Preparing for Worship - February 23, 2025

The Scriptures this week give us what God wants most of all to reveal to us in this Epiphany season - love and forgiveness. It is foremost the love and forgiveness of God for us sinners, though we do not deserve it at all, shown especially to us in His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord but also our Savior.

The Psalm is Psalm 103:1-13. David blesses and praises the Lord and does not want to forget the “benefits,” the blessings that come from Him, especially His forgiveness, redemption, and renewal that come through His steadfast love and mercy. The Lord works righteousness for us who are too often unrighteous sinners. (He does this, especially through His own Son, Jesus, who lived a perfect life for us in our place while being a true man on this earth.) The Lord does not deal with us on the basis of our sins but removes our transgressions from us (again through His Son, Jesus). He treats us in this way as our compassionate, forgiving Heavenly Father. He then calls us, in gratefulness to Him, to seek to fear, love, and trust Him in return and gives us the strength to do so through His Holy Spirit, working through His Word, the New Testament tells us.

In the Old Testament lesson, Genesis 45:3-15, Joseph has seen God’s mercy for him in Egypt, even though he had been sold into slavery by his own brothers. God worked the situation out for good by allowing him to rise to a very high position in the Egyptian government and to be able to predict by God’s power a seven-year famine coming in time for him to prepare his country by having plenty of food available to get through the famine and help others, too. Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt to buy food that was available there. Joseph recognizes them, and they are terrified that he will take vengeance on them. Instead, he forgives them and promises them a safe place to live in Egypt, where he will make sure their needs are taken care of. They are reconciled and promise to bring their father also to safety in Egypt. God’s mercy and help for Joseph had affected him so much that he was led by God to be merciful to many and forgiving even to his brothers who had betrayed him. (We will hear more of this story in a late May Scripture reading.)

The Gospel reading continues the story from last week of Jesus teaching His disciples in Luke 6:27-38. He had been warning them that they would face much opposition and bad treatment simply because they were following Jesus, the “Son of Man.” Now Jesus teaches them to seek to love, forgive, and do good even to those who hate them and curse and abuse them. He tells his disciples to do for others what they wish others would do to them. Loving others who love them isn’t as hard. But they are to love even their enemies, even the ungrateful and evil, as children of the Most High God, for the Father’s Son, Jesus, would give His life even for them, in mercy for them. (And frankly, we all have sin and evil in us for which we need forgiveness, and for us, also, Christ had to die.)  His disciples are then not to spend their time judging and condemning others, but, above all, to seek to forgive and give mercy and good gifts to others, as Jesus has first done for them.

The Epistle lesson continues the reading from 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul clearly affirms that Jesus not only died for us, paying for our sins, as our substitute. He also rose from the dead as the “first fruits," conquering death and guaranteeing the resurrection of our bodies on the last day when he returns. (He already takes our souls to be with Him in eternal peace in heaven when we die, by His grace and the gift of faith in Him.) On the last day, when He returns in glory, our bodies, too, will be raised and changed and glorified, immortal and imperishable. In the meantime, in this life, we seek to keep the good company of our Lord and fellow believers and try to battle sin. We face many dangers, and it may look, at times,  as if evil is winning, but we know that Jesus has won the victory, and all enemies will finally be subdued, and we trust that our Lord will care for us and will be with us always and provide us the mercy and strength we need to keep the faith and be brought through death to eternal life.