Items for the week of Sunday, January 25th

This past Sunday, January 25^th, was the 3^rd Sunday after Epiphany we heard the following scripture readings, introduction, and prayer of the day during the worship service:

Scripture Readings

Isaiah 9:1-4 Light shines for those in darkness
Psalm 27:1, 4-9 The Lord is my light and my salvation. (Ps. 27:1)
1 Corinthians 1:10-18 Appeal for unity in the gospel
Matthew 4:12-23 Revelation of Christ as a prophet

Introduction for the Day

Jesus begins his public ministry by calling fishers to leave their nets and follow him. In Jesus the kingdom of God has come near. We who have walked in darkness have seen a great light. We see this light most profoundly in the cross—as God suffers with us and all who are oppressed by sickness, sin, or evil. Light dawns for us as we gather around the word, the font, and the holy table. We are then sent to share the good news that others may be “caught” in the net of God’s grace and mercy.

Prayer of the Day

Lord God, your lovingkindness always goes before us and follows after us. Summon us into your light, and direct our steps in the ways of goodness that come through the cross of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.

Devotion for the week

Just How Near is It?

This anxious question is as old as Christians’ faith: How near? How near is the kingdom of heaven? Near when angels announce a holy birth. Now? Near when Jesus unrolls a scroll in the synagogue, declaring the acceptable time. Now? Near when miracles of sight and sound and speech, bread and water and wine astound. Now? Near when the Son of David trots into Jerusalem on a donkey, talks of paradise at Golgotha, abandons the tomb. Now? Near when parades of calculations and predictions, numbering of days and decoding of signs make their guesses. Now?

John the Baptizer, eagerly baptizing converts and then, if hesitantly, Jesus himself—John the broadcaster, on behalf of a Savior for the world—gets arrested and executed. The hailed Messiah, Jesus, takes up residence in a tiny fishing village in a land overtaken and occupied by an empire of corruption and death. It would seem—or it should seem, if it does not—to anyone paying attention that the kingdom of heaven, if anywhere at all, was nowhere near.

“Repent” was Jesus’ inaugural message. Such a hard thing for people enduring in the hardest of times to hear. Repent of what, for what? By that time, ancient promises made in the name of God must have worn thin at best, if they had not already been tossed out as defective. In how many ways had unreliable promises and hopes for some heavenly kingdom been smashed in their collisions with each dawning day that proved to be just a copy of the grueling one before it?

Repent. Turn around. Pursue life in another direction. A gutsy dispatch! But it caught fire. It spread. It drew crowds because everywhere Jesus went, all through the everyday places of hard-hit dreams and suffering spirits and pained bodies—exactly in those places—Jesus showed himself to be the heavenly good news that heals, the joyful reason to repent of fear. So, welcome and become the kingdom of heaven now and here.