Saturday June 15 Pentecost 3
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Psalm 23
I am like a sheep being looked after by God. Even when death comes close, you look after me and feed me and I will live always in your presence.
Psalm 27
Even though there is trouble all around, I am glad that God is with me. Even if my parents were to disown me, you, God, will stay faithful to me.
These two psalms are often used on Saturdays when Jesus lies dead in the grave. God is now the only hope.
Numbers 3.1-13 What’s Numbers about?
We now return to reading from the historical books which tell how the Israelites travelled from Mount Sinai after their escape from Egypt into the land God had promised. Today we begin reading from the Book of Numbers, so called because the book opens with details of a census Moses took of the people.
The book was put into written form and edited by priests when the Israelites were returning to the land and rebuilding the destroyed temple about 500 years before Jesus and about a thousand years after the events they were describing. Priests supervised all the details of the sacrifices in the temple, and so were central to the Israelite experience of God. The priests were particularly interested in the way in which priesthood had developed in the time of Moses and much of the book deals with those events and the duties of priests as they understood God, acting through Moses, had intended. Although priests had originally been first-born, by the time of the return from exile they were only of the tribe of Levi, and in this passage they describe how God had instituted that. At the time of the editing, when Israel was recovering from capture and was rebuilding the temple and restarting their religious practices, these stories would have given hope and direction as they reconstructed their religion and their lives. We read this book with that perspective in mind, and think about how a similar commitment to God might be enacted in our world.
Matthew 17.1-13 What’s Matthew about?
Immediately after Jesus announces his determination to go to Jerusalem to suffer and be executed, three of his disciples see him in his cosmic glory. The meaning of the transfiguration is that Jesus’ death and subsequent resurrection is the glory that will be embodied in his loving act of making humanity his priority even above his own life.
This week’s collect:
O God,
you have assured the human family of eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Deliver us from the death of sin
and raise us to new life in him,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.