Thursday December 1 Advent 1
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Psalm 18 Part 1
A meditation on God’s immense power to save:—a poetic imaginative recounting of the crossing of the Red Sea and God’s rescue of the people from their slave masters. The psalm can be read as if it were the experience of one person being rescued or as if the nation is speaking with a single voice.
Isaiah 2: 12-22 What’s Isaiah about?
The God of justice is more powerful than all the most advanced nations and their military and their priorities. When God acts to restore justice and inclusion for all, those who have abused their power and put value on selfishness will be utterly defeated.
Luke 20.27-40 What’s Luke about?
Those opposed to Jesus ridicule the then controversial idea of resurrection—they point out that if people are resurrected then a woman had been married to a series of brothers (as was legally required if each died without children) then when they were all resurrected she would be required to commit polygamy in heaven!
We may be hearing responses to critiques of Christian claims about Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus responds that God is interested in those who are alive now and live through the resurrection, not in speculations about the social arrangements in heaven.
Are our faith concerns primarily with how to enact justice and inclusion for all in this world, or about how to win religious arguments? Jesus challenges us not to get caught up in the latter. This is the final confrontation mounted by the religious authorities before Jesus’ crucifixion. From now on Jesus takes the initiative and critiques his accusers.
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, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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