Tuesday January 5 Christmas 2
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Psalm 2
Other nations laugh at God and God’s people, but God has chosen this people and their king, and God will have the final word.
Christians may understand this to be a way of saying that God has made self-offering love and justice in the death and resurrection of Christ to be the ultimate reality. All other attempts at finding full life through pursuing self-interest are laughable and doomed to fail.
Psalm 110
This psalm is written as if God is speaking to King David, the first great king of Israel, assuring David of God’s absolute support in battle.
The violence in the final two verses can be understood as expressing God’s absolute commitment to removing oppression and injustice from the world.
Joshua 1: 1-9
The people are finally about to enter the land God promised to them in his appearance to Abraham. Moses has died, and Joshua is about to lead them across the Jordan to actually take the land. Are we confident that God wants us to claim this planet for the God of justice?
This concludes a series of passages in which the ancient Jews experienced God’s unremitting commitment to them. That absolute commitment, which they called a “covenant” began with the promise to Abraham (or even with the promise to Noah), and was accomplished as the people entered their permanent home. The passage is read today as a way of celebrating the Christian experience of God’s fulfilling the ultimate covenant with humanity in the birth of Christ.
John 15: 1-16
Using the image of a vine’s branches, which actually almost constitute the vine, Jesus asks us to imagine ourselves as the constituents of the life of Jesus after his physical departure. If we remain in his life of deep love, we will do even greater things than Christ did, but if we leave that life of love, then we will accomplish nothing.
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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