Reflections on Scripture through the Daily Office (6)
This week of devotionals opened up the season of Advent a few months ago. It is neat, then, that their publishing here corresponds with the beginning of Lent, even if these don’t all heavily focus on Advent and her themes. Hopefully their tenor will be experienced as befitting.
Sunday: Psalm 146, 147; Isaiah 1:1-9, 2 Peter 31-10, Matthew 25:1-13
The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth;
for the Lord has spoken:
I reared children and brought them up,
but they have rebelled against me.
The ox knows its owner,
and the donkey its master’s crib;
but Israel does not know,
my people do not understand.
Ah, sinful nation,
people laden with iniquity,
offspring who do evil,
children who deal corruptly,
who have forsaken the Lord,
who have despised the Holy One of Israel,
who are utterly estranged!
Why do you seek further beatings?
Why do you continue to rebel?
The whole head is sick,
and the whole heart faint.
From the sole of the foot even to the head,
there is no soundness in it,
but bruises and sores
and bleeding wounds;
they have not been drained, or bound up,
or softened with oil. — Isaiah 1:1-6
Of all that is to be seen here, in the opening words to the book of Isaiah, today what stands out is both the striking call to attention that Adoni makes to His listener, and that God’s declaration highlights our desperate neediness and impoverishment of being.
Not just the earth, but the heavens as well are called to listen to what He has to say (vs. 2). His message is one of bewilderment, for how could Israel (we) so badly miss recognizing God when it was He who brought them (us) up from infancy? They (we) are ‘offspring who do evil’, people who ‘deal corruptly’, ‘rebels’, a ‘people who do not understand.’ These symptoms make it clear—Israel (we) are wholly sick in our hearts and our minds…so sick that we even seek out further abuse to inflict upon ourselves (vs 5-6). The situation is serious, and their (our) need is great.
Today marks the first day of Advent. It’s a welcome time, for me, being an invitation to inner contemplation and a quieting of spirit that is befitting of winter and her shorter daylight hours. And Advent’s invitation to contemplation is not merely of niceties, but includes the agonies and uncertainties that come with life and waiting. It’s a time of waiting for God, kind waiting for others, and a searching waiting for ourselves.
I recall, on the first day of Advent, that ‘blessed are the poor in spirit.’ The greater the desperation we have, the greater it is when good news and good aid finally comes to relieve it.
Prayer: Dearest Father, I abandon myself into Your hands. Into Your hands I commend my spirit; I give it to You with all the love of my heart. For, I love You, Lord, and so need to give myself; to surrender myself into Your hands with a trust beyond all measure, because You are my Father. Amen (Charles de Foucauld, (prayer shortened))
Monday: Psalm 1, 2, 3; Isaiah 1:10-20, 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10, Luke 20:1-8
For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming. — 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10
While reading here of how praising Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy are of the Thessalonians’ turning to God from the pantheon of idols that surround them, a curious thought struck me. As Christians many of us are used to doing a cross-comparison between what makes an idol and what makes a true God; namely, that God is the one and only real God, the Creator who brought everything into existence out of nothing, and thus by definition everything else is created and lesser than He is. Since only Gods are worthy of worship, and there is only one God, nothing else should be worshiped, and so to worship something else is to worship created, lesser things, thereby creating idols.
My curious thought (curious because it had not quite crystalized like this before), was how possession plays a distinguishing role in our worship. Idols are something we possess through the exhibition of our control over them—this can be through merely physical possession, but possibly more common for our day is to turn knowledge into an idol through our possession of knowledge. It might sound strange to say we worship knowledge, but I think there is truth to it, the more we might press into the thought (space not permitting for a full exploration here, of course).
Think of it this way—we naturally desire control, and to possess something is to wield a type of control over it. This experientially happens when we possess knowledge—we feel more secure, more grounded, more safe, and more empowered to exert that knowledge upon the world for our best interests…in other words, we feel more in control. But what fitting role does control have in worship?
The living God cannot be possessed, even though we often try to. To worship the living God is instead to enter into Relationship, and relationships are never about possession or control. This is, I think, just a part of what Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy are praising the Thessalonians for. There is a real, noticeable difference between the worship of God and the worship of idols. It is a ground-shattering, life-altering, threat-to-the-powers-that-be type of difference; a difference that both transforms the inner world of the individual, and restores the community of the world at large.
Prayer: Dearest Father God, I have so many foes that would wish me absent or afar from You, and even now they are rising against me. They lie to me, and say ‘there is no help for you in God!’ Oh Lord, You are a shield, and I ask that You would shield around me. I dare ask that You would lift my head, for when I cry aloud, I hear and know that you answer from Your holy hill. Amen (Psalm 3:1-4, adapted)
Tuesday: Psalm 5, 6; Isaiah 1:21-31, 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12, Luke 20:9-18
You yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our coming to you was not in vain, but though we had already suffered and been shamefully maltreated at Philippi, as you know, we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition. For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts. As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed; nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others, though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us. You remember our labour and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how pure, upright, and blameless our conduct was towards you believers. As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you should lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. — 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12
Who is this God we please, and how is it He is a tester of hearts? He is the vineyard owner (Luke 20:9-16), and He is the cornerstone (Luke 20:17-18). As vineyard owner, He is relentless in His purpose, never giving up, even sending His most precious Son into terrible odds for the sake of receiving His own. As cornerstone, He is an ever-present God, even when forgotten by those who believe Him far away. He is the one who takes what is rejected, and turns it into the key to all hope and liberation. He is steadfast, strong, and remains the same while the drama of rebellion rails and bruises and breaks against Him. This is the God who is the tester of hearts.
Paul (and Silvanus and Timothy) purposefully highlight a distinction in this letter between God’s tests and Satan’s temptations (1 Thess 3:5). God is Teacher and Aid, only and ever willing for us to grow into goodness, coming into our own as beings who love as willfully as He does. Temptations from the Tempter differ because they aim at our failure, enslavement, alienation, and downfall. Temptations flatter us, confuse us, and lie to us; they are greedy (1 Thess 2:5) and absent of all humility. Meanwhile it is the very character of God that defines His tests, which is never for our failure, but are for the sifting that is our kenotic-theosis.
Prayer: Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me. Turn, O Lord, to save my life; deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love. Amen (Psalm 5:8 & Psalm 6:4)
Wednesday: Psalm 119:1-12; Isaiah 2:1-11, 1 Thessalonians 2:13-20, Luke 20:19-26
We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers. For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they have constantly been filling up the measure of their sins; but God’s wrath has overtaken them at last. As for us, brothers and sisters, when, for a short time, we were made orphans by being separated from you—in person, not in heart—we longed with great eagerness to see you face to face. For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, wanted to again and again—but Satan blocked our way. For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? Yes, you are our glory and joy!
There’s something deceptively simple here, of a profundity that I still have only begun to understand. That is, that you and I as individuals, and our community and her sister communities around us, image and emulate Jesus Christ to one another…so much so, that we will be each other’s glory, joy, and boast before the Lord Jesus on the final day of His return.
This boasting is like a parental pride (1 Thess 2:11-12); it is not inward looking, but is a bold and vocal gladness over how we’ve been granted the real power of bringing lasting good to bear in one another’s lives. Our lives are not our own; we are who we are, and will be, owing to how others live and take interest in our own flourishing. “In the language of the Bible, freedom is not something that people have for themselves but something they have for others. No one is free ‘in herself’ or ‘in himself’…[for] being free means ‘being-free-for-the-other,’ because I am bound to the other…God wills not to be free for God’s self but for humankind.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall, p. 62-63).
Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, lead me to pastures, and graze there with me. Do not let my heart lean either to the right or to the left, but let your good Spirit guide me along the straight path. Whatever I do, let it be in accordance with Your will, now until the end. Amen (St John of Damascus (675-749 CE))
Thursday: Psalm 18:1-20; Isaiah 2:12-22, 1 Thessalonians 3:1-13, Luke 20:27-40
The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer,
my God, my rock in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised;
so I shall be saved from my enemies.
The cords of death encompassed me;
the torrents of perdition assailed me;
the cords of Sheol entangled me;
the snares of death confronted me.
In my distress I called upon the Lord;
to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears.
Then the earth reeled and rocked;
the foundations also of the mountains trembled
and quaked, because he was angry.
Smoke went up from his nostrils,
and devouring fire from his mouth;
glowing coals flamed forth from him.
He bowed the heavens, and came down;
thick darkness was under his feet.
He rode on a cherub, and flew;
he came swiftly upon the wings of the wind.
He made darkness his covering around him,
his canopy thick clouds dark with water.
Out of the brightness before him
there broke through his clouds
hailstones and coals of fire.
The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
and the Most High uttered his voice.
And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them;
he flashed forth lightnings, and routed them.
Then the channels of the sea were seen,
and the foundations of the world were laid bare
at your rebuke, O Lord,
at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.
He reached down from on high, he took me;
he drew me out of mighty waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy,
and from those who hated me;
for they were too mighty for me.
They confronted me in the day of my calamity;
but the Lord was my support.
He brought me out into a broad place;
he delivered me, because he delighted in me. — Psalm 18:1-18
Some time, from a young-ish age, I had heard the sage advice to immerse myself in the Psalms as a reader of Scripture. I can’t remember the precise reasoning at the time, and only now can only be astounded at the deep and far reaching wisdom of this advice (the centrality of the Psalms to our faith and the formation of our theology is an unbroken line back to Jesus, who prayed and was raised upon these Psalms himself; the Psalms interlace and interact with the oldest parts of Hebrew Scripture too). It is a truth too often forgotten—meditation upon law of the Lord makes wise the simple (Psalm 19:7). To consistently pray and study and meditate upon the Psalms…one could not do better!
Psalm 18 was one of a few psalms that early on “saved my life”. As a young-ish and new follower of Jesus, I was soon assailed by powerful doubt that it was simply impossible God could take particular interest in me. General humanity, perhaps, and even other noteworthy individuals, sure, but me? I was in travail over this concern…and then I read Psalm 18.
I find it one of the most remarkable truths there is, that God can and does minister to you in your own particularity through words transmitted and translated for other peoples of other ages who lived in other contexts. There is a mystery and depth to this that is utterly exciting.
Prayer: Be gracious, O Instructor, to us your children, Father, Charioteer of Israel, Son and Father, both in One, O Lord. Grant to us who obey your precepts, that we may perfect the likeness of the image, and with all our power know him who is the good God and not a harsh judge. And make all of us who live all our lives in your peace, who have been translated into your commonwealth, having sailed tranquilly over the waves of sin, may be blown into calm waters by your Holy Spirit, by the ineffable wisdom, by night and day to the perfect day. As we give thanks, may we praise, and praising thank you alone, Father and Son, Son and Father, the Son, Instructor and Teacher, with the Holy Spirit, all in One, in whom is all, for whom all is One, for whom is eternity, whose members we all are, whose glory endures through the ages; for the all-good, all-lovely, all-wise, all-just One. To you be glory both now and forever. Amen (Clement of Alexandria (150-215 CE))
Friday: Psalm 16-17; Isaiah 3:8-15, 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12, Luke 20:41—21:4
Then he said to them, ‘How can they say that the Messiah is David’s son? For David himself says in the book of Psalms, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” David thus calls him Lord; so how can he be his son?’ — Luke 20:41-44
I love this climactic moment of the gospels, where Jesus presses the scribes and scholars on Scripture’s meaning. In a creative, genius moment, Jesus connects the scriptural notions of sonship and Messiahship with Lordship. The question is, how can David’s son, of whom the Messiah is supposed to come from, also and at the same time be called Lord by David himself? It is probably one of the most explicit places in the New Testament regarding the Incarnation, that God and the human being were to meet perfectly in one person. And though the scribes and scholars were not expected to guess at the Incarnation, they certainly were expected to be better discerners between God’s will (“learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause”; Isaiah 1:17) and their own obsessions with concocted legal puzzles.
God’s ways are always better, wiser, more creative, and more wondrous than we can imagine ourselves. “It is quite true what philosophy says, that life must be understood backward. But then one forgets the other principle, that it must be lived forward. Which principle, the more one thinks it through, ends exactly with temporal life never being able to be properly understood, precisely because I can at no instant find complete rest to adopt the position: backward” (Søren Kierkegaard, Journal JJ:167). We get to actively watch and wait in expectation as He continues to unfold His plan of salvation for the world, through the glory of His Son and the involvement of each one of us.
Prayer: Dearest Lord, we coin the hollows of your beaten face, and hang your agony in hall-marked silver. We display in church your prosperous embrace, fast in the golden cross a diamond splinter. We must efface your crucified reproach, betrayed by pains beyond our sympathy; for your agony has cast beyond your reach a world beyond the reach of agony. Christ, we must make you distant, splendid, rich; we cannot live with your humanity. Help us, in Your name. Amen (“We coin the hollows of your beaten face” by Malcolm Guite, adapted into prayer)
Saturday: Psalm 20, 21:1-7(8-14); Isaiah 4:2-6, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Luke 21:5-19
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord for ever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
We end this week on a note of encouragement. How many of us have been accustomed to various rapture theologies, where in words like these we wonder if we will be ‘left behind’ when the time comes for Christ to return and end history as it has been known? Yet here we should instead listen to Paul—it is for the Thessalonians’ comfort, and ours as well, that he explains about those who have died (some likely at the hands of persecution, in the letter’s context). There is nothing here about being ‘in or out’; nothing but the point being made that the living have no privileged access to the Lord Jesus over and against the dead. Instead, it is the reverse—the dead rise to Christ first, and only then those living follow in their turn. Not one person, living or dead, is forgotten or left behind here—all are raised to come before and be with the Lord.
This makes bearable the suffering of today, whether circumstantial or voluntary, and reorients us back to God’s will, that we might be sanctified through this life (1 Thess 4:3).
Prayer: Teach me to go where You send me, O Lord, and give me the courage and wisdom to do Your work in every place where I find myself. So may I be an instrument in Your hand to spread love, joy and peace. Amen (attributed to Diuma, Irish bishop of the Middle Angles and Mericans (?—658 CE))