Preparing for Worship - June 19, 2022

This is the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost. The psalm is Psalm 3, a psalm of David. David had been overthrown as king by his own son, Absalom, and Absalom now wanted to capture David and eliminate him as a threat to him. David knew that “many” were out after him, but trusted that the Lord would be his “shield” and help him. He was able to live without much fear and to sleep at night, knowing that “salvation belongs to the Lord” and that the Lord would ultimately bless His people and prays that he, David, would be saved, too.

The Old Testament lesson is from Isaiah 65:1-9. This is a lesson of judgment and grace, with both Law and Gospel. God condemns His own people, because they have been rebellious, with many actions that were not good, provoking God to His face very openly. Many of the things God lists have to do with the worship of false gods and goddesses and getting involved in occult activities, with secret rituals and attempts to consult the dead in tombs. (See Isaiah 8:19, for example.) Even with so much evil, many of the people still felt that they were superior and holier than others. God promised judgment upon their sins, their iniquities. At the same time, God promised to have mercy upon some of God’s people in Judah and Jerusalem and to spare them, so that His promises might be fulfilled for all.

In the Epistle lesson, Galatians 3:23-4:7, Paul says that Old Testament people were held captive and imprisoned by the Law of God, as a kind of guardian, seeking to keep them under control until the promised Savior, Christ Jesus, came and justified all people by the gift of faith in His saving work. Now, all people can be children of God by faith and the gift of baptism and be counted as offspring of Abraham and heirs of His promises, through Christ, who came to be the Redeemer of all.

In the Gospel lesson, Luke 8:26-39, Jesus showed that He had come for all people, by traveling to the area of the Gerasenes, where there were many Gentiles (non-Jews) mixed in with some Jews. Jesus healed one of the Gerasenes who had been possessed by a legion of evil spirits and brought him to faith. The evil spirits then went into pigs and caused all of them to drown. The Gerasenes were frightened by the power of Jesus and the economic loss of their pigs and asked Jesus to leave them. The man who was healed went around, though, telling everyone he could about what Jesus had done for him.

Members of St. James should note the alternative Old Testament reading they will hear, Genesis 22:1-14. God had called Abraham to be the father of a new nation, God’s chosen people of Israel. Then God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Abraham trusted God and prepared to do this, but God stopped him and provided a ram as a substitute for Isaac. This story is prophetic of the coming of God’s only Son, Jesus, from the line of Abraham. Jesus would be the substitute who would die for the sins of the world instead of Abraham’s son and in place of us, too. We can now be forgiven through faith in Him. This is another important step in God’s plan of salvation, working its way through the Old Testament, for the benefit of all people.