Monday February 13 Epiphany 6
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Psalm 89 Part 1
God’s faithfulness in creation is the basis for our trust in God’s justice and care for us. Just as God created order from chaos in creation, so we can rely upon God to create order out of the chaos in human society. God’s original goodness, intended for humanity and the world, is that everyone have a place and dignity and worth. Accomplishing that is the work of justice, often translated into traditional English as “righteousness.”
Isaiah 63: 1-6 What’s Isaiah about?
Isaiah uses a series of violent images to convey God’s irresistible power and absolute determination that injustice and oppression be eliminated from the earth and that God will protect the people. This sense of God’s absolute power to overcome oppression was of great encouragement to the Jews living in slavery in Babylon and questioning whether they would ever escape.
Mark 11: 1-11 What’s Mark about?
The disciples are about to see clearly what Jesus is all about. Every year a week before the celebration of the ancient Passover escape from Egypt, a Roman general entered Jerusalem riding on a magnificent stallion at the head of an entire legion, and welcomed by Herod. The purpose was to crush any revolt inspired by the ancient stories of God rescuing the people from Egyptian slavery—but this time, many hoped, from Rome.
At the same time as the Roman general enters the city, Jesus also enters Jerusalem but on a donkey, enacting the true kingdom by riding an unimportant animal which puts him on the same level as the people. Jesus’ defiance is exactly what the Romans have come to suppress, and it is no wonder that he is executed only days later.
The early Christians interpreted these events as meaning that Jesus defied not only the Roman oppression of their country, but all cruelty, oppression, and evil. By embracing evil and passing through death into resurrection he took evil on, and won. The disciples are about to see how, by participating in Christ’s death and resurrection, they will receive full life.
This week’s collect:
Almighty and everliving God,
whose Son Jesus Christ healed the sick
and restored them to wholeness of life,
look with compassion on the anguish of the world,
and by your power make whole all peoples and nations;
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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