Saturday January 14 Epiphany 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 43: 1-13 What’s Isaiah about?
Don’t worry, says God, to the Israelites who have been enslaved by the Babylonians. I can easily exchange entire super-powers for you, and will command your return from the four corners of the earth. It is true nobody ever predicted this—so you, my people, will be the ones to certify that it has happened. No other god can change history the way I, the real God, can.
An extraordinary insight and powerful images by Isaiah. Equally applicable to our time when evil seems so embedded in our world. What would it take for us to develop that kind of trust, and how would it change us?
Mark 2: 23-3: 6 What’s Mark about?
The Sabbath was originally intended as a weekly re-enactment of the joy of the completed creation when every part of creation had dignity and fulfilment. Jesus picks grain to eat on a sabbath and heals a man on the sabbath—both are life-giving acts, but Jesus is accused of desecrating the Sabbath by doing work.
Jesus responds by quoting an Old Testament text in which David allowed his companions to eat the equivalent of consecrated wafers when they were hungry. Jesus is claiming to be equivalent of the great King David and to be be able to give permission to break Biblical rules because the kingdom breaking in is more important than anything else. The religious leaders cannot bear to have their power taken away by this new equality and fulfilment by the kingdom that is breaking in. They plot to remove this kingdom even though it would have brought freedom to them, the powerful, too.
This week’s collect:
Eternal Father,
who at the baptism of Jesus
revealed him to be your Son,
anointing him with the Holy Spirit,
keep your children, born of water and the Spirit,
faithful to their calling;
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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