Friday, August 16 Pentecost 12
Psalm 102
A lament at the destruction of Jerusalem 600 years before Jesus. It ends with hope of God’s faithfulness. The imagery of desolation is appropriate for Fridays, the mini-anniversary of Jesus being betrayed, abandoned, and in hours will be dead. Yet God will remain faithful.
Judges 14.21-15.20 What’s Judges about?
In revenge for his fiancé having been given by her family to his best man, Samson sets fire to the Philistines’ wheat fields. The Philistines burn down the house of the woman’s father for initiating this disaster and begin to attack the Israelites. To save themselves, the Israelites persuade Samson to allow himself to be bound and given to the Philistines. Samson breaks the ropes and slaughters the Philistines. When he is thirsty, God makes water come from a rock, and we recall the rock from which God produced water in the wilderness before the people entered the promised land. Samson leads Israel for 20 years.
Stories like these would have given the Israelites great encouragement when these accounts were complied while they were conquered a thousand years later.
John 4.43-54 What’s John about?
Immediately after spending two days with the hated Samaritans and with the woman at the well, Jesus returns on the third day (in John “the third day” is always symbolic of Easter Day) to Cana of Galilee where he had provided 180 gallons of the best wine after everyone had already had too much to drink.
The royal official in Cana is colluding with the Roman oppression, yet he, too, drinks of the abundant wine when his child is cured, just as the outcast Samaritan woman drank deeply from the well of Jesus’ acceptance. Both these outcasts, one with great power and one with none, have their lives restored.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
you sent your Holy Spirit
to be the life and light of your Church.
Open our hearts to the riches of your grace,
that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit
in love, joy, and peace;
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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