Friday March 18 Lent 2
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Psalm 69
A desperate plea for help in the midst of betrayal, disaster and defeat. Some imagery is violent, which we can interpret as expressing a deep desire that there be no evil in the world. The references to gall and vinegar may have influenced the early Christians’ description of Jesus’ crucifixion. Often used on Fridays, the weekly anniversary of the crucifixion.
Friday is a day to ask what it means that God is willing to go through such an experience.
Genesis 43.1-15 What’s Genesis about?
Facing the prospect of starvation, Jacob reluctantly agrees to send the last of his children to Egypt to buy food, and sends with them, unaware that it is his son Joseph to whom he is sending it, what must be his last possessions—an immense amount of money and his last luxuries. Without knowing it, his fatherly love for Joseph continues unabated.
Mark 4.35-41 What’s Mark about?
Like many miracles, the significance of this miracle of the calming of a storm lies in its meaning. The waves swamping the boat would have meant, to people of Jesus’ time, the return of the chaos which the Spirit had overcome at the beginning of creation in Genesis when the Spirit hovered over the chaotic waters. Jesus calming the sea (perhaps suggesting the Roman empire which threatened to drown Judaism) would have meant that God was re-enacting the original wholeness and goodness of creation against the worst the world can do.
We can apply this miracle to the storms inside us or in the wider world as being ultimately under God’s control. In tomorrow’s reading, Jesus calms the storm inside a person overwhelmed by evil. Good news indeed!
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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