Preparing for Worship - June 9, 2024

In our Old Testament lesson for today, Genesis 3:8-15, God confronts Adam and Eve with the reality of their sin in eating fruit from the forbidden tree. They compound their sin in trying to excuse themselves, in blaming the serpent and each other, and in hiding from God. Adam even blames God for creating Eve. God speaks condemnation for Satan, there in the form of a serpent, and gives the first Biblical promise that Satan and sin would eventually be defeated by an offspring of Eve, our Lord Jesus Christ, who would crush Satan and his power.

Because of the fall of Adam and Eve, sin has now spread to all people, as the psalmist in Psalm 130 admits. He cries out from the depths of his own sin and admits that he has no hope in himself if the Lord kept a record of his iniquities, his sins. His hope could only be in the Lord and His Word of promise and His steadfast love and His redeeming work of forgiving all of his sins.

In the Gospel lesson. Mark 3:20-35, we see Jesus, that Offspring of Eve, through the descendant, the Virgin Mary, battling the forces of Satan, including the religious leaders and even, at this point, Mary and some others of His own family. His family sees Him neglecting Himself and not even having time to eat in his busy ministry and think He is “out of His mind.” The scribes (religious leaders) think Jesus is possessed by Beelzebul (another name for Satan) and is serving him instead of God. Jesus predicts His own work of defeating and binding of Satan and His power through His coming death and resurrection. Jesus also warns that if people reject Him and the work of the Holy Spirit, they are rejecting the forgiveness the Lord is earning for them through Jesus - the only way they can be saved. What people need is to listen to Jesus and His Word and trust Him and the will of God He is carrying out for them.

In the Epistle lesson, 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1, the apostle Paul speaks of having the same Holy Spirit in him, who has brought him to “the faith” and belief in Jesus. Paul, therefore, speaks and tells others what is written about God’s saving work in Christ so that God’s grace will spread to more and more people, who will believe and thank and glorify God. Paul does not “lose heart,” though he faces many challenges, physically and spiritually. He knows that his current afflictions are small compared with the eternal, unseen promises of God ahead for him and all believers when we are brought into “His presence” in heaven. Our current life is like living in a “tent,” compared with the “building from God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,” for us in Christ,