Saturday December 3 Advent 1
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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.
Isaiah 4: 2-6 What’s Isaiah about?
Isaiah speaks of the future in which God will restore holiness to Jerusalem after being devastated by the Assyrian army, and will provide an overarching shelter for Jerusalem reminiscent of the protection given after the crossing of the Red Sea.
Luke 21: 5-19 What’s Luke about?
Jesus’ graphic description of Jerusalem being destroyed is based on a style of writing called “apocalyptic,” commonly used at that time. Jesus uses it to call us to confidence even in the most difficult and disturbing times.
“By your endurance you will gain your souls” means that by refusing to join in the chaos and refusing to allow the chaos to seep into our lives, we remain people of the victorious God of justice and we will remain deeply alive—an essential approach to the various looming threats in our time.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ
came to us in great humility,
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge both the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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