Saturday August 28 Pentecost 13
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Psalm 20
We delight that God upholds us with strength far greater than military technology.
Psalm 21
Joy at how with great power God has blessed the king and removed the threats against him. This psalm would originally have been sung to the king, as God’s blessed one, but it is equally applicable to us and can be read with ourselves as the subject of the psalm.
These psalms are often used on Saturdays to suggest the power God is about to use to raise Jesus and us from death.
1 Kings 7:51—8: 21 What’s Kings about?
Solomon places the ark, with the two stones of the 10 commandments inside it, in the centre of the temple. These stones codified their understanding of justice which became their central experience of God. This is an immensely important event in Israelite religion because it is the foundation of the entire temple experience focused on the ark with the ten commandments and on sacrifices, which continued, with the interruption of the Babylonian invasion, until forty years after Jesus—when the temple was permanently destroyed by the Romans and never rebuilt.
Mark 14: 43-52 What’s Mark about?
Jesus is arrested and all the disciples desert him. They all betray him—one with a kiss, and the others by running away. No matter in what way our modern world betrays God, God remains loyal to us. Even at great cost to God.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
we are taught by your word
that all our doings without love are worth nothing.
Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts
that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtue;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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