Tuesday December 10 Advent 2
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Psalm 26
“I do not sit down with the wicked”: this gives us words to say how we wish to live, that deep in our heart we really are such people as keep God’s commands to love and do justice. “My foot stands on level ground” because we ground our lives on the solid base of justice.
Psalm 28
Like many psalms, this asks that the wicked be punished: “give them their just deserts.” (“Deserts” is “What is deserved,” not miles of sand or misspelled sweets!) This desire for evil people to be destroyed seems very unlike Jesus’ request that we forgive our enemies and love them, but it is really giving us words to express our own intense desire that oppressive and violent policies should come to an end. We might pray, “May any international trade agreements that make the poor even poorer, be utterly done away with.”
The violent images in many psalms are not to ask God to be violent, but to ask that all evil actions and policies be completely defeated so people around the world can live in peace and fulfilment. The second half of the psalm gives thanks that God has indeed been victorious over oppression.
Isaiah 5: 15-25 What’s Isaiah about?
The leaders drag people with cords of evil and greed, take bribes and glorify their dissolute living. This is searing criticism. It would have taken enormous courage to confront the king and ruling priests in this way. No wonder God responds with utter rejection of such behaviour, rejection which Isaiah understands to have been carried out by the Assyrians conquering the north of the country.
Luke 21: 29-38 What’s Luke about?
Jesus encourages us to remain confident in dangerous times because God’s intervention is coming close. There are few messages in our day which encourage wide-awake confidence in difficult times—the news usually encourages us either to hopelessness or to shelter in the illusion that all is well.
Jesus’ clarity that dangerous times can be fertile opportunities for a new kind of confidence gives us a whole new way of experiencing life in our day.
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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