Friday February 5 Epiphany 4
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Psalm 69
A desperate plea for help in the midst of betrayal, disaster and defeat. Some imagery is violent, which we can interpret as expressing a deep desire that there be no evil in the world. The references to gall and vinegar may have influenced the early Christians’ description of Jesus’ crucifixion. Often used on Fridays, the weekly anniversary of the crucifixion.
Friday is a day to ask what it means that God is willing to go through such an experience.
Isaiah 56: 1-8
We now begin the third section of the book of Isaiah, written by someone call Third Isaiah who is exploring the implications of the Israelites’ return to Jerusalem. There are no more references to God controlling Cyrus or spreading out the stars, this writer’s focus is on life in the restored city and what it means that God has restored the people to their home and place where they can worship the God of justice.
In this opening passage there is an extraordinary expectation: that if foreigners and even maimed eunuchs (both of whom were unclean and despised) honour the Sabbath—the day when everyone is equal and fulfilled—then God will accept them equally as Israelites and will shower blessings and fulfillment on them. This was unimaginable for a people who felt they had been chosen to be separate because of their purity through circumcision signifying their unique covenant with God. Perhaps this third writer had met a variety of Babylonians who were people of integrity, and realised that God would embrace them if they embraced justice in the form of Sabbath. The vision is that the Hebrew God embraces the entire world and calls everyone to justice and inclusion.
Mark 9: 2-13
Jesus has just spoken about the necessity of dying to our self-centredness and has assured his reluctant disciples that some will see the resurrection before the end of their life. Then three disciples are allowed to see Jesus in his resurrected glory (before they have died). Even having seen that glory, they do not yet understand when Jesus speaks again about his suffering. They have not yet put their trust in dying with Christ. They hope for escape from this need to die and quote the religious experts who say that the end won’t come until Elijah does. Jesus responds that Elijah has already come, so the end must be coming and that it is predicted that the messiah, himself, must suffer.
This week’s collect:
Living God,
in Christ you make all things new.
Transform the poverty of our nature
by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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