Preparing for Worship - October 8, 2023

Both the Psalm and Old Testament lesson this week speak of the judgment upon the Old Testament people of Israel, because of their sin and rebellion against God. These readings tie in well the messages from the New Testament readings, too.

The psalm is Psalm 80:7-19. The earlier part of the psalm, before today’s reading, refers to three of the Northern tribes of Israel (80:2-4) crying out for God’s mercy and help, likely as they and the Northern Kingdom of Israel were being conquered by the Assyrian armies. Psalm 80:7ff., our reading, speaks of God’s people as being “a vine brought out of Egypt and planted” in the Promised Land and blessed and protected and brought to prosper by the Lord. Now, however, the walls of the vineyard (Northern Israel) have been broken down  and it has been ravaged and burned by enemies. The psalmist calls upon the Lord for salvation and restoration for His “son,” as the people of Israel are sometimes called. (See Hosea 11:1-2 and why God’s people were in such trouble.) In this psalm, though, in a prophetic way, the son refers especially to “the Son of man,” the Son of God’s right hand, our Lord Jesus Christ, who would ultimately “save” and “restore“ and give new “life,” available to all.

The Old Testament lesson, Isaiah 5:1-7, is also about God’s people as “a vineyard.” It is a “love song,” as God speaks of all that He has done for His people, His vineyard. He has done everything He could for them, now referring to the Southern Kingdom, Judah and Jerusalem; yet they have been yielding not good grapes but “wild grapes,” with “bloodshed” and “outcries” of evil against the Lord. As as result, the Southern House of Israel will also be trampled down and left a “wasteland” (by the Babylonian empire).

In the Gospel lesson, Matthew 21:33-46, Jesus also tells a parable of God’s people as a vineyard. (Some of God’s people had been restored in Jerusalem and the land of Israel after the Babylonian captivity.) The “master of a house,” the Lord Himself, had built the vineyard very well and “leased it to tenants,” the people of Israel. At harvest time, He sent servants (prophets and other spokesmen for the Lord) to “get His fruit,” but the tenants seized them and beat some and killed others, and did not give Him His fruit. The owner sent other servants, and they were treated the same way. Finally, the Master sent His own Son, and the tenants did not respect even Him, and threw Him out and killed Him. What will happen to those evil tenants? They will have a miserable death, and the vineyard would be given to other tenants, who will produce and provide good fruit.” It is clear to the Jewish religious leaders that Jesus was talking about Himself as the Son of the Lord, Whom they would soon be killing, in spite of His warnings to them. Jesus also quotes from Psalm 118:22-23, saying that He would live, even after His death, and be the Savior and “Cornerstone” on whom the new people of God, who believed in Him, would be built. Those who rejected Jesus would eventually be “crushed” and “broken to pieces.”

In the Epistle lesson, Philippians 3:4b-14, Paul says that he had been one of those “persecutors” of Christ Jesus and His “church,” as described in today’s Gospel lesson. He had been an outstanding Jewish leader, with all the right background and credentials, until by God’s grace he received the “surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus as his Lord.” All his previous “righteous acts of his own” were “loss” and “rubbish.” He had now received “the righteousness from God” that came simply “through faith in Christ” and His already accomplished “sufferings” and “death” and “resurrection.” Now Paul wanted to “be found always in Christ” and “faith in Him.” That gift of God is what we all need and have in Jesus, too.