Second Sunday after Epiphany • Year A

Historical Collect

Almighty and eternal God, you restrain the powers of heaven and earth. Mercifully hear your people’s prayers for peace in our time. Grant this, we pray, through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Thematic Collect

Holy God, through your Son, Jesus, many came to faith in you. Bring us to faith by your grace that we may obediently worship and follow you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

The Common Thread

Behold, the Lamb of God! From him alone comes grace and peace to the communion of saints, “those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is he who was called by God from his mother’s womb to be “light for the nations” and the salvation of the world. It was written long ago, in the roll of the scroll, that a body would be prepared for God, an offering to end all offerings for sin. Behold! By the single offering of this Lamb of God, we are being strengthened, perfected, sanctified.

First Reading • Isaiah 49:1–7

The call goes out to the very coastlines of the world. All are called — not just a tribe, not merely a nation. Listen! Listen to the Messiah. Anyone who has read Revelation (Rev. 1:16) sees the connection to the second verse of our text. So, listen to the one whose mouth contains a two-edged sword. Hear the law and know your damnation. Listen to the gospel and know God’s overriding grace.

Psalm • Psalm 40:1–11

He has given an open ear (v. 6), so hear and obey. Obey by believing. The world waits to see proofs before it will believe. Yet we are not called to believe by what we see. Faith does not come through experience but through hearing the word of the Messiah (Rom. 10:17). The word “open” means “pierced” or “excavated.” He has given us pierced ears. The word of Christ so pierces the ear that it cores down to the spirit level so that we may believe what we have heard of the Lord.

God delights in such belief. It is not the things we do for him that please him. Instead, God is most happy when we believe in what he has done for us. “In the scroll of the book it is written” of the Lord. Hear; be pierced. Obey; believe.

Second Reading • 1 Corinthians 1:1–9

God is faithful even when we are faithless (2 Tim. 2:13). He will sustain us through faithless days so that in the last day, because we believe in his ability despite our own inabilities, we will be found in the fellowship of his Son. This is the grace of God. Though our whole lives tell otherwise, he saves us through the merits of Christ. On that day, you will be found guiltless by the virtue of God — not your own worth. Keep the faith even when you see yourself as faithless.

Gospel • John 1:29–42a

Here is a faithless man of faith (vv. 40-42)! Peter was faithless in his actions on more than a few occasions, yet he kept the faith. He kept the Name — he did not continue denying the Name that saves. Peter knew (and so do we) that we are saved by keeping the Name of the One who sustains us in such faith even when our actions are faithless. It is no mere irony that the first disciple Jesus called (Matt. 4:18-19) was one like us.