Grace Notes 2025-09-24

Last week I mentioned elements often missing when good liturgical worship is not employed. The first thing I mentioned was the reading of Scripture Lessons, including the Old Testament. So, why is it important to include such readings?

We can take a hint from the Bible itself! In Exodus 24 Moses reads aloud the “Book of the Covenant” to the Israelites. In Joshua 8, Moses’ successor, Joshua, gave the reading of the Law to the assembly who had recently entered the Promised Land. King Josiah read the Law to the people during a revival mentioned in 2 Kings 23. And then there was Ezra’s reading of the Law to the people after the Babylonian exile in the Book of Nehemiah.

Our Lord Jesus Himself demonstrates the place of the reading of lessons had in the synagogue. In Luke 4 he participates as a Lector (Reader) and Preacher in the synagogue in Nazareth. There He read aloud from the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah, which was likely the appointed reading for that day.

If you can imagine this, the Apostle Paul instructs congregations to read his letters publicly as they gathered for worship (1 Thess. 5:27; Col. 4:16). The entirety of 1 Corinthians certainly exceeds the length of the readings we select today. And the Apostle writes in 1 Timothy 4:13 to the young Pastor he was mentoring, “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.”

In our church we follow a three-year cycle of appointed lessons (a lectionary) that covers the major Biblical themes and the important events and teaching in Jesus’ ministry. It covers most of the Gospel Accounts, and significant portions of the New Testament letters and writings. It also includes Old Testament readings that largely demonstrate how Jesus and the New Testament are the fulfillment of God’s promises made in the Old Testament.

With regular worship attendance, the members receive a good representation of the breadth of the Written Word of God.

Since You Asked

What is the meaning of the Incarnation? 

The word incarnation is taken from Latin term incarnatio. It literally means “taking flesh” and in the Christian Faith it refers to God becoming human. In John 1:14 we learn of God the Son becoming flesh with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed the child born to Mary was a man, but it is the insistence of the Christian Faith that Jesus was also fully God. He is sometimes called the God-Man. Without ceasing to be fully divine, inseparable and equal to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit; God the Son also fully assumed our humanity in the womb of the Virgin Mary. In this way Jesus mediates God to man and then also represents man to God. The mystery of the Incarnation becomes a necessary means by which Jesus’ death and resurrection accomplishes our salvation.