Sunday April 25 Easter 4
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Psalm 63
I delight in the certainty of God’s protection and victory over evil. The violence in verses 9 and 10 can be understood as an expression of our intense desire that all evil will come to an end.
Psalm 98
The people, the nations, and the whole of creation delight in God’s victory and rejoice when God comes to put all creation right. This psalm is used at Easter, and is often used on Sundays, mini-anniversaries of Easter. There is some lovely imagery of the sea deliberately making a noise with its waves and rivers doing the same by clapping their hands.
Wisdom 1: 1-15 What’s Wisdom about?
For the next two weeks we read portions of the book of Wisdom. This book was written not long before the birth of Jesus, when Greece had conquered the Jews. The book is a series of wise sayings which encourage people to remain loyal to the God of Israel. The book uses the then popular figure of “Wisdom”, a semi-divine female person, who would be familiar to educated Greeks, and to Jews influenced by Greek religion and thought. The concept of “Wisdom” influenced early Christians in their ideas of the Holy Spirit. Thus we read the Hebrew background to the Holy Spirit as we prepare for the gift of Christ’s Spirit at Pentecost.
Today’s introduction assures people that moral behaviour is noticed and affirmed by God, and immoral behaviour will have consequences. God is affirmed as profoundly moral and therefore gives that quality to the cosmos and to everything in it. This is in sharp contrast to Greek religion which understood the various gods of Mount Olympus as each seeking their own selfish ends. Which one we assume to be true will have a profound effect on how we live.
Matthew 7: 15-29 What’s Matthew about?
For the next three months on Sundays we will read through the gospel of Matthew at the daily office.
Typically, as in this passage, Matthew is concerned with maintaining high moral standards in the Christian community, and remembers Jesus challenging the community not to follow false prophets, to enact loving deeds in everyday life, and to found their lives upon the solid rock of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
This week’s collect:
O God of peace,
who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ,
that great shepherd of the sheep,
by the blood of the eternal covenant,
make us perfect in every good work to do your will,
and work in us that which is well-pleasing in your sight;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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