Wednesday May 5 Easter 5
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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.
Wisdom 13: 1-9 What’s Wisdom about?
The poet says that many people, meaning Greek intellectuals, are fascinated by the beauty and ingenuity of the world and how it works, and while we Jews cannot blame them for being so deeply attracted, they should have come to an awareness of the One from whom all things come.
Living in Greek culture, which was highly educated and sophisticated about the world, would have been threatening to the ancient Jews and their traditional faith. So in this book they are re-interpreting their faith so that they see God, in the form of Wisdom, lying behind the impressive Greek knowledge of the world. It was an approach which would fit well in our time.
Luke 8: 16-25 What’s Luke about?
Jesus encourages us to be like light in the world so others can see clearly what is going on beneath the surface; we are to listen carefully to what God is doing, otherwise we will have nothing to contribute to the world because those who don’t listen will have nothing to contribute; finally, Jesus’ true relatives are not those related by genetics but those who live in his family of love. All these challenges are summed up in Jesus overcoming a storm which had threatened to drown the disciples.
When Luke was writing, the storm of opposition to followers of Jesus was growing, so understanding Christians to be light for the world, to have insights to contribute to society, and to hold our primary loyalty to be with other Jesus-followers was how early Christians experienced Jesus continuing to be among them giving them peace in the storm of opposition. We could do with experiencing the same reassurance in our day.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
your Son Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.
Give us grace to love one another
and walk in the way of his commandments,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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