Psalm: Psalm 148
Old Testament: Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Gospel: Luke 2:22-40
Epistle: Galatians 4:4-7
To all a continued Merry Christmas, today is the eighth day of Christmas. And I don’t want to make any jokes about “eight maid a-milking.” Also, for another 12 days of Christmas cultural reference, Thursday is “Twelfth Night” or the last night of Christmastide if you ever wondered where Shakespeare got the title to his play. My point is only that we are in Christmas time until Friday, so fell free to keep the decorations up and the Christmas tunes playing. We are at our house.
Today is also New Year’s Day. I don’t normally make New Year’s resolution, but this year I am. My goal is to read the Lectionary each week and to blog about it. So if anyone wants to join me that would be nice and you might already be doing that at church. (Probably unlikely however since I know so many Nazarenes) But if you wanted you could check in each Sunday and I will give you the scriptures each week and a little note and you can do your own readings and ponderings throughout the week and maybe comment back.
Like last week on Christmas day we reflect this week on the coming of Jesus. God has come in the flesh to redeem and save his creation. I love the Psalm this week because it reminds me how important and appropriate it is to praise the Lord. So often in our prayer or in our services we focus on what God can do for us and benefit we can receive. But it is important that we just praise God for who God is. The church confesses the goodness of God and if we lose this then we fall back to the original temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden. The crafty Serpent misquotes God and questions God’s goodness. In the course of the narrative it is that this point that the “Lord God”, a relational term, becomes only “God.” The Lord God becomes distant when we question God’s goodness.
In the Gospel of Luke this week we read of Simeon and Anna meeting the young Jesus, recognizing him, and praising God for sending the Messiah for the salvation of the world. These two people understand the importance the importance of who Jesus is and they response is to immediately praise God.
At first glance our reading for Galatians doesn’t seem to fit with the other passages. The Old Testament passages don’t predict adoption. Israel was already the child of God and there is no mention of the Gentiles. But where Galatians fits in is that after reading it our only response can be to praise God who has done this amazing work. Galatians calls us to actually reread Psalm 148 in light of what God has done in Jesus to adopt us as children. We, who were once far off, have been brought into the people of God only by the blood of Christ. (Eph 2:13) Not only are we adopted as children, but as heirs. We are given the birthright as the firstborn through the blood of Jesus. This is the Gospel message. It is purely by the love and grace of God that we are saved.
My prayer is that this week we will reflect on God’s goodness and our adoption as children of heirs of God’s kingdom. Grace and Peace.
Here is the link for the Lectionary, we are in year B: http://www.crivoice.org/RCLmenu.html
I enabled editing for anonymous users. So anyone can comment now.
I have tried this twice and it didn't work I don't think so here goes try #3. I always read the Bible in a year but if I use the Lectionary does it cover the whole Bible in a year?
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It takes three years to read most of the Bible with the lectionary. Since you only have scriptures for Sundays, it takes awhile and you also don't get every verse. But you get alot. If you want the daily readings for the church office that is different thing, and you still don't read the whole Bible in a year.
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