Wednesday March 3 Lent 2
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Psalm 72
A prayer that the king will rule with justice for the poor, and that as a result all will have more than enough to live fully. This can easily applied as a prayer for our political leaders today.
Jeremiah 3: 6-18
The northern part of the country (the Kingdom of Israel) and the southern part (the Kingdom of Judah) have both abandoned God’s justice and are thus bringing on themselves the disaster of their enslavement by Babylon. Jeremiah imagines them as two sisters who are prostituting themselves. But God continues to call them back to justice for all. Jeremiah makes the extraordinary claim that God will totally transform their life by coming to live in Jerusalem. So the ark (the portable box containing the 10 commandments and a jar of manna—the central sacred objects in the temple) will be useless and not even be remembered, because with God living in Jerusalem there will be no need for commandments. This is God’s extraordinary generosity promised to a country which has committed adultery with gods that stand for injustice.
Could we imagine such generosity being expressed for our world that is consumed by the desire for power and greed?
John 5: 1-18
Jesus heals a paralyzed man on the Sabbath—the day that was set aside to each week to re-experience creation the way it had originally been intended to be. But the religious leaders, perhaps worried about the challenge to their authority, accuse the healed man, and subsequently Jesus, of desecrating this holy day. Jesus insists on the priority of returning to God’s original beautiful creation by healing on Sabbaths and for that and claiming to be doing the direct work of God, the authorities begin plotting to kill him.
We may be overhearing criticism of Christians from the time this gospel was written, that Christians were making Sunday, the anniversary of the resurrection, a more important day than Saturday, the anniversary of creation. Are there times when we must challenge what is normal in our society in order to make God’s triumph known?
This week’s collect:
Almighty God, whose Son was revealed in majesty
before he suffered death upon the cross,
give us faith to perceive his glory,
that being strengthened by his grace
we may be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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