The theme of this week’s church calendar is the church as a sending community. The Old Testament passages, Psalm 67 and Genesis 12:1-9, both focus on the call of Abraham. That call of God was not only a promise to Abraham and his descendants, but also promised that through him all nations on earth would be blessed.
The fulfillment of that promise to all nations finds fulfillment, of course, in the mission and ministry of Jesus. Early in his earthly ministry, Luke 10:1-20 recounts how Jesus sent the seventy-two to spread the good news. That sending – and the gathering in of the worldwide flock of God which is it’s result in the power of the Holy Spirit – is a mark of the early church, as recounted in Acts 11:19-30 and Acts 13:1-3. Let us join in this great work of sending the good news by our personal efforts to spread the gospel, in our support of missionaries as a congregation, and in our prayer for the Spirit’s blessing upon the Christian mission worldwide. The day is coming, and indeed has already begun, when the knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth as the waters fill the sea!