Wednesday March 29 Lent 5
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Psalm 119 Part 7
Psalm 119 is a meditation on responding to God’s call to justice. Each of the 176 verses is a variation on the theme of what it means to follow God’s call to justice, using terms such as “command”,”law”, “word”, “statute”, and the like. The psalm is arranged in 22 groups of eight verses—one group for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Within a group, each of the eight verses starts with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and the groups are in Hebrew alphabetical order. So the first group of eight verses all start with A, the second group all start with B and so on. The first seven verses mirror the seven days of creation, with the eighth sometimes pointing to the next group. This very careful construction mirrors God’s creating the universe by overcoming chaos with order.
In the human world, justice, dignity and fulfilment – the outcomes of justice—are the human expressions of order. Thus the human world and the rest of creation are united in the same foundation. Today’s three sections begin with the letters Q, R, S, and T, the final letters of the Hebrew alphabet. As you read them, imagine the effect of each line in today’s first section beginning with “Q” and so on.
Jeremiah 25: 30-38 What’s Jeremiah about?
God’s power extends to the whole of humanity—many people at that time thought that each nation had its own god who ruled it, but Jeremiah claims that the God of justice rules the whole earth, and that people everywhere are required to respect justice, not just the Israelites. The violence in the second half of the reading is a way of insisting that this is to be taken seriously. The consequences for not making justice a priority are very real and destructive, and happen in every place and time—ours included.
John 10: 1-18 What’s John about?
John now begins an extended conversation about Jesus as a shepherd. Israel’s founding king, David, was a shepherd called to be king, so the idea was that true kings act like shepherds, not like autocratic rulers as in other societies.
For the first time in this gospel, Jesus speaks explicitly about his calling to die for the people. Jesus describes himself as such a shepherd who is faithful to the sheep, or as the door by which the sheep go freely in and out. He proves he is faithful because he is ready to die for the sheep.
Such care is not given to us by other leaders who are motivated by their own safety. It is such love that self-evidently proves its reality in our human relationships and, Jesus is claiming, in our relationship with God.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
your Son came into the world
to free us all from sin and death.
Breathe upon us with the power of your Spirit,
that we may be raised to new life in Christ,
and serve you in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
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