Tuesday April 13 Easter 2
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Psalm 5
There is evil all around, but I will go into your presence, O God, and know that you are more powerful than all evil and will protect us.
Psalm 6
I have been hounded almost to death, help me, God. Thanks be to God that God heard me and the evil people will be overcome.
Daniel 2: 1-16 What’s Daniel about?
We continue with the book of Daniel consisting of imaginary stories written not long before Jesus, but set in the Babylonian exile 600 years earlier. Today’s story story opens with the Babylonian king requiring his official interpreters to guess what dream he had the night before, an impossible request. However, at the risk of his life, Daniel volunteers to describe the dream.
The idea of being superior to the conquering culture, and having miraculous success with dreams the way Joseph did long ago with the dreams of the Egyptian Pharaoh, would have been of great encouragement to the Jews under the control of the Greeks and later the Romans at the time of Jesus.
We are in the same situation in our exploitive culture which seeks to enslave the Christian faith as a servant of power and oppression. How might we imagine God’s power working through us to challenge our culture?
John 17: 12-19 What’s John about?
One way in which we are to be protected against the forces inside and out which will deter us from loving fully, is that Jesus intends that we be immersed in his love, expressed in his sacrifice. His love is about to made complete in his death, and he asks not that we be removed from similar rejections by society, but that we be be given the character of that love which he calls “Truth.” This will be the role of the Holy Spirit to continue to lead us into that truth.
This week’s collect:
Almighty and eternal God,
the strength of those who believe
and the hope of those who doubt,
may we, who have not seen, have faith
and receive the fullness of Christ’s blessing,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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