, when He will raise up a righteous Branch who will reign and deal wisely and bring salvation and security. This is prophetic of the coming of Jesus, who is both our Lord and our Righteousness.

The Psalm is Psalm 23. This psalm also speaks of the Lord and His care for His people and points forward to the coming of Jesus. Jesus will restore our souls and lead us through this life in His righteous way and through the valley of death to the house of the Lord, where we will live forever.

In the Gospel lesson, Mark 6:30-44, we see our Lord Jesus having compassion upon crowds of people because they were like sheep without Him, the Shepherd they really needed. He taught them the Word of God, and when it became late that day, He even provided physical food for them abundantly in a miraculous way. (Jesus did this again in a less heavily Jewish area, the region of the Decapolis, when in Mark 8:1-10, he fed another 4,000 people, spiritually and physically, in an abundant and miraculous way.)

This demonstrates what Paul talks about in the Epistle lesson, Ephesians 2:11-22. Jesus came not only for the old covenant people of Israel but for all people who were once far off from the promises of God but were now brought near through His blood shed for them. Christ Jesus is the Way to peace for all people, Jews and non-Jews, united in Him. He is the Cornerstone for a new and holy temple of believers in Him, the Holy Christian church, where God dwells among His people by His Word (and Sacraments) and through the Holy Spirit.