Thursday January 7 Epiphany
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Psalm 103
God has been so generous to us! God has given us life when death was close, has been generous when we abandoned God’s justice, has cared for us as a doting parent does, and all in spite of our lives being so short. Even angels and creation bless God and we join with them!
Isaiah 52: 3-6
God sees the people oppressed again, just as they had been long ago in Egypt, and despite the sabre-rattling (“howling”) of their captors, God is really in charge and will act to rescue them.
Isaiah is setting up the expectation that God controls history and will act. Not a bad expectation for our time. No wonder Isaiah has to ring the changes on this idea since for them, no less than for us, this idea acting for humanity seems fanciful. Isaiah insists it is real: “Here am I,” states God.
John 2: 1-11
John’s gospel focuses on this first miracle by Jesus at a wedding reception at which Jesus provides 180 gallons of the very best wine after everyone had already drunk too much! A foretaste (literally!) of the delights – more than we can ask or imagine – for which we have been created.
John sets the story of the wedding “on the third day” and thus suggests this event is a way of understanding the resurrection, which happened on the third day – the resurrection, says John, is the ultimate wedding!
This week’s collect:
Eternal God,
who by a star
led wise ones to the worship of your Son.
Guide by your light the nations of the earth,
that the whole world may know your glory;
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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