Category: TODAY’S READING

Wednesday April 23          Wednesday

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Psalm 97
God’s power in creation is an expression of God’s commitment to justice—righteousness and justice are the foundations of God’s throne (the same image is used in Psalm 89) and therefore of all creation. We can count on God to uphold those who are without power as surely as we experience enormous power in creation.

A wonderful image for our age when science shows us so much power in creation – dignity and justice are equally embedded in the way God has put the world together.

Psalm 99
God’s justice was shown in the way God rescued the people from slavery and cared for them throughout history. Praise the Lord!

Micah 7: 7-15                            What’s Micah about?
Expectation of God’s victory over those who would enslave ancient Israel, a way of expressing our joy at God’s rescue of us at Easter.

John 15: 1-11                            What’s John about?
Using the image of a vine’s branches, which actually almost constitute the vine, Jesus asks us to imagine ourselves as the constituents of the life of Jesus after his physical departure. If we remain in his life of deep love, we will do great things, but if we leave that life of love, then we will accomplish nothing.

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.

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Tuesday April 22          Tuesday in Easter

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Psalm 103
God has been so generous to us! God has given us life when death was close, has been generous when we abandoned God’s justice, has cared for us as a doting parent does, and all in spite of our lives being so short. Even angels and creation bless God and we join with them!

Isaiah 30: 18-21                            What’s Isaiah about?
A promise to those enslaved in Babylon that God will act. As God did on Easter Day.

John 14: 15-31                            What’s John about?
Jesus uses further images to assure us that in the absence of physical contact with him, the Holy Spirit will be present to provide the same support. We will be in contact with the Spirit and with Jesus as we enact the same kind of love. Even though the wider world does not see or understand or follow this kind of love, we are able to do so, enabled by God’s power in the Holy Spirit.

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.

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Monday April 21          Easter Monday

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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. Appropriate for a Sunday when we celebrate God’s victory in the resurrection of Christ.

The raging sea can be circumstances in our lives, in our inner life, or in the life of the world and we rejoice in the victory of God’s goodness over all the rages of our times.

Psalm 98
The people, the nations, and the whole of creation delight in God’s victory and rejoice when God comes to put all creation right. This psalm is used at Easter, and is often used on Sundays, mini-anniversaries of Easter. There is some lovely imagery of the sea deliberately making a noise with its waves and rivers doing the same by clapping their hands.

Jonah 2: 1-9                            What’s Jonah about?
During Easter week each day we read a passage from the Hebrew Bible which celebrates God’s victory over destruction.

In this passage, Jonah is drowning, and God rescues him by a whale or a great fish. This story was interpreted by early Christians as a foretelling of God rescuing Jesus, and us, out of the grave and the early Christians could imagine these words expressing Jesus’ experience in death, as well as our own experience.

In Greek, the word “fish” is also the first letters of the phrase “Jesus Christ, son of God” and so the image of a fish rescuing Jonah was adopted by early Christians as an image of Jesus rescuing us.

John 14: 1-14                            What’s John about?
As typical in John, Jesus uses a series of poetic images and extended conversations to respond to the needs of subsequent generations of followers. These later followers, in John’s time as in ours, may have several concerns arising from the fact that we no longer have direct physical contact with Jesus.
John understands Jesus to be saying that we are not to be concerned that Jesus is no longer physically present because Jesus will be with us in the form of Holy Spirit. We are not to feel like second-rate Christians because we don’t get to speak to Jesus physically—experiencing death and resurrection in Jesus is the experience of God and so is available to us all the time. If we think we are uninspired without an immediate physical  connection with Jesus, Jesus still acts through us with power—that’s the experience of Holy Spirit.

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.

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Sunday April 20          Easter Day

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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.

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Saturday April 19          Holy Saturday

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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.

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Friday April 18          Good Friday

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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.

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Thursday April 17          Maundy Thursday

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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.

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Wednesday April 16          Wednesday in Holy Week

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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.

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Tuesday April 15          Tuesday in Holy Week

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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.

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Monday April 14          Monday in Holy Week

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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.

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