Wednesday January 13 Epiphany 1
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Psalm 119 Part 1
Psalm 119 is a meditation on responding to God’s call to justice. Every verse contains some synonym for “justice”, such as “word”, “statute”, “commandment” or the like. The psalm is arranged in groups of eight verses. Each verse in the group starts with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet – 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 expressions of order in the human world. The human world and the rest of creation are thus united. Today’s three sections begin with the letters A, B and G (in Hebrew alphabetical order). As you read them, imagine the effect of each line in today’s first section beginning with A” and so on.
Isaiah 41: 1-16
King Cyrus has defeated the Babylonians and has a policy of allowing enslaved people to return to their lands. He probably had in mind they would grow crops that his armies could then appropriate in further conquests—it wasn’t likely out of the kindness of his heart! But Isaiah attributes this policy to God working behind the scenes of history. Isaiah claims that God “…has roused a victor from the east, and summoned him to his service” i.e. that God has roused the infidel Cyrus to do God’s work. To claim that God could use non-believing super-powers to accomplish God’s covenant with tiny insignificant Israel and return them to the land was a revolutionary concept. Isaiah was a theological genius to identify how God works, and this insight became foundational to Hebrew and later Christian understandings of God.
While today’s introductory passage focuses on the renewed power of Israel, we will encounter Isaiah in the next couple of months continuing to develop illustrations of how God works in the wider world to accomplish God’s covenant with Israel.
Mark 1: 29-45
After Jesus’ first healing, throwing out the demons who know him, the kingdom continues to break in with overwhelming power. A woman, Peter’s mother-in-law, is the first person who experiences the kingdom happening and her dignity restored. The oppressed—a leper, socially an outcast, is restored to community. Both healings are about social restoration as well as physical. Jesus refuses to stay in one place and allow the healings to set him up as the centre of a new cult – his priority is to ensure the kingdom breaks in everywhere.
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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