Preparing for Worship - May 19, 2024

In the Psalm for this Sunday, Psalm 139:1-12 (13-16), David marvels that the Lord knows everything about him, even before he thinks or speaks. The Lord’s knowledge is so high and wonderful that he cannot understand it. Even darkness is bright and light to Him. The Spirit of God is with him wherever he is or goes. He can only praise the Lord that he has been fearfully and wonderfully made and that the Lord even knows about his future. He is confident in his Lord.

In the Old Testament reading, Ezekiel 37:1-14, Ezekiel writes in a different time. The Northern Kingdom of Israel had fallen long before, and now the Southern Kingdom of Judah had fallen, too, and many of the people had been carried away into captivity in Babylon. Ezekiel writes in Babylon to the people whose hopes for their future were very dim. The Lord, through His Spirit, gives Ezekiel a vision of a valley full of dry bones, representing the hopeless house of Israel. Could these bones live? Ezekiel does not know. The Lord predicts that they will, by His power. The bones came together and had flesh and skin on them, but no life in them, until the Spirit of the Lord breathed on them and lived within them. Then, they would have renewed life and return to the Promised Land. The Lord had spoken through Ezekiel, and he would do this. After about seventy years in captivity. Jews began to return to Israel with the Lord’s blessings and renewed faith.

The culmination of renewal was the coming of Jesus, the Messiah from the line of King David, to do His saving work for His own people but also for the sake of the whole world, as we hear in the Gospel lesson, John 1:26-27;16:4b-15.  Jesus would complete this work through His life, death, and resurrection. He would then return to the Father in Heaven so that He and the Father could send the Holy Spirit with power to bring faith and new life to people. Through the Word of God and baptism, the Holy Spirit would show the people their sins and need for a Savior and the gift of forgiveness and righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus and the defeat of Satan, “the ruler of this world.” The Holy Spirit would also guide the apostles and the Biblical writers “into all the truth.” Since Jesus is the Way to eternal life, twice Jesus says, “The Spirit will bear witness about Me… He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you.”

In the Epistle lesson, Acts 2:1-21, we hear the story of Pentecost and of the Holy Spirit coming with “a mighty rushing wind” and “tongues as of fire” resting on each of the believers in Jesus and the Spirit also enabling these believers to speak the Good News of Jesus in other languages since people from many countries were there. Peter then spoke and explained that this day was prophesied by Joel in the Old Testament, and he quoted from Joel 2:28-32, showing that the Spirit is now available to all and that the goal is that “everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord, (now through the Lord Jesus,) shall be saved.” (The result is the beginning of the New Israel, the Holy Christian Church, Jews and Gentiles who believe in Christ Jesus and are baptized. 3,000 people came to faith and were baptized that day (Acts 2:41).