Sunday November 28 Advent 1
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Psalm 146
Joy in God’s victorious justice for the oppressed, the blind, the strangers and the orphans—that justice for all is built into God’s magnificent creation. Appropriate for a Sunday, which is the anniversary of the resurrection—God’s victory over all evil.
Psalm 147
God’s wondrous creation and God’s commitment to justice are intertwined. Other cultures are not aware of this. What a helpful insight in our day!
Amos 1: 1-5, 13—2: 8 What’s Amos about?
We now begin reading through the book of the prophet Amos who writes about the changes required to make justice normal in the world. In Advent we are preparing, not for the coming of Christ two thousand years ago, but for the coming of God’s kingdom among us now. Change will be required, and there will be terrible consequences if exploitation continues.
This passage seems very violent until we come to the end of the passage and discover the reason is that God is utterly determined that there will be no more exploitation of the weak and defenceless. God lists horrors perpetrated by three nations around the people and then accuses them of doing the same thing—selling good people for money and poor people for a pair of sandals, and abusing women. The passage is a warning that there are terrible consequences for such behaviour if it doesn’t change.
Luke 21: 5-9 What’s Luke about?
Jesus described the temple being destroyed using a popular style of imagery called “apocalyptic,” but Jesus uses it to call us not towards fear but towards confidence even in the most difficult times. The temple was indeed destroyed by the Romans forty years later and Luke, writing around that time, may be remembering Jesus as having predicted that disaster.
“By your endurance you will gain your souls” means that by refusing to join in the chaos and allow it into our lives, we remain people of the victorious God of justice and we stay fully alive—an important direction to us in our time.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ
came to us in great humility,
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge both the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit,
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