Preparing for Worship - May 15, 2022

The Scripture readings this week and next are preparing us for events still to come, with the Ascension of Jesus into heaven and the coming to the Holy Spirit on Pentecost and beyond. The first lesson is from Acts 11:1-18. Peter is called to explain why he and other Jews had gone to the home of non-Jewish (uncircumcised) people and even associated with them and ate with them. Peter explained that God had taught him by visions and the Holy Spirit and by what had happened with Cornelius, a Roman centurion (Acts 10), that the Gospel of Jesus was meant for all people, including Gentiles (non-Jews). Cornelius and those with him heard the Word of God and by the Holy Spirit came to believe and were baptized. As God had done with Jews (see Acts 5:30-31), “to the Gentiles also God has granted (given) repentance that leads to life,” eternal life. This also meant that under the New Covenant in Jesus, old dietary and other such rules and rules about not associating with non-Jews were done away with. (Jesus had already taught all this, in Scriptures like Mark 7:1-30 and John 4:1-42).

There are two choices for the Gospel reading this week. In John 13:31-35, Jesus taught the night before His death, after Judas had left him, that He would soon be “glorified” through His death and resurrection and return to His Father in heaven. The disciples could not join Him right away, though they would join Him in heaven later (see John 14:1-6). In the meantime, his disciples, including us today, were to love others, as Jesus had first loved them and us by His great sacrifice for us all.

The other possible Gospel reading is from John 16:12-22. Jesus told His disciples that they would later be taught by the Holy Spirit, who would guide them “into all the truth” that they needed for their future ministry at the right time (at Pentecost and in the Spirit’s inspiring them in the Word of God they would speak and write in the New Testament Scriptures). The disciples would have sorrow when Jesus died and when He ascended into heaven after His resurrection, but in Him, they would have the fullness of joy, most especially in eternal life.

That eternal life is pictured again in another vision of the Apostle John in the second lesson, Revelation 21:1-7. God will make “all things new,” as He dwells with us and all believers, and we are “His people” forever. There will be no more crying or pain or death or mourning, “for the former things have passed away.” We will hear more of this next week, too.

Because of all that God has done and will do for us in Christ, all of creation is called upon to “praise the Lord!” in the psalm for the day, Psalm 148. Paul writes that “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory  of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). We don’t understand exactly what that means, but the eternal future will be perfect and wonderful with our Lord. We praise Him for all that we have now in Christ and His Word and look forward to.