Wednesday February 24 Lent 1
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Psalm 119 Part 3
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 Z, H, and Th (in Hebrew alphabetical order). As you read them, imagine the effect of each line in today’s first section beginning with “Z” and so on.
Deuteronomy 9:13-21
Moses describes the deep goodness of God which has no place for evil and self-serving. It sounds as if God were angry and Moses only just persuaded God not to destroy the people because of their sin, but we are to understand, not that God gets angry, but that there are terrible consequences to worshipping greed and self-centredness (which is what worshipping the golden calf means). Moses is insisting that those consequences are to be taken very seriously and that when they enter the land God promised they are to base their national life on justice and inclusion of all and not on acquisition of wealth. Otherwise the consequences may destroy them.
John 2: 23 – 3:15
Jesus speaks about the need for people to completely change their priorities. Nicodemus objects that that is not realistic (“Can someone enter their mother’s womb and be born again?”—i.e. it’s impossible to start a new life.) Jesus responds that by the power of the Holy Spirit it is possible, and goes on to say that possibility comes through accompanying Jesus in his dying to self-centredness (being lifted up on the cross), and rising to full life.
The good news in this is that the new life doesn’t depend upon us suddenly changing and becoming totally loving (we are Nicodemus saying it’s just not possible), but it depends upon us participating in Christ’s life of joyful love (Jesus being “lifted up” on the cross) and we change by trusting (mis-translated as “believing”) in that.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
whose Son fasted forty days in the wilderness,
and was tempted as we are but did not sin, give us grace to discipline ourselves
in submission to your Spirit,
that as you know our weakness,
so we may know your power to save;
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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