Monday April 3 Monday in Holy Week
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Psalm 51
I have committed evil acts and I long that God will wash me clean. If I am forgiven, I will tell everyone of God’s goodness. I would have given expensive sacrifices, but what you want, O God, is that I change my priorities. Then God will be pleased with us and our religious practices.
This psalm is used in Holy Week in preparation for the death of Christ through which new life is given. Our world would receive new life if we were as committed to changing direction in matters which are bringing death to the planet.
Jeremiah 12: 1-16 What’s Jeremiah about?
Jeremiah accuses God of not acting against evil. In the same way, evil seems to be victorious this week and especially on Good Friday. It’s appropriate to call out to God in the face of evil, as Jeremiah does, and demand that things change.
John 12: 9-19 What’s John about?
John’s gospel continues to explore the meanings behind Jesus raising Lazarus—life has been restored—but the world’s response is to kill Lazarus so as to maintain the power to control and oppress. In the same way and for the same reason Jesus will be executed in a couple of days. The next day, on what we call Palm Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem in a practical demonstration of how public life can be raised from the death of Roman violence into a fully inclusive way of living. Jesus will be rejected and executed, and after his death, like Lazarus, Jesus will also be raised to new life, and we with him.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
whose Son was crucified yet entered into glory,
may we, walking in the way of the cross,
find it is for us the way of life;
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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