Preparing for Worship - March 26, 2023

The Scriptures this week talk about the reality of sin and death and yet also the hope we have in the redeeming work of Jesus for us and the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit.

The psalm is Psalm 130. The psalmist pleads for God’s mercy and asks if any of us could stand before God if God kept a record of all our sins. The good news is that in the Lord there is “forgiveness” and “steadfast love” and “plenteous redemption” for all our iniquities, our sins. Again it is said that the Lord will “redeem,” which means that He will make a payment to ransom us, to buy us back from the consequences of our sins and set us free.

The Old Testament lesson is from Ezekiel 37:1-14. The Lord gives Ezekiel a vision of a valley full of very dry bones. Could these bones live again? The Lord has Ezekiel say to them, “O dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord.” Then the bones came together and had flesh and skin, but no breath in them. Then the Lord asked Ezekiel to call for breath to come into them and they all lived and stood like a great army. The Lord then explains that these are the people of Israel, in a hopeless condition and cut off from the Lord by their sins, and in exile. God then promises that He will put His Spirit within His people and give them new spiritual life through His Word, that they may know the Lord and return to the promised land. (From that renewed group of God’s people, the Savior, our Lord Jesus, would come. This vision also predicts that the Savior would be able to bring new spiritual life for people, through faith in Him by the Holy Spirit, and be able to raise people from the dead on the last day, just as He would also predict.)

In the Epistle lesson, Romans 8:1-11, Paul explains how Jesus did His saving work. None of us could keep the Law of God, because of “the weakness of our sinful flesh.“ Jesus therefore “fulfilled the righteous requirements of the Law” for us, in our place, by His perfect life, (and by His payment of the penalty for all our sins by His death on the cross, again in our place). “Christ now lives in us” personally, as we have been brought to faith in Him through the Holy Spirit, who also lives and works in us (through our baptism and the Word of God.)

“There is therefore now no condemnation for us,” as long as we are in Christ Jesus. We are “set free from the law of sin and death,” and through the Spirit there is “life and peace” and His power to produce “spiritual fruit” the Lord wishes to see in us. As Jesus “was raised from the dead by the power of the Spirit,” our “mortal bodies will also be given new life through Jesus and the Spirit,” on the last day.

The Gospel lesson is John 11:1-45 (46-53) or selected verses from John 11. Mary and Martha send a message that their brother, Lazarus, was very ill and they want Jesus to come to help them. Jesus delays for some days, though, so that He can show His power even over death, and Lazarus has died and has been in the grave for four days before Jesus arrives. Martha talks with Jesus first and makes a strong confession of faith in Him as “the Christ, the Son of God, the One Whom God had promised would come into the world.” Jesus assures her that He is “the Resurrection and the Life.” “Whoever lives and believes in Him shall never die.” (Though believers die physically, their spirits live on with Jesus in heaven and on the last day, their bodies will also be raised and glorified.) When Jesus meets Mary, she and many others are weeping in sorrow and sad that Jesus did not come sooner. “Jesus wept.” (This is the shortest verse in the Bible and shows Jesus' genuine love for people and His grief at all the troubles of sin and death in this broken world.) Jesus then raised Lazarus from the dead, in a great miracle that drew more people to believe in Him. Lazarus came out, still wrapped in his grave cloths. The religious leaders hear of this and determine that Jesus must die before He creates more trouble for them and their religion and nation.