Friday December 10 Advent 2
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Psalm 31
I am being attacked from all sides but trust that God will rescue me. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus quotes from this psalm as he is dying. Appropriate for Friday as the weekly mini-anniversary of the crucifixion.
Haggai 1:1-15 What’s Haggai about?
The people are living back in Israel after they have returned from their captivity in Babylon, but they are not prospering. Haggai hears God saying that this failure comes from their abandoning the justice God calls them to—symbolized by their being more interested in accumulating wealth for themselves than in deepening their experience of God’s justice—they build luxurious homes but make no effort to rebuild the temple which is the symbol of God’s justice. Haggai inspires the people to begin re-building the ruined temple.
Matthew 23: 27-39 What’s Matthew about?
Jesus continues his relentless attack on those leaders who use the religion of justice to oppress their people.
Persecution of Christians has started at the time Matthew was writing and he remembers Jesus saying that when his disciples continue the same critique of violent rulers they will be met with violent resistance.
Notice the daring image Jesus uses of himself—as a mother hen wanting to bring the city back to God’s reign of justice and inclusion, protecting chicks beneath her wings. But the city would not respond.
Even God cannot prevent the consequences of continued commitment to injustice. Indeed, in Matthew’s time the city was destroyed by the Romans—that is what Jesus refers to as “your house being left desolate” (the “house” of God). That destruction of the temple may have inspired these memories of Jesus foretelling that disaster.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
who sent your servant John the Baptist
to prepare your people to welcome the Messiah,
inspire us, the ministers and stewards of your truth,
to turn our disobedient hearts to you,
that when the Christ shall come again to be our judge,
we may stand with confidence before his glory;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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