Saturday June 19 Pentecost 3
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Psalm 87
A vision of Jerusalem as the source of life for all the world, as if every nation and every beautiful thing originated there. Christians might interpret this as Jesus’ death and resurrection in Jerusalem being the source of life and beauty for the whole world.
Psalm 90
Our lives are very short, like a breath we are gone, we are so insignificant. Bless us, God.
1 Samuel 4: 1b-11 What’s Samuel about?
A battle takes place with the Philistines, and the Israelites lose. We are to understand this is the consequence of the abuse being carried out by the sons of the priest Eli. So, as the ultimate defence, the Israelites bring the ark, their most sacred object (which contained the original stone ten commandments and was an object of supernatural power) to protect themselves from the Philistines. But the Philistines capture the ark, an unmitigated disaster. It is clear that the God of justice has abandoned the Israelites, and even the ten commandments stored in the ark, because of their refusal to challenge injustice. In the battle the sons of Eli are killed, as God had predicted. It is clear that God will not allow anything to stand in the way of God’s opposition to injustice.
Luke 21: 20-28 What’s Luke about?
Luke continues with the apocalyptic vision of Jerusalem’s destruction, much of it anticipating the historical destruction of Jerusalem forty years after Jesus’ execution. Three hundred years before Jesus, the Book of Daniel was written to describe how a “Son of Man” would be raised up by God to throw off the oppressive Greek empire. The book was popular around the time of Jesus because it offered hope that the Roman empire would be divinely defeated. Early Christians understood that Jesus would have quoted from Daniel the verse “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” as a way of encouraging his disciples to be confident and rejoice in times of great uncertainty—because God’s victory is very near.
We are to live as if God’s arrival is now very close indeed—that in itself gives us confidence and fullness of life without fear of being destroyed by the surrounding chaos. How relevant to our time!
This week’s collect:
Almighty God, without you we are not able to please you.
Mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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