Preparing for Worship - June 23, 2024

In the Old Testament lesson for this week, Job 38:1-11, the Lord begins to confront Job by taking him back to the time of the creation and questioning him about how much he really knows and understands about God’s work and ways. He shows Job that his words were “words without knowledge” and humbles him so that Job finally has to confess in Job 42:6, “I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (The Lord also exposes the sins of Job’s “friends,” who were trying to straighten him out but not doing so in “right” ways.) As a part of the Lord God’s message, He speaks of how He alone has control of everything, including “the sea” and its “proud waves” - an important message for some of the readings that follow.

The Psalm is Psalm 124. David speaks of the disasters he and others would have had if the Lord had not been with him and helping him and those with him. “Floods would have swept them away,”  and “raging waters would have gone over them.” Twice David says, “We have escaped” by the blessing of the Lord. “Our help,” he says, “is in the Name of the Lord,” the Creator, “Who made heaven and earth.”

In the Gospel lesson, Mark 4:35-41, Jesus goes in a boat across the Sea of Galilee with His disciples and some others, also in boats. “A great windstorm arose,” and “waves were filling the boat with water.” Jesus, who was sleeping, was awakened and said to the wind and the sea, “Peace. Be still.” Immediately, the sea was calm. Instead of joy, the disciples have “great fear,” wondering who this man Jesus really was. They had much need of a growing faith and trust in Jesus as the One He really was, the Son of God and their Savior. Do we need the same, as we struggle with fear and uncertainty at times?

In the Epistle lesson, 2 Corinthians 6:1-13, the apostle Paul continues to write of his ministry, with many ups and downs; yet he keeps offering what everyone needs, the grace of God, in Christ, by which salvation comes. He says, “Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” There is no better time than now to trust the Lord and His saving work through Christ. “All this is from God” (2 Corinthians 5:18), and He can “widen our hearts” and bring us to faith through His Word and the working of the Holy Spirit in us. We may seem to have nothing, yet we can possess everything we really need in Christ our Savior.