Preparing for Worship - March 22, 2026

This Sunday is the 5th Sunday in our Lenten season, and in the One Year Series, it is known as Judica Sunday, a day in which the Scripture readings call us to think about “judging” and “judgment.” “Judica” is the Latin word for “judging.”

The psalm for the day is Psalm 43, which begins with the words “judge me.” This psalm has some of the same words as Psalm 42 and seems to be linked with it, where the psalmist is away from the Promised Land and cannot get back to Jerusalem and God’s “holy hill” and His “dwelling” there, the temple, “the house of God.” In Psalm 43, he says that he is facing “ungodly, deceitful, unjust enemies,” who are “oppressing” him. Four times in these two psalms, he says that “his soul is cast down” and he is “in turmoil.” At times, he even asks God, “Why have You forgotten me?” (Psalm 42:9) and “Why have You rejected me?” (Psalm 43:2). He struggles and confesses and sorrows over his weaknesses, especially when his “adversaries taunt him” and ask, “Where is your God?” (Psalm 42:10). He cannot hear the encouraging Words of Scripture with fellow believers at “God’s altar.” Yet he has not lost faith. He still says, “You are my God in Whom I take refuge.” He reminds himself, again and again, even on troubled days, “Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my Salvation and my God.” He prays that he would be led by the Light and Truth of God and His Word, and that ultimately God would “judge” and “defend him and his cause” and “vindicate” him, declare him “not guilty,” by His mercy. Psalm 127:1 says, “The Lord is my Light and my Salvation,” and we know from the New Testament that Jesus is “the Light of the world” (John 8:12) and says, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life” and that “no one comes to the Father except through Him” and His forgiving love that takes away our guilt (John 14:6).

The Old Testament lesson is Genesis 22:1-14. Even Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, had his ups and downs and struggles at times, not waiting for God to fulfill His plans in His own way. When Abraham finally was given his child of promise, Isaac, he had grown in faith and was willing to trust his Lord, even when he was asked to do what seemed totally wrong - to sacrifice that son, his only son. It was only a test of faith, but Abraham did not know that. Hebrews 11:19 tells us that Abraham still trusted his Lord and “considered that God was able even to raise his son, Isaac, from the dead” and that, “figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.” How agonizing, though, it must have been for Abraham to travel for three days to Mt. Moriah, with his son carrying the wood for the sacrifice. How hard it must have been to hear his son ask, “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” and to answer, “God will provide for Himself the lamb,” knowing what he himself was soon to do to his son. Abraham was ready to kill his son as a sacrifice when the Lord stopped him and provided a ram for him to sacrifice, instead. This was a dramatic prediction of what would happen to God’s only Son when he was not stopped, but went to the cross to suffer and die for our sins and the sins of the whole world, since none of us could atone, pay the judgment penalty for our own sins or the sins of anyone else. The line of promise of a Savior did come through Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and later on through David and finally through the sacrifice of God’s only Son, who had become the human Child, our Lord Jesus. That was the plan from the beginning because of the love of God the Father and the love of God the Son and His willingness to become that sacrifice, and His birth through the Virgin Mary by the loving power of God the Holy Spirit. When we think of what Abraham and Isaac went through, in human terms, until that sacrifice was stopped by God on Mt. Moriah, we appreciate more and more the meaning of the Triune God’s love in John 3:16, “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son,” and that John the Baptist identified Jesus as “the Lamb of God who is taking away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) and that Paul writes, “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him give us all things” He has promised us in Christ our Savior and the Words of Scripture (Romans 8:32). Our eternal future is secure in Him, as he has brought us to faith in Him and keeps us in that faith. One more note. In 2 Chronicles 3:1, we are told that the temple was later built in Jerusalem on Mt. Moriah, where Abraham and Isaac had been. Jesus was sacrificed on the cross just outside Jerusalem to sanctify us through His blood, so that we might receive the heavenly Jerusalem, eternal life, prepared for us by Him. (See Hebrews 12:22-24 and Hebrews 13:12,14-15 and John 14:1-3.)

This sacrificial work of Christ Jesus and its result are also described for us in Hebrews 9:11-15, our Epistle lesson for this Sunday. Christ is our great “High Priest.” In the Old Testament, priests offered animal sacrifices in a tent, the Tabernacle, and later in the Temple in Jerusalem, and needed to keep doing so, again and again, as part of the Old Covenant, and in preparation for the coming of the Christ, our Lord Jesus. Christ offered the sacrifice “of His own blood,” “once for all,” and thus “secured an eternal redemption” available for all people. Old Testament priests were sinners who needed forgiveness for themselves, too. Christ Jesus “offered His blood” and “Himself without blemish to God.”
He carried all of our sins on the cross to pay for them, but He had no sins of His own, as the perfect Lamb of God. He did all this as the Son of God, but also as a true man, “through the power of the eternal Holy Spirit.” Through His perfect life in our place and His death that redeemed us from our sins, our transgressions, and His mighty resurrection, we and “all who are called to faith in Him may receive the promised eternal inheritance of the “New Covenant” that He mediates. Our consciences are purified from “dead works,” for that is all we could perform on our own as sinners, and we have a new life in Christ, through which we can serve the living God, and one day be taken to “the greater and perfect tent” of eternal life.

Jesus, in the Gospel lesson, John 8:(42-45) 46-59, is telling His fellow Jews that He was “sent from God, His heavenly Father,” and is speaking “His Word, the Word of God, the Truth.” If people reject Him, it is because they are serving “their father, the devil”… “a liar and the father of lies.” “Whoever is of God hears the Words of God,” Jesus says. Some then accused Him of being an unbelieving “Samaritan” and “having a demon.” Jesus responds by saying that He honors His heavenly Father, and claims again that if people keep His Word, they will never see death.” These Jews then say that Abraham died. Is Jesus claiming to be greater than Abraham and the prophets, who also died? Jesus then says that these people do not know and understand God as they should, from His Word, and that Abraham did know, through prophecy and the Word of the coming Savior. (See, for example, 1 Peter 1:10-12, where it is indicated that the prophets knew more about the suffering Christ and people He would serve than they wrote down. Peter also had just reminded us in 1 Peter 1:8-9 that most fellow believers lived by faith, trusting the eyewitness testimony of Peter and others, though they had not seen Christ themselves, as Peter had. See also Peter’s own eyewitness Words in 2 Peter 1:16-21, speaking and writing by the power of God the Holy Spirit, and his affirmation of the words and writing of the apostle Paul, also, in 2 Peter 3:15-18.) Finally, in the Gospel lesson, John 8:58, Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I am,” using the name of God for Himself (Exodus 3:13-15) and affirming the truth that He had always existed, long before Abraham and was God the Son, the promised Messiah and Savior. He claimed this numerous other times, too, with His many “I am” sayings. Sadly, many of the people hearing Jesus did not believe Him and picked up stones to throw at Him, thinking that He was blaspheming, speaking against God (Leviticus 24:16).

You may have heard of C.S. Lewis, an atheist, who became a Christian through the Word of God and the Good News of Christ, his Savior. Lewis realized that people could not simply say that Jesus was a good man and an interesting teacher. Hearing the Scriptures and passages like this Gospel, Lewis realized and said that Jesus was either “a liar,” as many of his enemies said, or He was “a lunatic,” a crazy man who had lost his mind, or He actually was “the Lord” and Savior. By the grace of God and the Holy Spirit’s power, C.S. Lewis became a believer and a strong advocate for the Christian faith and the reliability of the Scriptures. May we continue to be strengthened in that same faith in Christ this Lenten season, through these and other Scriptures and the remembrance of our own baptism and the gift of Christ’s forgiveness also in the Lord’s Supper. And if we know of others, like the psalmist we heard of in Psalms 42 and 43, who cannot get out to the Lord’s house, because of illness or other problems, may we pray for them and send them cards with encouraging Scriptures or call or visit them, bringing God’s Word and His love in Christ to them, as we are able. God’s Word in Christ is the Lamp and the Light for us all (Psalm 119:105).