Wednesday April 28 Easter 4
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Psalm 119 Part 3
Psalm 119 is a meditation on responding to God’s call to justice. Every verse contains some synonym for “justice”, such as “word”, “statute”, “commandment” or the like. The psalm is arranged in groups of eight verses. Each verse in the group starts with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet – the first group of eight verses all start with A, the second group all start with B and so on. The first seven verses mirror the seven days of creation, with the eighth sometimes pointing to the next group. This very careful construction mirrors God’s creating the universe by overcoming chaos with order. In the human world, justice, dignity and fulfilment – the outcomes of justice – are the expressions of order in the human world. The human world and the rest of creation are thus united. Today’s three sections begin with the letters Z, H, and Th (in Hebrew alphabetical order). As you read them, imagine the effect of each line in today’s first section beginning with “Z” and so on.
Wisdom 4: 16—5:8 What’s Wisdom about?
This passage affirms the reason for living a life of integrity: although evil people seem to prosper, those with integrity will be vindicated in the end, and the evil will be punished. This was intended to encourage Jews to retain their high moral lives in opposition to some Greek practices of dissolute living.
Those who were not faithful to justice will ultimately acknowledge they were wrong.
Luke 6: 27-38 What’s Luke about?
Jesus challenges us to love more deeply than society thinks is normal—we are to love our enemies! It sounds bizarre, and undermines the most cherished principles of society, but is the only way for the kingdom to come and for us to be really alive. It is as challenging and as dangerous and arouses opposition now as much as it did then.
This week’s collect:
O God of peace,
who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ,
that great shepherd of the sheep,
by the blood of the eternal covenant,
make us perfect in every good work to do your will,
and work in us that which is well-pleasing in your sight;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Roger Brown, Gail Bucher,
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