Saturday August 21 Pentecost 12
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Psalm 104
God has wondrously set everything in its place—from oceans to storks to whales to the sun. Praise to God who has made this earth and whose power and care is expressed in every part of the world.
2 Samuel 23: 1-17 What’s Samuel about?
The text appears to be out of order—the following song and summary of David’s military leaders and brief accounts of victories would originally have come at the end of the story of his reign.
Mark 13: 1-13 What’s Mark about?
Jesus has successfully challenged those who are intending to kill him, and he now speaks about the dangerous circumstances that are about to happen. In Mark’s mind Jesus is describing both the imminent fate of Jerusalem which was soon to be destroyed under Roman occupation while Mark was writing his gospel, as well as the cosmic implications of God’s justice being rejected by humanity. This chapter is often called “The Little Apocalypse” and its account of a violent future was a commonly used style of imagery. The point of the dramatic descriptions in this chapter is that no matter how bad things get, in the end God is in charge.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
you have broken the tyranny of sin
and sent into our hearts the Spirit of your Son.
Give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service,
that all people may know the glorious liberty
of the children of God;
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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