Author: Harold

Sunday April 20          Easter Day

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 148
These three psalms are especially appropriate on Sundays, the mini-anniversary of the resurrection. All creation praises God—the heavens, the earth—including fog, sea monsters, and “creeping things” (perhaps even insects or worms)—and humanity—rulers, young people and old people—all things without exception praise God together. Notice that the sequence is taken from the first creation story in Genesis: first light, then the heavens, then creatures of the water, then creatures of the land, and finally people.

Psalm 149
Songs of joy at God’s victory. The joy of military victories toward the end of the psalm was their way of saying that God has ended all injustice.

Psalm 150
A scene of riotous joy as every conceivable instrument and every creature praises God.

Exodus 12: 1-14                            What’s Exodus about?
God describes how God will utterly defeat the evil powers that have enslaved the Israelites in Egypt. The annual celebration of this escape became the festival of Passover, and the ceremonial eating of lambs amidst preparation for immediate departure remains the foundational Jewish experience of God.

The Jews who followed Jesus identified his death as a re-enactment of of the lamb, and so called him the “Lamb of God.” The implication was obvious to them—Jesus was the sacrifice, like the ancient lambs, that signalled their escape from slavery, and the eating of the lambs was  experienced in the food of the communion service. They were interpreting  Jesus’ death and resurrection to be a new form of the Passover now applicable not just to Jews but to the entire world.

John 1: 1-8                            What’s John about?
John’s gospel is more interested in the meanings behind Jesus than in the details of his life.
On Easter Day, we read John’s interpretation that Jesus was central to the creation of the universe, and thus imprinted upon all things the process of costly love and the resurrection triumph over evil.

For the next ten days we will continue to read John’s gospel and his exploration of the deep meanings of Easter.

This week’s collect:

Lord of life and power,
through the mighty resurrection of your Son,
you have overcome the old order of sin and death
and have made all things new in him.
May we, being dead to sin
and alive to you in Jesus Christ,
reign with him in glory,
who with you and the Holy Spirit is alive,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Saturday April 19          Holy Saturday

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 88
A lament that I have been crushed and am beyond hope. When I am dead, there is nothing left, there is no life beyond the grave. Astonishingly, to be fully with us, Jesus enters completely into such a death.

This psalm is appropriately read on a Friday as Jesus is placed in the grave. Only God’s act, on Saturday night—the eve of the resurrection—can reverse death—even Jesus’ death. That’s the only hope there is.

Job 19: 21-27a                            What’s Job about?
Job, abandoned by God, continues to trust that God’s justice will prevail.

A fitting image for Jesus, in the grave, about to be raised by God.

Hebrews 4: 1-16                            What’s Hebrews about?
The author, an early Christian, is interpreting a verse “They shall not enter into my rest,” from Psalm 95 (used daily in the Daily Office). This part of the psalm describes how dire consequences followed when the Israelites, travelling through the wilderness after escaping from Egypt, abandoned God’s justice. The result was many died in the wilderness and never got to “rest” in the promised land. The author uses the word “rest,” from that psalm and other passages, to suggest how Jesus’ death and resurrection relate to us now.
The author highlights other meanings of “rest” such as the “rest” that God took when the world was finished and perfect (the first Sabbath), Jesus “resting” in the grave today, and the “rest” that Christians experience right now knowing that God is triumphant over death.

The author encourages us not to be like the Israelites in the wilderness and abandon loyalty to Christ’s death and resurrection. By remaining faithful, and knowing that Jesus’ death and resurrection are the central reality of all life, we will enter into God’s “rest”—the promised land of living full lives—right now.

This week’s collect:

Eternal Giver of life and light,
this holy night shines with the radiance of the risen Christ.
Renew your Church with the Spirit given to us in baptism,
that we may worship you in sincerity and truth,
and shine as a light in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Friday April 18          Good Friday

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 22
This psalm is one of the most dramatic expressions of extreme fear, moving into trust in God. God acted in the past, but is doing so no longer. Jesus quotes from this psalm while he is on the cross, (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). It is appropriately read on Fridays, mini-anniversaries of the day Jesus was crucified.

Many elements in this psalm may have influenced the early Christians’ understanding of Jesus: the taunt that Jesus should save himself and since he didn’t he can’t be God, Jesus being God’s in Mary’s womb, Jesus’ thirst on the cross, his garments divided and dice cast for them, his hands and feet pierced, and packs of dogs which likely gathered at crucifixions. The second half of the psalm proclaims God’s faithfulness.

Genesis 22: 1-14                            What’s Genesis about?
In Judaism, Abraham’s willingness to give his son to God as a sign of acknowledging that everything comes from God, was a central experience of their faith. God’s request that Abraham sacrifice a bullock was the origin of the temple sacrifices which continued through the time of Jesus. The temple was understood to have been built over the actual rock on which the original sacrifice had taken place. Although the story may have originated as an ancient Jewish decision to end the practice of child sacrifice, its meaning deepened. Abraham was prepared, if necessary to follow God, not only to sacrifice his son, but because Isaac was his only son it meant he was prepared to abandon the entire future of becoming the great nation that God had promised. When Abraham is prepared to give up everything, God renews the covenant that Abraham will indeed be the ancestor of enormous nations.

Early Christians interpreted Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son, to be a foreshadowing of God’s only Son, Jesus, being sacrificed for us. Many early Christians, who were all Jews, interpreted Jesus’ death in relation to that profound experience.

John 13: 36-38                           What’s John about?
Peter insists that he will follow Jesus anywhere but Jesus confronts Peter with his imminent betrayal. Jesus is not condemning Peter, but asking him to be honest about his self-centredness. On this day, Jesus asks of us the same honesty. After dying to the illusion of how loving we are, only then can we rise to new life.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
look graciously, we pray, on this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ
was willing to be betrayed
and given into the hands of sinners,
and to suffer death upon the cross;
who now lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Thursday April 17          Maundy Thursday

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

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.

Jeremiah 20: 7-11                            What’s Jeremiah about?
Jeremiah continues to suffer rejection and abandonment even from his friends because of his urgent need to name the abuses going on in the land.  Some of these images may have influenced early Christians in describing Jesus’ torture and death using similar details.

This concludes our readings from Jeremiah, who challenged oppressive authority and so suggests some ways of understanding the reasons for Jesus’ persecution and death.

John 17: 1-26                            What’s John about?
As typical in John’s gospel, Jesus speaks about the meaning of his death in semi-poetic terms with many allusions. Before going into the Garden of Gethsemane where he will be betrayed and arrested that night, Jesus asks God to glorify him so he can glorify God. The glory to which he refers is his own execution the next day, because it will enact the depth of love that God, in Jesus, has for the world. God’s intention to love at that depth was there when the universe was created.

Jesus goes on to speak of having given the disciples God’s “word.” The word “word” is “logos” in Greek, and also means something like “deep reality” or “underlying principle.”  Jesus wants the disciples to understand that his execution is not an historical accident, nor the act of a very committed person (as some critics may have been saying at the time this gospel was written) but is our experience of the deepest processes of God’s love which lie behind everything.

Just as Jesus himself faces opposition, so, he says, will his disciples because the world rejects the call to love at such depth. Jesus asks that his disciples be protected from their inevitable persecution and that their lives be characterized by the same degree of love as his own, which is actually God’s.

Finally, Jesus asks that those who follow the disciples, which is us, will be united in the self-offering love which is the ultimate character of God and that we will be upheld by that love and so will ourselves be in glory.

We might have expected the reading today to include the Last Supper. But John does not record that event. However, at the place where the Last Supper would have happened, John presents today’s meditation on the glory of Jesus’ self-offering and that of his disciples and ourselves. Perhaps that’s what John understood the Last Supper and communion were about.

This week’s collect:

O God,
your Son Jesus Christ
has left to us this meal of bread and wine
in which we share his body and his blood.
May we who celebrate this sign of his great love
show in our lives the fruits of his redemption;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Wednesday April 16          Wednesday in Holy Week

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 55
I am terrified at what is happening. The city is full of corruption and my dear familiar friend has betrayed me. I will not cease imploring God to intervene and put things right.

Appropriate for a Saturday, when Jesus, betrayed by friends, waits in silence in the grave.

Jeremiah 17: 5-17                            What’s Jeremiah about?
In this more poetic and reflective section of the text, Jeremiah explores images of those who do or do not trust in God’s justice and commits himself to remaining faithful to God’s faithfulness.

John 12: 27-36                            What’s John about?
Having just spoken to the Greeks about the necessity of his self-offering love, Jesus now speaks of his reluctance to be crucified, but insists that is the entire purpose of his life, as such love is to be the entire purpose of ours. The voice which affirms Jesus’ commitment is saying that such love comes from the mystery underlying all creation.
Many still do not understand how it can be that the one who is the image of God must die in order to love. This remains a difficult thing for us to understand and practice until we are enabled to see clearly on Easter morning.

At the end of this passage Jesus hides. This is to indicate that he is in charge of when his final glory, his death and resurrection, will happen. The timing of his ultimate loving act is his decision, not that of his opponents.

This week’s collect:

Lord God,
your Son our Saviour gave his body to be whipped
and turned his face to be spat upon.
Give your servants grace to accept suffering for his sake,
confident of the glory that will be revealed,
through Jesus Christ our Lord
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Tuesday April 15          Tuesday in Holy Week

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 6
I have been hounded almost to death, help me, God. Thanks be to God that God heard me and the evil people will be overcome.

Psalm 12
Everyone has abandoned truth and justice. I stand alone against this injustice. It is when God sees injustice that God acts. Save us, God, evil is prevailing.

Jeremiah 15: 10-21                            What’s Jeremiah about?
Jeremiah complains to God that he is being persecuted for telling the truth and that God has abandoned him for no reason—he accuses God of being unfaithful like a stream that dries up in summer when you really need it. God responds by promising to make Jeremiah the one who tells the truth to the people and to protect him from those who would destroy him for telling the truth about their having abandoned justice and brought on themselves the disaster of being enslaved in Babylon.

John 12: 20-26                            What’s John about?
During the Passover (the festival of liberation from slavery) Jesus explains to Greek worshippers that his purpose is to be a grain of wheat being planted and so by dying to become an immense harvest. He means that losing one’s life for love is the only way to experience deep life. He describes his coming death as his glory—the fulfilment of his purpose which is to love the world without any limit to his self-offering.
The idea of such love accepting a horrific death as the way to life would have been particularly strange to the Greeks who believed that people are essentially souls for whom physical life is less important and that human ingenuity and military power could ensure a fulfilled future.

The same unfortunate illusions, that sacrificial love can be avoided by being religious like Greek philosophy or by trusting in the power of violence like all empires, remain widespread today. But we can have real life (“eternal life” as the John puts it) only through deeply loving which always involves giving our life, and that becomes a joy because it is founded in care and that is the ultimate fulfilment.

This week’s collect:

O God,
by the passion of your blessed Son,
you made an instrument of shameful death
to be for us the means of life.
May our lives be so transformed by his passion
that we may witness to his grace;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Monday April 14          Monday in Holy Week

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 51
I have committed evil acts and I long that God will wash me clean. If I am forgiven, I will tell everyone of God’s goodness. I would have given expensive sacrifices, but what you want, O God, is that I change my priorities. Then God will be pleased with us and our religious practices.

This psalm is often used on Fridays, the anniversary of the death of Christ through which forgiveness is possible. Our world would receive new life if we were as committed to changing direction in matters which are bringing death to the planet.

Jeremiah 12: 1-16                            What’s Jeremiah about?
Jeremiah accuses God of not acting against evil. In the same way, evil seems to be victorious this week and especially on Good Friday. It’s appropriate to call out to God in the face of evil, as Jeremiah does, and demand that things change.

John 12: 9-19                            What’s John about?
John’s gospel continues to explore the meanings behind Jesus raising Lazarus—life has been restored—but the world’s response is to kill Lazarus so as to maintain the power to control and oppress. In the same way and for the same reason Jesus will be executed in a couple of days. The next day, on what we call Palm Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem in a practical demonstration of how public life can be raised from the death of Roman violence into a fully inclusive way of living. Jesus will be rejected and executed, and after his death, like Lazarus, Jesus will also be raised to new life, and we with him.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
whose Son was crucified yet entered into glory,
may we, walking in the way of the cross,
find it is for us the way of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Sunday April 13          Palm Sunday

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 24
While entering through the doors of the temple the poet sings a hymn of praise to God who brought order out of the dangerous primordial ocean. Appropriate for a Sunday as we enter into our worship.

Psalm 29
Astonishment at the overwhelming presence of God in nature who rules the untameable ocean and even makes mountains cavort like calves and oak trees “writhe” in a gale! We worship such a God, who makes such strength and peace available to us.

Zechariah 9: 9-12                            What’s Zechariah about?
A set of images about the gentle peace that will happen after the people have been released from exile 500 years before Jesus. Today Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a defenceless donkey to confront the military might and violence of the Roman empire with an alternative society of justice and equality. Early Christians saw in this passage from Zechariah a foretelling of Jesus’ entry today into Jerusalem and wove some of those details into that story of Jesus’ confrontation with Rome.

Mark 11: 1-11                            What’s Mark about?
It is a week before the Passover, the annual commemoration of God rescuing the ancient Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Jews in Jesus’ time felt enslaved again by the Roman empire and many anticipated that God would act at a Passover to overthrow Roman rule just as God had overthrown the Egyptians.
To prevent a rebellion, every year the Romans sent an entire legion to Jerusalem which was welcomed by the leaders of the city and religious authorities, all of whom held their positions at the pleasure of the Roman governor. By riding into the city on a young colt decorated with blankets, at the same moment as the Roman legion entered the city, Jesus is deliberately mocking the grand entry of the Roman general who at the same moment was entering the city on a great decorated stallion at the head of an enormous military operation.

Jesus’ enacting of a peaceful society was immensely popular with the common people and the Roman authorities saw in it, and in Jesus’ defiance of their military, the beginning of a revolt. No wonder Jesus will be executed five days later.

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everliving God,
in tender love for all our human race
you sent your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ
to take our flesh
and suffer death upon a cruel cross.
May we follow the example of his great humility,
and share in the glory of his resurrection;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Saturday April 12          Lent 5

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 137
Another psalm expressing terrible grief that the nation had been abandoned. When the people were captured and taken to Babylon about 700 years before Jesus, they were asked to amuse their captors with funny songs, and were horrified to have to entertain those who had destroyed their land and the glorious temple dedicated to justice.

The concluding couple of verses of this psalm are disturbingly violent. We sometimes also feel violent when we are abused, so there is an honest recognition of that truth here. Or we can think of this part as a commitment to ensuring that all evil should be completely removed from the world.

Psalm 144
This psalm expresses the feeling that we are not very strong in face of terrible forces, but that God can act to save us, and the end result will be unimaginable prosperity and happiness.

These two psalms are chosen for a Saturday when Jesus lies dead in the grave, destroyed by evil as was Jerusalem. Yet Jesus and Jerusalem were to hear a call to new and glorious life.

Jeremiah 31: 27-34                            What’s Jeremiah about?
Six hundred years before Jesus, Jeremiah uses several images to provide hope to the exiled people: God will put people and animals back in to the abandoned city of Jerusalem as if God were planting seeds; people may suffer consequences for their lack of justice, but won’t suffer for their ancestors’ infidelity.

Further, there will—astonishingly—be a new covenant with the people. It was unimaginable that God would undertake a new covenant. In the first covenant, God promised a permanent home, rescued the people from Egypt and provided the ten commandments, as if God had married the Israelites. But in this new covenant God will write justice on people’s hearts and minds (not on stone tablets) so nobody has to teach anybody anything about God—everyone will already know that God is the God of justice and fairness.

All their injustice will be completely forgiven and they will be returned to the home their husband-God had promised.

John 11: 28-44                           What’s John about?
This story of Jesus raising Lazarus from death comes just as Jesus is himself coming closer to being executed. It may be that John is using the story as a way of understanding the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection—there are many details in this story that are similar to those of Jesus’ death.
Mary believes that Jesus could have prevented her brother from dying by curing him as he cured many others, but she doesn’t believe that Jesus can raise him from death. Jesus is “greatly disturbed” perhaps meaning he is greatly frustrated that they still don’t understand that he is the resurrection from death. Jesus raises Lazarus and calls him from the tomb. A week today Jesus will be laying dead in his tomb, awaiting the unexpected call from God to rise again. So will we.

John, the gospel writer, is dealing with doubts about Christ that are often still ours. He presents Mary as having the same struggles we do. Is Jesus someone who is an example of good and helps us, or is he, as John believes, somehow the one who destroys death? There are all kinds of deaths that we have been called out of into new life. That’s how Jesus’ resurrection happens in us.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
your Son came into the world
to free us all from sin and death.
Breathe upon us with the power of your Spirit,
that we may be raised to new life in Christ,
and serve you in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Friday April 11          Lent 5

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 22
This psalm is one of the most dramatic expressions of extreme fear, moving into trust in God. God acted in the past, but is doing so no longer. Jesus quotes from this psalm while he is on the cross, (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). It is appropriately read on Fridays, mini-anniversaries of the day Jesus was crucified.

Many elements in this psalm may have influenced the early Christians’ understanding of Jesus: the taunt that Jesus should save himself and since he didn’t he can’t be God, Jesus being God’s in Mary’s womb, Jesus’ thirst on the cross, his garments divided and dice cast for them, his hands and feet pierced, and packs of dogs which likely gathered at crucifixions. The second half of the psalm proclaims God’s faithfulness.

Jeremiah 29: 1-14                           What’s Jeremiah about?
Jeremiah writes to those exiled to Babylon that after 70 years God will bring the people back to their land and make them safe. They are not to trust other prophets who say God will act soon. In the meantime, they should start living normally in their exile, and raise families and live peaceably in the city so there will be a vibrant people to return and rebuild Jerusalem when the time comes. Some people may have been arguing that God had abandoned them but Jeremiah asserts this delay was actually planned by God, so they can trust God totally. Possibly the seventy years was understood to be a full week of ten year segments so that it parallels God’s creation of the world.

The details about how the letter was sent are included in order to emphasize the letter’s importance and solemnity.

In fact, the people did return to Jerusalem after about 70 years and they began to rebuild the city and the temple. The re-built temple was the one that was still standing in the time of Jesus, and had by then been greatly enlarged by Herod the Great a few years before Jesus’ birth.

John 11: 1-27                           What’s John about?
Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, has fallen ill, which means “gravely ill,” but Jesus dismisses this and  deliberately delays travelling for three days in order that there be no doubt that Lazarus is really dead.
Since Lazarus, Mary and Martha live just outside Jerusalem, the disciples are reluctant to go there knowing the implications are that Jesus will be in danger of being killed. Indeed, a week today Jesus also will be dead, and three days later, just like Lazarus, he will be raised. When Jesus arrives at Bethany the conversation continues about what it means that Jesus is the resurrection.

As always in John, conversations have multiple layers of meaning, and this story is intended to lead us to trust that Jesus’ resurrection will be available for us all, regardless of how unlikely that may seem to us.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
your Son came into the world
to free us all from sin and death.
Breathe upon us with the power of your Spirit,
that we may be raised to new life in Christ,
and serve you in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.