One of the questions about a liturgical service that often comes up is why are there three readings: Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel? The answer is both very old and relatively new. The old portion of the answer goes all the way back to the Synagogue. The Jewish Synagogue service had two readings: one from the Torah – the first 5 books of the bible – and one from the prophets. The reading from the prophets was typically shorter and keyed to the Torah reading. You get a glimpse of that with Jesus in the New Testament in Luke 4:16ff. When Jesus begins his ministry in Nazareth it is on the Sabbath and he is given the reading from the prophets to read. The pattern of Christian worship grows out of that Synagogue worship.
There are two famous “dog that didn’t bark” arguments about early Christian worship. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 addresses Christian Worship, but his words are primarily about how to celebrate the Lord’s Supper with a prolog about men, women and hair coverings. The dog that didn’t bark is about what we call “the service of the Word.” There were no problems with the basic service because the Christians just followed Jewish practice. The problems were where Christian practice diverged from Jewish. It diverged in welcoming both men and women into the same space for worship. And hence some guidelines for good practice. And the real new part was the Lord’s Supper. The other dog that didn’t bark is infant baptism. In the New Testament entire families were baptized (Acts 16:15). The universal practice of the church until the Reformation was infant baptism. Not all were baptized as infants. There were strange delays of baptism – like with the Emperor Constantine – treating it as a one time get out of hell free sacrament. But nobody ever talks about baptism, other than to do it, because it was just accepted practice. Even in the scriptures the squeaky wheel gets the oil sometimes.
Somewhere between the 2nd and the 4th centuries the Torah and Prophets readings were replaced with an Epistle and a Gospel reading. The Gospels being the Torah wellspring and the Epistles commenting on the Gospel like the prophets. That two readings format continued until the middle of the 20th century. The relatively new portion of the reading cycle being the addition of an Old Testament reading and the freeing of the Epistle from the Gospel. The Epistles for most of the year are now read continuously in themselves. The Old Testament readings being keyed to the Gospel.
All of that is a nice short history that answers the “why?” with “It’s tradition!” We can all join Teyve in a dance. But if you’ve ever attended a Reformed service or a non-denom type they have clearly separated themselves from that tradition, why not Lutherans? Isn’t reading three separate readings each week confusing?
As far as confusing, maybe. But the Old Testament and the Gospel readings are usually meant to be typological fulfillment. The Gospel Lesson today (Mark 6:45-56) is Jesus walking on the waters. Here is the one who commands the winds and the waves. And this one gets into the boat with the terrified disciples. This is a fulfillment of the promise of God after the flood to Noah which is the Old Testament reading (Genesis 9:8-17). “The waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.” The fulfillment of that covenant is present. This is also one of the reasons I like to take the continuous reading of the Epistle as the bible study topic. Confusing gets addressed through preaching and teaching.
What about tradition? This gets at something core in the Lutheran Reformation. The Augsburg Confession Article 14 is on “The Mass”. And it starts off with the charge: “Our churches are falsely accused of abolishing the mass.” And compared to the Reformed version of the Reformation that would often change things much more radically, the Lutheran Reformation maintained a rule that if something could be kept, it should be. And again, most of that article talks about the practice of the Lord’s Supper. How the mass had been turned into a money making operation. Getting the Lord’s Supper wrong seems to be a church tradition. But that article ends with an interesting quote. “The mass among us follows the example of the church, taken from Scripture and the Fathers…this is especially so because we keep the public ceremonies, which are for the most part similar to those previously in use…the Scriptures are read, and the preachers expound them.”
Why three readings? Yes, tradition, but also because this is the Word of God expounded for us in the way that we received it.