Tuesday March 2 Lent 2
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Psalm 61
I was burdened and God became my strength—be with me always.
Psalm 62
In face of evil, we trust in God to be our solid foundation.
Jeremiah 2: 1-13
Jeremiah is told to challenge the nation: they were founded in the generosity of God who led them out of Egypt, but in the wilderness and after entering the land they abandoned the God of justice. God appeals to the stars as witnesses: nobody has ever heard of such a disaster, that a nation abandoned its gods, even if they were just dumb idols, yet Israel has abandoned the glory of the God of justice—this appalls the sky and stars.
This challenge applies no less to us in our day. This is the Lenten journey—to give up our national illusions about ourselves so we can be returned to our country’s identity as people of God’s justice.
John 4: 43-54
Immediately after spending two days with the hated Samaritans and with the woman at the well, Jesus returns to Cana of Galilee where he had provided 180 gallons of the best wine after everyone had already had too much. The royal official will have been one of those colluding with the Roman oppression, yet he, a traitor, also drinks of the abundant wine when his child is cured just as the traitorous Samaritan woman also drank deeply of acceptance by Jesus. In this town of the unending wedding reception, Jesus has become the well and the wine.
John the gospel writer calls this miracle of healing Jesus’ second “sign”—another pointer (there are seven in this gospel) to Jesus’ significance.
In Lent we are to fix our eyes on God’s overwhelming gifts to those who don’t deserve it, of which we are one. We rejoice and anticipate the final infinite wedding reception in which we are included in Jesus’ resurrection at Easter.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God, whose Son was revealed in majesty
before he suffered death upon the cross,
give us faith to perceive his glory,
that being strengthened by his grace
we may be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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