Thursday March 6 Lent
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Psalm 37 Part 1
It’s tempting to want to be as successful as evil people, but seeking God’s justice will fulfill us, and God will defeat evil completely.
Deuteronomy 7:6-11 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses continues his speech to the people as their forty years of wandering comes to an end and they are about to enter the land God promised.
God’s generosity to you (you were not an important nation) means that you have to also practice generosity (which is the meaning of “righteousness”), but if you don’t, you will become a selfish nation like the others, and that is a recipe for disaster. It’s not that God will lose God’s temper with you, but that lack of generosity (justice, righteousness) inevitably leads to disaster.
John 1: 29-34 What’s John about?
For the next two months, until a week after Easter, we will read through John’s gospel. Unlike the other three gospels, John’s gospel focuses on the significance of Jesus presented through long conversations, and multiple levels of images and symbolism.
Immediately the opening of his gospel, where he presented Jesus as the Christ at the moment of creation, John now presents Jesus at his baptism as the centre of human history. John the Baptist uses images such as “Lamb of God” to say that Jesus can be understood as an enactment of the Passover lamb which was a central element in the Jewish celebration of their ancient escape from slavery in Egypt.
Like John the baptist, we are called to insist that it isn’t ourselves or our faith or our goodness that will provide escape from the slavery of consumerism in our day, but we point to Christ through whom modern slavery—such as to the forces of national and international greed in which we are all immersed—can be conquered.
In Lent we are challenged to deepen our journey toward liberation by counting on Christ’s victory to guarantee ours.
This week’s collect:
Almighty and everlasting God,
you despise nothing you have made
and forgive the sins of all who are penitent.
Create and make in us new and contrite hearts,
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our brokenness,
may obtain of you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen
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