This Week: Isaiah 43:16-21 • Psalm 126 • Philippians 3:4b-14 • John 12:1-8
Emmanuel Lutheran Church
Family Lectionary Study;
Sundays from9:15-10:15 in the Prayer Room
Set the Church-year Calendar. This is the season of Lent. During Lent we will allow Jesus to lead us on a wilderness experience in preparation for sharing in His Passion and celebrating His ressurection.
Review responses to last week's homework:
What examples can you think of, of people who have lived significant lives?
In what ways is your life significant?
What do you love to do with a “pure and holy glee”?
How has God gifted you for the work God has called you to do?
Bible Readings:
To the Israelites in exile in Babylon, this unnamed prophet whose words are recorded in Isaiah 40-55 delivered a message of great hope and promise: the exiles were going home. The capture of Babylon about 539 BC by Cyrus, king of the Medes and Persians, had made this possible. The way home led through the wilderness, recalling the first exodus and the journey through the wilderness to the promised land under Moses many centuries earlier. This would happen because God willed it for God’s own people.
This Song of Ascent celebrates the return of the exiles to Jerusalem. It echoes God’s intervention in Israel’s history as proclaimed in the prophecies of Isaiah 40-55. It may have been sung by pilgrims approaching the temple as part of a liturgy preparing for a new year.
Despite his background as a zealous Pharisee, Paul tells of giving up a promising career as a rabbi to follow Jesus. The one source of power for his new life came from his faith in the resurrection of Jesus, in which he longed to share. That had become his one goal which he now sought as zealously as he had sought to obey the Mosaic law in his youth.
Mary of Bethany expressed her love and dedication to Jesus by perfuming his feet with a costly ointment. When Judas Iscariot protested the waste, Jesus acknowledged the gift as a symbol of preparing his body for burial; but he did not forget the poor as well.
Next week: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 • Luke 19:28-40 Isaiah 50:4-9a • Psalm 31:9-16 • Philippians 2:5-11 • Luke 22:14-23:56 or Luke 23:1-49