Monday April 12 Easter 2
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Psalm 1
Those who live in righteousness—which means with justice to all—will be as strong as healthy trees planted near water. Injustice will be blown away like chaff.
Psalm 2
Other nations laugh at God and God’s people, but God has chosen this people and their king, and God will have the final word.
Christians may understand this to be a way of saying that God has made self-offering love and justice in the death and resurrection of Christ to be the ultimate reality. All other attempts at finding full life through pursuing self-interest are laughable and doomed to fail.
Psalm 3
Because of God’s protection, I have nothing to fear.
Daniel 1: 1-21 What’s Daniel about?
Today we begin reading the book of Daniel. The book contains a series of imaginary stories set in the time of the exile 600 years before Jesus. In each story the Jews are under threat and are rescued by God. These stories would have given much courage to the Jewish people who had just been conquered by the Greeks. It’s appropriate to read this book of victories over oppression as we celebrate God’s Easter victory for the next six weeks.
The book opens with Daniel enslaved in Babylon refusing to eat non-kosher meat assigned by the Babylonian king, yet with God’s power he and his companions are more healthy after 10 days of eating only vegetables (considered not to be nutritious) than those who had eaten nutritious food.
So we, who are under the control of evil forces in our modern world, can use our imagination to anticipate God’s victory over evil and oppression.
John 17: 1-11 What’s John about?
Jesus assures us that our loyalty to his love will receive protection even when he is no longer physically present. This is particularly important for we who find ourselves living in a time when faith is widely rejected—which is like not having Jesus physically present anymore—but, John says, Jesus anticipated that, and assures us of his support and that he showed us in his death and resurrection everything we need to live fully alive lives.
This week’s collect:
Almighty and eternal God,
the strength of those who believe
and the hope of those who doubt,
may we, who have not seen, have faith
and receive the fullness of Christ’s blessing,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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