Preparing for Worship - June 12, 2022

This Sunday is know as Holy Trinity Sunday, with a focus on the nature of God, revealed in the Bible as the One True Triune God.

The Psalm is Psalm 8. David praises the Name of the Lord, who is the Creator of the universe and all things and cares about even us ordinary human beings. God cares about us especially in sending His own Son, who was made a true man, “a little lower than the heavenly beings” and suffered and died for us. Hebrews 2:5-9 quotes this passage about Jesus and that He has now been restored to “glory and honor,” and God has now “put all things under His feet” as our risen, victorious Savior. See also Ephesians 1:22. Jesus also quotes this psalm about Himself when children were singing His praises in the temple (Matthew 21:16).

The Old Testament reading is from Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-36, where the Wisdom of God cries out to “the children of man” - a Wisdom that is pictured as a living Being, together with the Lord before anything in the universe was created and “beside Him, like a Master Workman,” in the creation of all things. “Whoever finds Him and listens to Him finds life.” This fits well with what is said about God the Son, “the Power of God and the Wisdom of God," “the Word made flesh," in the New Testament and what he has done for us. (See John 1:1-3, 1 Corinthians 1:24,30, and Colossians 2:3, for example.) Be aware that there have been false teachers like Arius in the past, and groups like Jehovah’s Witnesses in the present, who have used this passage to try to say that Jesus was just a created being with some godly power, but not true God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Their ideas are false, according to the whole witness of the Scriptures and a careful reading of this passage.

The Gospel lesson is John 8:48-59. Some Jewish people were calling Jesus a “Samaritan with a demon.” Jesus said that He was honoring His Father and doing His will, and twice He said, “If anyone keeps My Word, he will never see death.” Those challenging Jesus asked if he thought he was greater than Abraham, who died. Jesus then used the special name of God in the Old Testament, “I am Who I am” (see Exodus 3:14), and said, “Before Abraham was, I am,” claiming that He had always existed as the one true God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, from all eternity, long before Abraham or anyone or anything else. Earlier He had said twice, “I am He,” in John 8:24 and 28, making the same claim for Himself, as one with the Father. (See Isaiah 43:10-13, for example.) The Jewish opponents then thought Jesus was speaking blasphemy and tried to kill Him - which they eventually were able to do.

The Epistle lesson, Acts 2:14a, 22-36, is a continuation from last week, with more of the sermon Peter preached on Pentecost. Peter proclaimed that Jesus, God’s Son, was killed on the cross, but was raised from the dead on the third day. Peter gave his own eyewitness testimony to this fact, along with Scriptures that predicted this, from Psalm  16:8-11 and Psalm 110:1. (Psalm 110:1 is quoted 15 times in the New Testament, affirming that Jesus was the Son of David and yet David’s Lord, as God the Son, who rose from the dead and is at the “right hand of the Father” with authority over all.) Notice also how Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit are all described as being at work for us in v.31-33, and yet there is no other God but one (1 Corinthians 8:4). (That is the unexplainable mystery of the Trinity - three Divine Persons, yet only One True God, as described in the Scriptures.) Jesus is both Lord and God, and the Christ, the promised one who is our Savior.

There is one more note for St. James members. St. James will use Genesis 3:1-15 as the Old Testament lesson, as part of a special 10 week series they are beginning, telling the basic story of God’s saving work. God’s Son had to come and be the Savior of the world, because Genesis 3 describes the fall into sin (Adam and Eve wanting to be god-like and do what they wanted to do and rebelling against God’s will, which we still do, too, at times) and the need to overcome sin and defeat the power of the devil. Genesis 3:15 predicts the suffering and death Jesus would go through, and yet that He would rise again and ultimately “crush Satan and his power” for us.