Author: Harold

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 God’s statement of placing the justice and reconciliation we know in the death and resurrection of Christ as the ultimate reality. All other attempts at finding full life through self-interest are laughable.

Psalm 85
Trust that God will save us, despite what we have done, and will fill us with plenty and fill the land with justice.

Zechariah 2: 10-13
God is about to come and live in Jerusalem – so all will be well and all will rejoice.

John 3: 31-36
John’s gospel claims that Jesus is the way we experience God. To refuse that experience is to refuse to live. If Jesus’ death and resurrection is the ultimate reality, then choosing to be part of that is the way to ultimate life. The point of Christmas, for John, is not the birth of a baby, but our response to God’s offer of new life.

This week’s collect:

O God our Father,
whose Word has come among us
in the Holy Child of Bethlehem,
may the light of faith
illumine our hearts
and shine in our words and deeds;
through him who is Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings for Thursday December 24

Thursday December 24 Christmas Eve

Psalm 45
A poem about King David, using the imagery of an ancient oriental king, describing his personal and public magnificence and the glory of his relationship with the queen. Note that his prime duty is to serve truth and justice.

We can read this poem as a description of our own fulfilled self and relationships which have been made possible for us in union with Christ’s resurrection.

Psalm 46
Neither storms on water or storms of war will shake me because I know that God is behind all the world. Like a river flowing through the city, God is always in our midst.

Isaiah 35: 1-10
The people are enslaved across the impassible Syrian desert a thousand kilometres from Jerusalem. Isaiah asks the people to imagine that God will make that desert like a fruitful field with a highway running straight to Jerusalem on which they can return in safety, health and fulfilment.

Early Christians used this image of a great highway across the desert to explain John the Baptist’s role in preparing for the arrival of Christ.

Luke 1: 67-80
Like Mary, John the Baptist’s father sings a song of praise to God who had not forgotten the covenant made with Abraham to rescue the people. What would a discovery that God still acts to rescue us mean in our time?

This week’s collect:

Eternal God,
this holy night is radiant
with the brilliance of your one true light.
As we have known
the revelation of that light on earth,
bring us to see the splendour of your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings for Wednesday December 23

Wednesday December 23 Advent 4

Psalm 93
A psalm of praise to God who is forever and who makes the world secure. “The waters lifted up their voice” means that although the raging sea (the original chaos) is threatening to drown everything, God’s voice is stronger.

The raging sea can be circumstances in our lives, in our inner life, or in the life of the world.

Psalm 96
Praise to God who really will bring equity (equality) and righteousness (which is the old English translation of dignity and justice) to the whole of humanity.

Isaiah 33: 17-22
God promises the time will come when Jerusalem will be a place of peace and prosperity and nobody will remember the oppressive Assyrians or their incomprehensible language or their luxurious yachts and war galleys. God will ensure the peace and prosperity of Jerusalem.

Luke 1: 57-66
John is born, his mother having miraculously conceived in her old age, as did so many barren mothers in the Hebrew tradition. He is given a new name, unrelated to his family, and miraculously affirmed by his father, “God is gracious” or perhaps “Gift of God.” It is clear that John, who will become “the baptist” will be someone of immense importance.

This week’s collect:

Heavenly Father,
who chose the Virgin Mary, full of grace,
to be the mother of our Lord and Saviour,
now fill us with your grace,
that we in all things may embrace your will
and with her rejoice in your salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings for Tuesday December 22

Tuesday December 22 Advent 4

Psalm 80
After rescuing us from slavery in Egypt, God had planted us in new ground like a well-watered vine, and we grew and filled the whole land. But now we are being attacked by a foreign power and God’s vine is being uprooted. God, rescue us so that we may be a healthy vine again.

Isaiah 29: 13-24
The people respond to God only superficially. So God will do something amazing – God will remove all who exploit the powerless and the nation will have joy, and those who oppress will learn how they should live.

Luke 1: 39-56
Like Samuel’s mother, Mary sings a song of praise to God who cares for the powerless and brings to nothing those who had oppressed them. In their culture for a woman not to have children was a shame and disgrace – her pregnancy, and that of her elderly relative, bring both women into full stature as mature members of their community. In what ways is God bringing maturity to birth in our lives?

This week’s collect:

Readings for Monday December 21

Monday December 21 Advent 4

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.

Isaiah 28: 9-22
The leaders of Jerusalem need to be treated as babies, so they can learn the basics. They have made a contract with death to keep themselves safe, but God is stronger and God’s acts will seem incomprehensible to such people. Our world has also made a contract with death, by relying on military terror to bring peace. In the same way, God’s offer of peace won’t seem to fit well into our world. We are about to see that new kind of peace arrive in Bethlehem.

Luke 1: 26-38
Like her relative, Mary is also unable to have a child but in her case due to her youth rather than old age. Like the priest Zechariah, her relative’s husband, she also has a vision of the coming birth. But unlike Zechariah who did not trust and became unable to speak, she affirms God’s intention and bursts into song.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Sunday December 20

Sunday December 20 Advent 4

Psalm 66
God, you have made the earth wonderfully, and have rescued us from disaster so I will delight in praising you.

Psalm 67
Because of God’s blessings to nature and the nations we will all sing God’s praises.

Isaiah 11: 10-16
Isaiah invents a whole new image, never previously imagined, that God will carry out the Red Sea rescue a second time. Like the ancient crossing of the Red Sea and finding paths in the wilderness, God will do the same to rescue the people from Assyria in Isaiah’s modern world. Are there ways in which we are called to be modern Isaiahs, anticipating a way in which Christ’s birth rescues humanity in our time?

Luke 1: 5-25
We now begin Luke’s interpretation of Jesus’ birth. Elizabeth, a relative of Mary and married to a temple priest, has been barren and is getting elderly. Nevertheless, God intervenes and she conceives. We are reminded of the long tradition in Jewish scripture of miraculous conceptions – Sarai, Abraham’s wife, Rebekah, Isaac’s wife, Hannah, Samuel’s mother, among many others. John’s father, the priest, is struck dumb for doubting God’s power to bring the kingdom into their lives. Mary is also be part of this tradition – she cannot have a child because she does not have a man, yet God will initiate new life in spite of this impossibility.

Luke is challenging us to anticipate the arrival of God’s kingdom in the most unlikely circumstances.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Saturday December 19

Saturday December 19 Advent 3

Psalm 61
I was burdened and God became my strength – be with me always.

Psalm 62
In face of evil, we trust in God to be our solid foundation.

Isaiah 11: 1-9
When the Assyrians deported and enslaved the Israelites the royal family was executed, and thus God’s promise seemed to have failed—God had promised David that there would always be a descendent to reign. But Isaiah has seen branches growing out of stumps and he imagines King David’s father, Jesse, being a cut-down stump from which a new king will arise. Isaiah imagines that new king will bring full justice to the people and fulfillment to nature, thus restoring God’s original creation. God will return all the Israelites from wherever they have been scattered.

Seven hundred years later, early Christians, such as Paul, applied this passage to Jesus. As we approach Christmas, we are also to grow in expectation of that the restoration of all things to their original fulfillment will be happening in our time.

John 5: 30-47
Jesus has been attacked for healing a blind man on the Sabbath, thus doing work on the day of rest. Jesus claims that he is only doing God’s will, i.e. that God desires the work of healing to happen even on the day of rest, and that it is God’s power, not his own, doing these healings. Since his critics were impressed by the light they saw in John the Baptist, who claimed God’s coming victory over the oppressive Roman empire, they ought to see even greater light in Jesus. But they don’t, because they don’t know God’s character. Even Moses understood him, Jesus claims, but if his critics don’t believe Moses, they won’t believe Jesus.

Jesus’ birth challenges us all to live in the light of God’s self-offering love instead of avoiding it, as did Jesus’ critics.

This week’s collect:

God of power and mercy,
you call us once again
to celebrate the coming of your Son.
Remove those things which hinder love of you,
that when he comes,
he may find us waiting in awe and wonder
for him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings for Friday December 18

Friday December 18 Advent 3

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 Christmas as we anticipate God’s arrival in Christ.

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.

Isaiah 42: 1-12
Today we read a passage from the middle section of Isaiah. This section of the book was written a hundred years later than the passages we’ve read these last weeks. The people have been captured by the Babylonians and are now in exile in Babylon 1000 kilometres across the Syrian desert. The author, called “Second Isaiah,” describes how God will rescue the people.

God speaks of being in charge of global history (a revolutionary new idea) and sending a leader who will enact justice throughout the land. The early Christians understood this to refer to Jesus, and thus the choice of this passage a week before Christmas.

In Luke’s gospel, written 500 years later, Jesus applies the verses about healing the blind and releasing prisoners to himself when he returns from the temptations following his commitment in John’s baptism to enacting God’s kingdom. We will return to this part of Isaiah, after Christmas, in Epiphany.

John 3: 16-21
John’s gospel makes clear that Jesus’ arrival is for the healing of the world and that we are to respond to the light, not to the darkness that keeps the world in death. Jesus warns that it is possible to reject this light, and therefore to live in darkness. This theme of confronting us with the choice of responding to the light is present throughout John’s gospel.

The theme of “believing” in Jesus is better understood as a call to “trusting” and enacting Jesus’ call to self-offering love. When we don’t do that our humanity dies. John wasn’t saying that not “believing” in Jesus will cause God to condemn us.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Thursday December 17

Thursday December 17 Omit 2021

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.

Isaiah 10.20-27
God will not totally destroy the people – a remnant will be left who will be made free when God strikes down the Assyrians. This was an astonishing idea that the God of one country could defeat the gods of another country and thus have influence throughout the world. Justice is the ultimate reality, Isaiah says.

Luke 3: 1-9
John prepares people for the arrival of the messiah – food and clothes are to be shared, business is to be fair, military authority is not to be abused. How might those preparations apply to us?

This week’s collect:

Readings for Wednesday December 17

Wednesday December 17 Omit 2021

Psalm 40
When I was in great trouble, God lifted me up and I rejoiced in God’s care. But now my own sin, and my enemies, have nearly destroyed me. Do not wait any longer, God!

Christians often use this and Psalm 54 on Fridays to mark the mini-anniversary of Jesus’ crucifixion.

Psalm 54
I am in dire straights. Put everything back to right, God. I praise you, because you have done that.

Isaiah 10.5-19
The king of Assyria is used by God to bring the consequences to the people of Israel. But because the king of Assyria thinks he is acting in his own power, God will punish him, and thus save Israel as God always promised to do.

Matthew 11: 2-15
After John’s imprisonment, Jesus points out that God’s kingdom is actually arising in the new life springing up around him. Jesus insists that John must be obeyed – when the kingdom comes, if we are to participate, we will have to change our priorities as John insisted.

This week’s collect: