Sunday January 3 Christmas 2
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Psalm 66
God, you have made the earth wonderfully, and have rescued us from disaster so I will delight in praising you.
Psalm 67
Because of God’s blessings to nature and the nations we will all sing God’s praises.
Sirach 3.3-9, 14-17
The book of Sirach (also called Ecclesiasticus) was written about two hundred years before Jesus and consists mostly of a series of pithy admonitions about how to live well. This passage is chosen, no doubt, to draw our attention to home life in which Jesus grew up.
The challenge to us, perhaps, is to be astonished at God’s commitment not only to be born, but to live decades in obscurity within a human family. What would be the point, other than to have been driven by love and commitment without limit to be one with us?
John 6.41-47
Jesus has just claimed to be food for humanity, and to be more important food than the famous manna which God provided for the Israelites in the wilderness when they doubted that God could feed them. Jesus is describing himself as a new and far better kind of manna, given as food for humanity in the desert of a world that does not trust God’s care. He is thus claiming to be more important than the Old Testament. Opposition grows and Jesus responds by saying that people who know God see the truth of his claim, and those who don’t know God don’t.
The passage may be chosen for Christmas because Bethlehem, Jesus’ birthplace, means “House of Bread,” and early Christians may have made the connection between his birthplace and his claim to be the bread of life.
This week’s collect:
God of power and life,
the glory of all who believe in you,
fill the world with your splendour
and show the nations the light of your truth;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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