Above: Christ Pantocrator
Scan by Kenneth Randolph Taylor
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FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER, ACCORDING TO A LECTIONARY FOR PUBLIC WORSHIP IN THE BOOK OF WORSHIP FOR CHURCH AND HOME (1965)
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O Almighty God, who alone can order the unruly wills and affections of sinful human beings:
Grant to your people, that they may love the thing which you command, and desire that which you promise;
that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world,
our hearts may surely be fixed, where true joys are to be found;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
–Modernized from The Book of Worship for Church and Home (1965), page 119
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Isaiah 12:1-6
Psalm 42
Romans 6:3-11
John 6:37-40
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The reading from Romans is one piece of evidence for the proposition that one can use the death and resurrection of Jesus metaphorically while considering them to be literal events. In this case the metaphorical death is our death to sin and the metaphorical resurrection is to our life in God in Christ Jesus. In the Gospel of John that life is eternal life, which begins on this side of the afterlife (17:3). John 6 also emphasizes the faithfulness of God, a theme in Isaiah 12, a hymn of praise to God to sing after the Day of the Lord. We can sing it to God just as well today, can we not?
Psalm 42 (originally part of one psalm with #43) comes from a particular context. The author, who is ill, cannot make the customary pilgrimage from his home near Mount Hermon to Jerusalem. He longs to travel to that city and the Temple there. Some people around the psalmist say that his illness signifies that God has forsaken him. They are mistaken, of course, but the words still sing. The psalmist prays for vindication in the form of healing, so that he may make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. We do not read what happened next.
Even when those (including the self-identified orthodox around us) are wrong, their words and attitudes have power to affect us. They might imagine themselves to be faithful, but God certainly is. May we thank God for that and respond faithfully, depending on grace, as we must.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 18, 2017 COMMON ERA
THE SIXTEENTH DAY OF ADVENT
THE FEAST OF MARC BOEGNER, ECUMENIST
THE FEAST OF SAINT GIULIA VALLE, ROMAN CATHOLIC NUN
THE FEAST OF SAINT ISAAC HECKER, FOUNDER OF THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF SAINT PAUL THE APOSTLE
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