Monday April 19 Easter 3
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Psalm 25
I desperately need God’s support both from those who attack me, and from actions that are my own fault, and I know God is always generous to those in such a situation.
Daniel 4: 19-27 What’s Daniel about?
Daniel’s interpretation is that the king has been unfaithful to the true God of justice, and the consequence will be that the king, represented by a great tree, will be cut down and become demented and live like an animal. Nevertheless, if the king repents and returns to justice, God will use the stump of that tree to restore the king to greatness.
The message to the king, and to us, is that the true God, the God of justice, is stronger than the mightiest leader of the greatest super-power, and that the God of justice controls all of history. Are we learning from Daniel how that could be true in our day?
Luke 4: 14-30 What’s Luke about?
Immediately after Jesus refuses the temptations to use oppression to control the world, Jesus returns to his home and claims to be the prophet of justice named by Isaiah. At first he is applauded but when Jesus says that God’s justice implies that the people of Israel have no special status above other cultures because that would be unjust, his own people turn against him and attempt to kill him.
In Luke’s understanding, the Romans are potential allies for the early Christians and he uses this introductory story to foreshadow the whole of Jesus’ life—his commitment to God’s justice will bring him into ultimate conflict with his own people, but he is led by the Holy Spirit to stand for the truth and after Jesus’ earthly life the Spirit will lead Christians all the way to the empire’s capital in Rome.
This week’s collect:
O God,
your Son made himself known to his disciples
in the breaking of bread.
Open the eyes of our faith,
that we may see him in his redeeming work,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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