Daily Lectionary Biblog

Notice: Biblog Postings Discontinued Indefinitely

Due to staffing changes at Grace Lutheran Church daily postings to the Biblog about the assigned scripture readings will be discontinued indefinitely.

While new postings will be discontinued all other supplemental lectionary study material will remain available. You can continue to use the index pages for background information on each book and to find all past Biblog posts about a particular reading, the Q&A to find answers to common questions we have been asked about particular scripture readings, as well as the prayers, reading schedule and other information offered in the Daily Lectionary section of the web site.

We apologize for the suspension of new posts to the Biblog and pray that the remaining material helps you continue to Be in the Word.

Ps 47 / Ge 13-15

A psalm connected with our Lord’s ascension to heaven is today providentially paired with an account that ultimately points to our Lord’s eternal priesthood.

Psalm 47

Psalm 47 may have been written for and used in the Feast of Tabernacles, at an observation of which Solomon may have dedicated the Temple. Later, Jews used the psalm as part of the synagogue liturgy for their New Year festival (Rosh Hashanah), and today Christians often use the psalm in connection with our Lord’s Ascension (see, for example, The Lutheran Hymnal, p.160).

Overview

Verses 1-4 call the people to praise God, Who has ascended His throne as the most-high God and King, benefiting His people. Verses 5-6, possibly spoken in the liturgy by a different voice, tell of the Lord’s ascension, which may have been acted out by the carrying of the ark, the Lord’s throne, into the Temple, His palace. Verses 7-9 include another call to praise the Lord (note the liturgical aspects expected of this praise), and see how the psalmist anticipates the final and full fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham.

Comments

I grew up in Lutheran congregations where people did not applaud in or around the Divine Service, and I think that’s a good practice, one that Psalm 47:1 does not go against. As can be seen with verses pertaining to dancing in joy over the Lord’s deeds, the context of the call for a particular expression is important. In this case, the clapping may have been used to get the attention of people as the procession moved along. We use applause so much in praise of people that in our context understanding it as praise of God is hard, especially since Scripture gives us other ways to praise God, such as with the psalms.

There is an extended discussion of the second half of verse 7 in this folo.

Popular culture these days is all about equality between different races, genders, and sexual orientations. We’re supposed to be working towards a classless society, too, where everyone has the same opportunities (not where no one shows any elegance, although we seem to be headed there, too). So, we might wonder about verse 9. Verse 9 strikes me as if the point was that leaders became just ordinary people, but the real point seems to be that the leaders, and implicitly the people, of the non-Jewish nations became part of the people of God. Such is God’s great desire that all the people of the earth unite in belief in His Son and thereby receive the forgiveness of their sins. As we repent, human nobility and classes no longer matter (see 1 Samuel 2:8), but what matters is that we submit ourselves unto the King of Kings.

Q&A

So far no readers have asked any questions about Psalm 47; you are welcome to do so.

Sunday Lectionary Use

• The Epiphany of Our Lord
• Ascension
• Exaudi (the Sunday after Ascension)

Hymn References

• 47:5-7 -- #214 an ascension hymn by Gottfried W. Sacer and one with which I am not familiar and that is not carried over into Lutheran Service Book.

You can find the tune for the hymn in alphabetical order by following this link.

Genesis 13-15

Events of Abraham’s land and people are narrated in Genesis 13-15, the continuing account of Terah (11:27).

Overview

Not quite following the outline to which I just alluded, my study Bible heads chapter 13 “Abram and Lot separate”, chapter 14 “Abram rescues Lot”, and chapter 15 “God’s covenant with Abram”.

Comments

In chapter 13 we read how Abram and Lot separated: note Abram’s worship of the Lord in 13:4 and in 13:12-13 the anticipation of future events involving Sodom (chapters 14 and 19). Lot seems to be, we might say, flirting with disaster, by living near people known to be evil; how often we do likewise!

In chapter 14 we read of Abram rescuing his nephew Lot from hostile kings and of the appearance of and table fellowship with Melchizedek, a type of Christ (see Hebrews 7). The image with this post is a photograph by K. Cohen of San Jose State University in San Jose California of statues of Melchizedek and Abraham from the façade of the cathedral in Reims, France, with clear indications of that table fellowship and its fulfillment in the Sacrament of the Altar (to see a larger version of the image click it, but for the largest and highest quality image see from where we got it).

In chapter 15 we read of God’s covenant with Abram, including 15:6, an all-important verse that connects faith with righteousness. We are among the innumerable children of Abraham when we likewise believe and are saved.

We can learn so much about our own spiritual lives in our reading of Genesis 13-15. On the side of sin and temptation, there is Lot’s living near (13:12) and then in Sodom (14:12), which you might note the hearer of Genesis already knows is later destroyed (13:10, anticipating the account of chapter 19). Taking such knowledge in a sense for granted is something we often find in the Gospel accounts, too. On the side of forgiveness and redemption, there is Abraham’s believing God and such faith bringing him righteousness (15:6, an extremely important verse), the covenant with Abraham sealed with sacrifice (15:9-10), the type of Israel’s slavery and deliverance that points to our slavery to sin and redemption by faith in Jesus Christ (15:13-14), and a meal of bread and wine served by a priest of God that brings blessing to Abraham and prompts an offering in return (14:18-20). Do you see all the parallels?

Q&A

• ch.15 the affirming of the covenant
• 14:20 tithing and Melchizedek

Please feel free to ask a question of your own.

Sunday Lectionary Use

The historic 1-year lectionary we use at Grace for Sunday and festival services does not appoint any excerpts from Genesis 13-15 as Old Testament readings.

Hymn References

No hymns in The Lutheran Hymnal are said to refer to verses from Genesis 13-15.

God bless you, and may you let Him make tomorrow holy for you by your rightly using His Word and Sacraments!

Ps 46 / Ge 10-12

Today we have a providential juxtaposition between the Lord as believers’ fortress and the kind of fortress unbelievers might try to build for themselves.

Psalm 46

Psalm 46 may be known to more people as the basis for Martin Luther’s hymn translated as “A Mighty Fortress is our God”.

Overview

Psalm 46 begins with a bold confession of faith in God despite the seeming undoing of creation itself (vv.1-3). Verses 7 and 11 are a refrain in the psalm, perhaps the people’s liturgical response to the proclamation spoken by a priest or Levite, first to the blessings on Zion (vv.4-6) and then to God’s triumph over the nations (vv.8-10).

Comments

Reflect on the relationship between the blessings on Zion (vv.4-6) and God’s triumph over the nations (vv.8-10). In God’s protecting His chosen city, He also defeats Zion’s enemies. The two are not separate deeds of God, and so there’s little surprise our response is the same (vv.7, 11; there’s more on those verses below). Why do people who want to be saved get so upset over God’s judgment and punishment of His enemies?

Regarding verse 4, Jerusalem had no river of its own, but the river to which the psalm refers may be a figure of speech for God’s blessings (see also Revelation 22:1; note also that, early on, Baptisms were usually done in moving bodies of water such as rivers and streams).

Notice in verse 5 that God’s help comes “right early” (KJV, ASV; “at break of day” NIV; “when morning dawns” NASB). See Exodus 14:27 for how God’s deliverance of the Israelites by destroying the Egyptians came at this same time. Though some commentators say regarding Psalm 46:5 that morning was when cities were more likely to be attacked, the night was also a time of danger, as in Isaiah 37:36. (Even in our time think of the frequent night attacks during the first Gulf War). We should not think that God waited until the danger had passed before delivering us, but rather God’s help brings the dawn of deliverance, and there is only a night of trouble—the danger does not continue indefinitely. (No wonder Scripture so often says praise is done “in the morning”.) God comes at precisely the right time to save. How blessed we are that God knows our limits and with His help enables us to endure whatever comes until He finally and fully delivers us.

“The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress” That quote is the refrain of Psalm 46 that we read today (vv.7, 11). “A Mighty Fortress is our God,” Martin Luther’s English translation declares, “a trusty shield and weapon” (see the hymn linked below). I wonder how many people in the LCMS still believe that? Programs so have taken over the church body that the Lord’s Word seems to be regarded as impotent and assigned a place in a new museum as if it were that irrelevant. Imagine Abraham’s nephew Lot living in Sodom and Gomorrah thinking that God was with them and would protect them even as God planned to destroy the city with them in it. There’s a time that comes for getting out alive, as Lot and his family found out. The Lord Almighty is with those who are with Him, and sometimes that means leaving the place the Lord used to be but is no longer because the people have gone so far away from Him. If you are in the Holy City and God is watching out for her, then great; stay there, and I am sure you will be safe. But, the faithful Old Testament prophets knew when Jerusalem’s time was up and told people to go quietly before they were killed in her streets. God had left the city as kindling for its enemies because its people had so long turned away from him. God is still exalted among the nations and in the earth (v.10), just maybe not where he always has been and where we would like Him to be. Lord, have mercy on your people as they struggle with Your will for their lives and what being faithful to you means. Forgive us all for all our shortcomings, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

How often when we are excited about something we have seen or experienced do we tell someone else about it and invite them to come and see for themselves? Someone might say it to a spouse before making a major purchase like a car or house. A youth might say it to a friend after receiving an electronic gadget as a gift. In such cases, coming and seeing go hand in hand, as one would hardly invite one to come and not to look or expect one to look from afar. In Psalm 46:8 the psalmist invites all to “Come and see the works of the Lord” (NIV). In reading that verse I was reminded of two similar statements in St. John’s Gospel account when Jesus called Andrew and possibly John (John 1:39) and when Philip invited Nathanael to check Jesus out (John 1:46). Do we have friends or loved ones who do not believe that Jesus died for their sins and freely offers forgiveness through Word and Sacrament? Do we believe that what happens on Sunday mornings in the Divine Service is something unique and exciting to experience that is more important than a car, house, or electronic gadget? Have we therefore invited those friends or loved ones to come and see for themselves? In working on my dissertation I read someone who said that God’s “words are deeds”, which statement is very true: God’s speaking effects what it says. With His blessing, those we invite to come will see, and we pray that they will respond as in Psalm 48:8, “As we have heard, so we have seen”.

The first part of verse 10 is one of my favorite passages in the Bible, echoing, as it does, at least in English, Exodus 14:14: we do not need to work ourselves into a frenzy but simply believe. (There’s more on the “being still” here, in connection with Psalm 37.)

Q&A

So far no readers have asked questions about Psalm 46, but please feel free to do so.

Sunday Lectionary Use

• The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
• The Day of St. Peter and St. Paul
• The Festival of the Reformation
• A Dedication of a church

Hymn References

• 46 -- #262, #534 (another TLH hymn that I don’t think I know)
• 46:10 -- #651 The reference to this psalm verse seems likely but is a conjecture; I’ve memories of singing this bittersweet hymn at loved ones’ funerals and hospital bedsides. At one time I thought the hymn had another tune, but now I think I was mistaken (see more on the tune in the folo here). The hymn was “new” to the LCMS with TLH, but its popularity kept it included in Lutheran Worship, despite some concerns about both tune and text, poetical not theological, that probably were behind its omission from Lutheran Book of Worship. Given those concerns, I expected the hymn to be omitted from Lutheran Service Book, but the hymn made it in there. The hymn had been included in Christian Worship (WELS) but was omitted from Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary (ELS).

You can find the tunes for the hymns by following this link.

Genesis 10-12

Today’s reading from Genesis more or less transitions from Noah to Abraham, although it also includes another familiar story that may be familiar from Sunday School.

Overview

Genesis 10-12 includes the complete accounts of Shem, Ham, and Japheth (10:1-11:9, see 10:1) and of Shem (11:10-26, see 11:10), and today’s reading begins the account of Terah (11:27-25:11 see 11:27, though today we only read through the end of chapter 12).

Comments

In the first account (10:1-11:9), note that Shem’s line is the chosen line and gives us the English words “Semites” and “anti-Semitic”, and note that Canaan’s land is later called Palestine after the Philistines. The Bible’s Babel (or “Babylon”, as “Babel” in Hebrew is “Babylon” in Greek) is first mentioned in Genesis 10:10, likely anticipating the fuller account given later in chapter 11. The events of 11:1-9 are said to have taken place earlier than the full extension of the genealogies, as 10:4, 25, and 31 seem to reflect. The people had egotistically turned away from God and, able to communicate in the same language, were planning, arrogantly without regard for God’s will or intent, as a monument to their own unity and self-derived peace, a stairway of sorts to the heavens (you might think of Genesis 28:12’s stairway to heaven, but that’s getting ahead of the story). The three Persons of the Trinity answer the fallen people’s reasoning together with some inter-trinitarian dialog and reasoning together of their own (11:7) and showed their judgment by confusing the people’s languages (a deed that was in a sense undone at the first New Testament Pentecost as told in Acts 2).

“Babel” permeated popular culture with the Golden Globe winning movie by that name. The movie, of course, doesn’t tell the Bible’s story, but it does seem to at least to be alluding to the Bible’s story by telling a story of different-but-related people in different countries speaking different languages. The image with this post is of a 1563 painting by Flemish/Dutch Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel (c.1525-1569) titled “The Tower of Babel” (to see a larger version of the image click it, but for the largest and highest quality image see from where we got it), although the tower may not look like modern scholars think it probably looked and may not be coming to its end for the reason the Bible gives. Does the arrogance of people today compare to that of the people of Babel? I’m not suggesting that the World Trade Center towers were destroyed because they attempted to reach the heavens, and you could certainly say that the space program has already reached the heavens. A friend of mine one-time suggested that humankind’s wanting to build a city below sea level and against the laws of nature keep the water out is an example of modern-day Babel-like arrogance. Perhaps he’s got a point. I think we all are arrogant in our own ways and rebel against God on a less-grand scale. Thank God that by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, Who died and rose again for us, we can receive forgiveness for all our sins.

The second account (11:10-26) gives an extended genealogy of Shem, more or less in preparation for the third account and Shem’s important descendant, Abram.

The third account (11:27-12:20) begins with God’s call to Abram and the covenantal promises that would often be repeated to Abram and his descendants. Commentators differ on what to make of Abram’s telling Sarai to describe herself as his sister: some who want to keep Abram as innocent as possible say that Sarai was closely related to Abram by virtue of their marriage and that is all she (v.13) or he (v.19) was saying, others who are more willing to allow that Abram could sin see it as an example of his sometimes wavering faith. We certainly never need to fear that God will fail to keep His promises to us and take such steps to prevent things from hindering them—we need only be still!

Q&A

• 10:15-19 the trouble with marrying Canaanites
• 11:27 “the account of Terah”
• ch.12 the first promise of descendants and Sarah’s waiting

Please feel free to ask a question of your own.

Sunday Lectionary Use

• 12:1-3 -- Judica (the Fifth Sunday in Lent)

Hymn References

No hymns in The Lutheran Hymnal are said to refer to verses from Genesis 10-12.

God bless you!

Ps 45 / Ge 7-9

Today's reading takes us to a "wedding" psalm and finishes the account of the flood.

Psalm 45

The superscription of Psalm 45 calls it a song of love or a wedding song. The psalm probably was composed for a king in David’s line and used at a number of royal weddings, but most properly now the psalm is applied to the Messiah and His Bride, the Church.

Overview

One commentator points out a two-fold structure to the psalm and two parts to each of those parts as follows: words spoken to the king (exhortation, vv.3-5, and glory of the king, vv.6-9) and words spoken to the bride (exhortation, vv.10-11, and glory of the bride, vv.12-15). Verses 1 and 17 are a frame for the song, with verses 2 and 16 serving as a secondary frame within the frame; those four verses are said to be addressed to the king.

Comments

I mentioned above that Psalm 45 most properly now applied to the Messiah and His Bride, the Church, but I don’t want you to think that such an understanding is new “now”, as in just our lifetimes. The psalm certainly was written for a special event in the life of a king of Israel and his people and nation, but the psalm’s Divine inspiration ensured that it spoke prophetically of the Messiah, and the Church recognized its inspiration and application and admitted it into the collection of sacred writings. Other writings such as Song of Songs (or “Song of Solomon”) similarly apply the figure of marriage to the relationship between Christ and His Bride without ever explicitly doing so and are nevertheless so understood. To illustrate this point, notice how Hebrews 1:8 understands Psalm 45:6 with the Messianic sense. Commentators speculate over whether or not the marriage originally in view was that of Solomon and Pharaoh’s daughter or that of Joram the Son of Jehoshaphat, sometimes regarded as the second (though at least slightly inferior) Solomon of Israel’s history. I think on a first reading Solomon seems the obvious choice, but some of the commentators’ arguments against him and for Joram are convincing (both are mentioned in Jesus’ genealogy; see Matthew 1:7, 8). Either way, our Lord Jesus Christ is one greater than Solomon (Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:31) and his later lesser successor, and He alone perfectly fulfills all the Old Testament prophecy and gives us the sure and certain hope of righteousness of the forgiveness of sins by grace through faith in His death and resurrection for us.

The latter part of verse 1 is often applied to all the Divinely-inspired writers of Holy Scripture. The reference to grace and lips in verse 2 may be behind the reference to the gracious words from Christ’s lips in Luke 4:22. In the academic world, there always seems to be a need for new ideas and approaches. What’s new is what gets attention and thus publication and eventually tenure. In the churchly “world”, however, what’s new is generally bad and potentially heretical. The Lutheran reformers, for example, were at great pains to demonstrate how what they were teaching was the original and therefore right understanding before things got twisted by the Roman Catholic church. So, we should be comforted if we reread psalms like Psalm 45 and find the Holy Spirit leading us to some of the same thoughts and reflections that we have had when we have read the psalm before. I’m sorry if too much for your taste I mention the New Testament I sometimes teach at Concordia, but the class comes to mind with Psalm 45:1’s statement that is used in reference to the inspiration of Holy Scripture and verse 2’s statement that brings to mind Jesus’s gracious lips mentioned in Luke--lips that by faith in Him bring the forgiveness of sins He won on the cross. In the class we don’t make use of the psalm verse in connection with inspiration, but one student one time nevertheless complained about references to the Old Testament in a New Testament class. I don’t know how to talk about one without the other! The saying is true: The New is in the Old concealed, and the Old is in the New revealed.

Finally, note how in verse 10 the bride is to be more loyal to her husband (her lord, v.11) than her own family.

Q&A

No readers have so far asked any questions about Psalm 43, but you can ask one here.

Sunday Lectionary Use

• Christmas (the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord)
• The First Sunday after Christmas
• The Epiphany of Our Lord
• The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
• The Day of St. Mary Magdalene
• The Day of St. Luke

Hymn References

• 45:2 -- #657 Psalm 45:2’s description “fairer” (KJV, ASV, NASB; “most excellent” NIV) can also be translated as “beautiful” or “handsome” and refers to “One who excels in manly traits and beauty” and, certainly in the case of the Messiah, “is so beyond ordinary men as to be almost Godlike”. You may also be interested to know that the English translation as we have it apparently omitted three stanzas of the hymn’s German original (what would be 4-6, with our stanza 4 being stanza 7). Those “missing” stanzas were translated by a brother pastor and friend of mine as follows.
  
  

  Fair are the flowers, fairer are children,
  In the Springtime of their lives,
  Yet time will fade them, and death will claim them,
  But Jesus lives no more to die.
  
  All of the beauty of earth and heaven
  Is embraced in Thee alone.
  Nothing may ever be to me fairer,
  Than Thou my Lord, dear Jesus mine.
  
  Thou are most truly with us forever
  Through Thy Word and Sacrament.
  Jesus, I beg Thee, Lord to have mercy
  Upon us now and at our end.

  Sadly, not even the wonderful stanza about our Beautiful Savior’s real, physical presence in the Sacrament of the Altar was restored in Lutheran Service Book (where, curiously enough, no reference is made to Psalm 45:2).

You can find the tune for the hymn by following this link.

Genesis 7-9

Popular movies like “Evan Almighty” probably appeal to the account of Noah being one of the best-known Old Testament stories.

Overview

Genesis 7-9 completes the account of Noah (see 6:9) and the flood (not a regional one, as some claim, but a worldwide flood, as the account makes clear, for example 7:19). Chapters 7-8 tell of Noah’s time in the ark, and chapter 9 tells of God’s covenant with Noah and of the sons of Noah.

Comments

The Lord’s shutting the door in 7:16 to protect Noah and his family is noteworthy, and protected they were for more than one year after the flood began. After that, the rest of chapter 7 speaks of judgment, but note well the switch to redemption at the beginning of chapter 8. One of the things I came to appreciate more in our reading of Isaiah last month was how much condemnation and salvation are the two sides of the coin of judgment—you really can’t have salvation without there also being condemnation. We see that inseparability clearly again today in our reading of Genesis 7-9, especially as the focus in chapter 7 on the water bringing judgment turns to chapter 8 and the water bringing redemption. God’s gracious “remembering” (8:1) of Noah, his family, and the animals, leads to the receding of the waters. The image with this post, apparently including the dove and raven, is of an 1840 painting done by British artist John Martin (1789-1854) titled “Assuaging of the Waters” (to see a larger version of the image click it, but for the largest and highest quality image see from where we got it). Note in 8:20-22 the worship of the Lord and its relation to the ongoing sinful nature of humanity and God’s Gospel promise of preservation. Be sure to notice that the “youth” (KJV, ASV, NASB; “childhood” NIV) in 8:21 includes conception and birth (there’s no “age of accountability”, “age of assent”, or “age of discretion” implicit there).

In 9:2-4, meat is given for people to eat, with some limitations, and note in verses 5-6 the consequences for murder of human beings, for they still bear the image of God. Also notice that 9:6 gives Biblical support to the death penalty and that the prohibition against consuming animal blood in 9:4, of course, does not rule out but rather points to our consuming our Lord’s Blood in, with, and under wine in the Sacrament of the Altar, where that blood is shed for the forgiveness of our sins. The end of chapter 9 tells us that even Noah was not perfect and it also sets up the account that will follow in chapter 10. Despite the devastation of the flood, St. Peter can say that the water saved Noah and his family and points to Baptism that saves us (1 Peter 3:20-22; there is also the connection between their ark and ours, that is, the Church).

Two very brief reader comments on the chapters are here.

Q&A

• 7:2 clean and unclean animals
• 8:6-12 the flights of the raven and dove, to which answer there is a reader’s reaction here.
• 8:20 offerings of the patriarchs

Please feel free to ask a question of your own.

Sunday Lectionary Use

The historic 1-year lectionary we use at Grace for Sunday and festival services does not tap Genesis 7-9 for any Old Testament readings.

Hymn References

No hymns in The Lutheran Hymnal apparently refer to verses from Genesis 7-9.

God bless you!

Ps 44 / Ge 4-6

Today we hear a cry for help from the people of Israel and what could be said to be the beginning of the people of Israel.

Psalm 44

In Psalm 44 we hear Israel cry for help after an enemy dealt the nation a devastating defeat, and Israel’s cry is one in which we can join.

Overview

Psalm 44 begins with great praise of God for the things He has done in the past (vv.1-8), moves to the people’s present situation (vv.9-16), seems to plead innocence at least of the immediate consequences perceived as being suffered (vv.17-24, though no innocence is expressed in this psalm), but nevertheless in the end trusts in God’s mercy (vv.25-26).

Comments

I was struck by the way the psalmist describes God working through the people, even though deeds appear to be done by them (for example, v.5). Notice the sheep imagery relating to God as the Good Shepherd/King (v.11, confer v.22), and see how the Divinely inspired St. Paul makes use of verse 11 in Romans 8:36. We know that God had a plan for what the people were experiencing that had to be for their good, even as we often experience things for reasons we cannot immediately understand, other than to know that God is in control and rules all for the benefit of His Church, and thus ultimately for our good.

Reading verses 17-22 leaves us wondering which historical circumstances should be associated with the psalm. At least one commentator says the defeat is not one of those the nation suffered because the whole nation was very unfaithful. Rather, the commentator thinks that psalm arose perhaps during the reign of Jehoshaphat or Hezekiah over the southern kingdom of Judah, which not until later was so unfaithful as to deserve exile.

It is hard for me not to think of the troubles afflicting the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod when reading psalms such as Psalm 44 that speak of God allowing Israel to be afflicted by its external enemies. Perhaps we can identify the Synod as a whole with the nation of Israel as a whole, but I think right now the Synod’s greatest enemies are working within her. So, the better identification is to think of the faithful within the Synod as the true or faithful Israel. And, as the situation continues to deteriorate, the true Israel’s faithful prophets might need to be more like the faithful prophets of old who warned of the exile of the faithful remnant if the nation as a whole did not repent.

Q&A

There are no readers’ questions pertaining to Psalm 44, but you are welcome to ask one.

Sunday Lectionary Use

• The Feast of St. John the Baptist
• The Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity Sunday
• The day of St. Peter and St. Paul
• The Day of St. Andrew

Hymn References

No hymns from The Lutheran Hymnal are said to refer to Psalm 44.

Genesis 4-6

We cover quite a few years of salvation history today in Genesis 4-6, moving from Adam to Noah.

Overview

In reading Genesis 4-6, we finish the account of the heavens and the earth (4:1-4:26, see 2:4), read the entire account of Adam’s line (5:1-6:8, see 5:1), and begin the account of Noah (6:9-9:29, see 6:9).

Comments

In the account of the heavens and the earth, Eve thinks her firstborn son is the fulfillment of God’s promise, but Cain is quite the opposite. One time when riding a city bus in Austin, I heard two men trying to figure out how sin related to Cain and Abel; one of them thought Abel somehow did not have original sin, but I helped them see that both sons were sinful and that Abel’s offering was acceptable to God because of what was in his heart—the right attitude towards God, recognizing all was from Him and generously giving back to Him. Note that Cain’s reply to God’s question in 4:9 is not something we ought to be saying—we are our sibling’s keepers in a sense. (The image with this post is “The Death of Abel”, a painting that at least at one time hung in Rome’s Doria Gallery and was done by Salvatore Rosa (1615-1673), who is said to have been in the Neapolitan School; to see a larger version of the image click it, but for the largest and highest quality image see from where we got it.)

Why are some saved and others lost? That question is very much like the question why, in Genesis 4:3-5, God looked with favor on Abel who offered fat portions and firstborn from his flocks and did not look with favor on Cain who offered fruits of the soil. At first glance, one could think that the difference was between an offering of animal life and an offering of plant life, but that is not it. A second or third glance reveals that Abel offered the best of what he had, acknowledging that all belonged to the Lord and that he was His servant, while Cain with his indiscriminate offering indicated that he did not have the right attitude towards God in his heart. Their works, in this case their offerings and Cain’s subsequent action, reflected what was in their hearts. So, why are some saved and others lost? The difference is the heart’s faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins or the lack of such saving faith. Our works show forth what we believe, and, even though we are not saved on account of the good things that we do, faith will never be without good works.

In the account of Adam’s line, we hear how Adam and Eve had other children, especially daughters, who helped populate the land (for example, 5:4), and the record of Adam’s death in 5:5 introduces a refrain that will frequently recur (5:24 is a notable exception) and that reminds us of God’s judgment of sin. Note that God’s institution of holy matrimony is already perverted by Lamech’s polygamy (4:19). The contrast between Adam’s line through Cain and Adam’s line through Seth is explicit already in 4:26 but finds other forms of expression throughout the book. (For more on that contrast, see here.)

In the beginning of the account of Noah, Genesis 6:5 is another strong statement of the corruption original sin brings to all human beings, even us descendants of Adam and Eve. Yet, like Noah, by walking with God in faith we, too, can be described as righteous.

Q&A

• 4:3-4 tithes and the patriarchs
• 4:17 and 6:2 marriage to close relatives
• 6:2 who the “sons of God” are

Please feel free to ask a question of your own.

Sunday Lectionary Use

The historic 1-year lectionary we use at Grace for Sunday and festival services does not tap Genesis 4-6 for any Old Testament readings.

Hymn References

While no hymns in The Lutheran Hymnal are said, in the Scriptural index of its Handbook, to refer to verses from Genesis 4-6, I recalled a hymn that refers to Genesis 4:10 with the lines “Abel’s blood for vengeance / Pleaded to the skies”. The hymn is “Glory be to Jesus”, TLH #158. (Both Lutheran Worship and Lutheran Service Book retain this fine hymn.)

God bless you!

Ps 43 / Ge 1-3

Today we again hear the psalmist long to be in God’s Presence, and we also hear how and why humanity was first cast out from God’s Presence.

Psalm 43

Psalm 43, likely once a part of the same psalm as Psalm 42, likewise prays for God to deliver the psalmist from his enemy and to restore the psalmist to God’s presence.

Overview

Psalm 43:1-4 appears to be the third and final of three stanzas followed by the same refrain (v.5) as that psalm begun with Psalm 42 (note the refrain in 42:5, 11).

Comments

“Why have you rejected me?” the psalmist asks God today in Psalm 43:2. What possible answers are there? When people feel rejected by God an usual first thought is that they have done something wrong, and we know that any sin does separate us from our Holy God. But, God has done something about our sin in the person of the God-man Jesus Christ, Who died and rose again to restore our right relationship with God. As long as we believe in Him, we are forgiven and not rejected by God. Unbelief, I used to drive home to my catechumens, is the only thing that damns. Clearly the psalmist is not an unbeliever, so we ask ourselves whether the psalmist really has been rejected by God. At first he wrongly reads his sufferings and afflictions as signs of God’s rejection, as we do sometimes, but, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, he and we know better. God disciplines those He loves, and His discipline is for our good.

Apart from God’s Presence we can only feel rejected and mourn (v.2). God’s personified light (mercy) and truth (His faithfulness to His promises) are needed for us to come to where He dwells and reveals Himself (v.3); we cannot decide to come to or follow Jesus. Note how that mercy and faithfulness work out, respectively, God’s salvation and care for His faithful. Once on God’s holy mountain and place of His dwelling, we commune from His altar and, having received the forgiveness of sins, make a sacrifice of praise, lips that confess His Name. This certain, expected deliverance provides the soul the encouragement (v.5) that prompted the opening petition (v.1). Let us pray that God’s mercy and faithfulness show forth from our lives to those around us that through us God might work to bring others to His holy house where God can reveal Himself to them and give them His gift of the forgiveness of sins.

As in so many psalms, we hear in verse 4 how praise for God flows in confident expectation of His deliverance and restoration to God’s Presence. (There’s a passing reference to Psalm 43 regarding the psalmist’s circumstances away from Jerusalem and its Temple here.)

Ever hear anyone say something to the effect of “Cheer yourself up!”? That can be hard to do, as usually when a person is down about something he or she cannot see the reasons not to be down. In Psalm 43:5 there does seem to be something akin to the psalmist telling himself to cheer up, what I described in connection with the related Psalm 42 as the redeemed nature talking to the sinful nature. Especially when the sinful nature’s “voice” drowns out that of the redeemed nature, we are blessed to have God’s Word and Sacraments coming from outside of us reminding us that God has not rejected us and that His light and truth do guide us to His Presence where we find hope, joy, and peace.

Q&A

So far there are no readers’ questions about Psalm 43; please feel free to ask one.

Sunday Lectionary Use

• Sexagesima Sunday (the Sunday that falls in the sixth period of ten days before Easter)
• Judica (the Fifth Sunday in Lent)
• Good Friday
• The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
• The day of St. Philip and St. James

Hymn References

• 43:3 -- #132 a wonderful meditation on God’s guiding Light and quite appropriate in our Epiphany season. Along with other more-slight alteration, the fourth stanza as we have it, what might be called an overseas mission stanza, was apparently dropped for Lutheran Book of Worship and therefore for Lutheran Worship and Lutheran Service Book. (In stanza two, a “type” is a person or thing, such as Moses or the Temple, that points forward to Christ.)

You can find the tune for the hymn by following this link.

Genesis 1-3

Today we return to the Old Testament and “the beginning”, Genesis 1-3.

Introduction to Genesis

Genesis, commonly held to have been written down by Moses but previously passed from generation to generation by the faithful believers, tells of salvation history from the beginning to the last days of Joseph (from where Exodus, which we read in February, picks up the story). Especially important is the account of humankind’s fall into sin in Genesis 3, which also contains the proto, or first, Gospel in Genesis 3:15: that the Seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent, though the serpent would bruise His heel. One writer says that “Genesis is foundational to the understanding of the rest of the Bible,” and no doubt it is true. Note well that in Genesis there is only one true God and that He opposes notions that there are other gods, no gods, or that everything is divine. Note, too, that subjects and themes of the first three chapters of Genesis are reflected in the final three chapters of Revelation. We must marvel at the literary genius of our God who is Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, and Who inspired holy men of God to record His revelation, thereby giving to that record the property of inerrancy (being without error). Something to consider when the topic of evolution arises. You can find a summary of the basics on Genesis here.

Overview of Genesis 1-3

Genesis 1:1-2:3 can be seen as serving as an introduction of sorts to the book. By that same view, Genesis 2:4-4:26 is the account of the heavens and the earth (see 2:4, though we only read through chapter 3 today).

Comments

Contrary to what you might read or hear elsewhere in our time, life did not begin by a chance occurrence in some primordial organic soup or goo, at least not according to the introduction to Genesis, 1:1-2:4. The image with this post, “The Creation of Adam” painted on the ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564) and said to be “one of the most famous and most appreciated images in the world”, certainly doesn’t depict amino acids evolving into proteins (to see a larger version of the image click it, but for the largest and highest quality image see from where we got it). As told in Genesis, creation also is from nothing; God alone can create from nothing, others can only pervert His creation. Though some people see a difference between creationism and intelligent design, we can certainly say that the Creator designed everything intelligently! As important as Genesis 1-2 is for the discussion of creation vs. evolution, Hebrews 11:3 reminds us that we can’t argue or persuade someone to accept the Bible’s version of events on the basis of reason or proof. Be sure to notice the Trinity in Genesis 1:1-3 (God= Father, spoken Word=Son, and Spirit of God hovering over the deep) and such places as Genesis 1:26 (inter-Trinitarian dialog).

Genesis 2:7 details the unique creation of human beings, with body and soul, that was summarily treated in Genesis 1:26-31. Creation finished on the sixth literal day was complete and good; the fall of the angels takes place some time after and before the events of chapter 3. More important than the creation account per se is the account of humankind’s fall into sin and God’s first Gospel promise. After they gave in to temptation and sinned, the man and the woman try to cover their shame and, in the end, blame God for their fall. God nevertheless has a plan of salvation for them, and He makes the first sacrifice to provide more meaningful clothes for them. Note well the first promise of the Gospel in 3:15, where the Seed of the Woman is Christ, whose heel is struck on the cross, but Who by that same event crushes the head of the devil. That promise of a Savior was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, Who died and rose again to save us from our sin and Who through Word and Sacrament freely gives us by grace through faith the forgiveness He won. The last part of 3:19 is used in the committal service and the rite of imposing ashes on Ash Wednesday—a good reminder of our frailty on account of our sin, but never to be so gloomily held that we forget God’s sure and certain promise of the bodily resurrection and life eternal with Him where we will access the Tree of Life (Revelation 22:2), often pictured in Christian art as the cross. If you have access to a copy (such as in Grace’s library), you might check out how Lutheran Service Book #561 connects the trees in the Garden and Revelation to the tree of the cross.

Q&A

• ch.1-3 locating the fall of the angels
• 1:2 the Holy Spirit’s there right from the start
• 2:2 from what God rested
• 2:2-3 making sense of the Sabbath today
• 3:15 exposed to the proto-Gospel
• 3:19 the imposition of ashes

Please feel free to ask a question of your own.

Sunday Lectionary Use

• 3:1-24 -- Invocavit (the First Sunday in Lent)

Hymn References

• 1:3 -- #8 (a wonderful Trinitarian “Lord’s Day” hymn extracted from Julia Anne Marshall Elliott’s original seven-stanza work that originally confused the last and first days of creation’s week), #508 (note the hymn’s likening of the creation of light by the Word to the spread of the Gospel by the Word)
• 1:5 -- #12 (another fine “Lord’s Day” hymn that apparently also needed correction originally, but for a different reason than Elliott’s hymn above)
• 2:10 -- #282 (I’d probably make “Gospels” in the first stanza singular; if I’m not mistaken, the four figurative rivers in the second stanza are the four Gospel accounts; in the third stanza “sated” essentially means “satisfied”, and “pinion” seems to relate to “wings” as of a bird; the hymn was already dropped from Lutheran Worship and is also dropped in Lutheran Service Book)

You can find the tunes for the hymns by following this link.

God bless you!

Ps 42 / Mk 15-16

Our providential pairing of readings today has us consider, among other things, separation from God in various forms.

Psalm 42

Psalm 42 begins what is called “Book II” of Psalms, in which the predominant word used for “God” is the Hebrew word Elohim.

Overview

Psalm 42 is closely connected with Psalm 43, from which some speculate it was separated for liturgical reasons. (The superscription attributes authorship of Psalm 42--and thus likely Psalm 43--to the Levitical choir of the Korahites.) Taken together, there are three generally symmetrical stanzas to the psalm (42:1-4, 6-10; 43:1-4), each followed by the same refrain (42:5, 11; 43:5). That refrain and the extra verse in the middle stanza (42:8) express confidence in the Lord, which confidence is evident as the psalm moves from its opening longing for God’s Presence (42:1) to its concluding vow to praise God at His altar (43:4).

Comments

All of you who are hunters should relate well to Psalm 42, as a deer longing for water on which its life depends is just one of the expressions of longing for the Temple of God that the psalmist uses in verses 1-4. The idea of the soul thirsting for God as the deer pants for water (vv.1-2) is also found elsewhere in the Psalms, as in 63:1 and 143:6, but there are New Testament passages that quickly come to my mind, such as Matthew 5:6 (the “parallel” statement in Luke 6:21 just focuses on hunger, however), John 7:37-38 (for which I indicated a better translation here), and Revelation 22:17—no surprise the last two specifically mention the “living water” or “water of life”. (See also the invitation in Isaiah 55:1.) Especially in hot summer months we might begin to have a sense of the kind of literal thirst living in the desert might generate, but the thirst in view in the passages I’ve mentioned is more of a figurative one like that mentioned by Amos in 8:11-14. God not only provided literal water to His thirsty people in the desert, but He also provides the figurative “thirst-quencher”, to borrow Gatorade’s catchword. Remember how God provided from the rock and how St. Paul said that spiritual rock is Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4). The figurative thirst is “to desire passionately a spiritual good without which one cannot live”. Those who do not drink now will thirst eternally in the torments of hell (Luke 16:24), but when we now keep drinking of the Water of Life in the Person of Jesus Christ, His Word, and His Sacraments (in this case, especially Baptism and its water), then truly we will never thirst again (see John 4:5-14).

When we are sick or otherwise physically afflicted and can’t leave home, what are the places where we miss going? Work or school? Out with friends? How about church? You might notice the second part of verse 2, “When shall I come and appear before God?” (KJV, ASV, NASB; “When can I go and meet with God?” NIV). The psalmist is unable to go to the Temple for some reason (see at least one possibility here in connection with Psalm 84). Clearly the psalm is evidence that the psalmist did not think he could only pray to God in the Temple, but the psalmist also clearly knows there is more to his relationship with God than prayer. So many in our time think that all they need to do is be at home and pray and read their Bible. To be sure, I, of all people, am not criticizing people who pray and read their Bible at home (that’s what this Daily Lectionary is all about!), but too often the people who say those kinds of things don’t actually do it. If one does pray and read his or her Bible at home, one will soon realize that God speaks through His Word about the community of believers, the church, into which all who believe should be gathered in order to hear the Word preached and to receive the forgiveness of sins in its sacramental forms. In the church we enter God’s presence in a way we do not at home on our own, and especially in the Sacrament of the Altar we commune with Him by receiving bread that is Christ’s body and wine that is Christ’s blood.

Verses 5 and 11 are a refrain of “faith encouraging faith”, as in Psalm 27; notice the dialog, as it were, between the redeemed and sinful natures.

Verses 6-10 review the troubling of the psalmist’s soul. Note how the psalmist describes his location in verse 6. In this case, commentators are quite divided as to precisely where the psalmist might be, but, in this case, the meaning of the psalm does not depend on the psalmist’s precise location. Having to teach a bit about the Holy Land’s geography when I teach New Testament at Concordia University-Texas, I’m grateful to know and understand more the geography of the Holy Land, because at times the understanding of the Bible’s text is enhanced by knowing the geography. I’m more grateful, however, to know that God knows where you and I are and that He provides nearby places for us to go to receive the forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus Christ.

Water is again prominent in verse 7, but in part water is prominent as a figurative expression of what is troubling the psalmist. Verse 8, the center of the psalm, confesses the Lord’s 24-hours-a-day presence despite the psalmist’s trouble. When we are afflicted and need encouragement as the psalmist did, we can remember God has made us His children in the water of Holy Baptism, drowning our sinful nature and bringing to life the redeemed person in us.

Q&A

There are no previous readers’ questions about Psalm 42, but you should feel free to ask a question of your own.

Sunday Lectionary Use

• Septuagesima Sunday (the Sunday that falls in the seventh period of ten days before Easter)
• Invocavit (the First Sunday in Lent)

Hymn References

• 42 -- #525 (the “hart” of the hymn, the KJV, and the ASV, is, of course, the “deer” of the NIV and NASB)
• 42:2 -- #618 (which certainly looks beyond the Divine Service to our heavenly home)

You can find the tunes for the hymns by following this link.

Mark 15-16

Mark 15-16 wraps up St. Mark’s account of the Gospel.

Overview

We might break the narrative down into the following sections: Jesus before Pilate (15:1-15), the soldiers mocking Jesus (15:16-20), the crucifixion (15:21-32), the death of Jesus (15:33-41), the burial of Jesus (15:42-47), and the resurrection and events following (16:1-20).

Comments

Special items to notice in the Passion narrative include: Jesus’ cry at the separation from His Father, preserved in Aramaic in 15:34; the centurion’s confession of Jesus’ human and Divine natures in 15:39; and the three women identified in 15:40 and 16:1, two of whom are also mentioned in 15:7 (Salome is thought to have been Zebedee’s wife and thus the mother of James and John).

Certainly, as one of the hymns linked below indicates, we should not pass too quickly by our Lord’s crucifixion, and there are probably almost countless images of His death on the cross for us. However, I chose to include with this post an image related to our Lord’s resurrection, which was also for us (the image is of a work by German professor and artist Carl Gottfried Pfannschmidt [1819-1887]; to see a larger version of the image, either click it or see from where we got it). I chose such an image because if His death on the cross or burial in the tomb were the end of it all, then our faith would be for nothing, and we would still be in our sins (1 Corinthians 15:17). Christ did rise from the dead, though, thanks be to God, and we, too, shall so rise!

As you read chapter 16, be ready for an abrupt ending. Most ancient copies of this Gospel account end at Mark 16:8. (There are various theories as to why it might have ended there and as to from where vv.9-20 came.) Martin Luther had no qualms about these verses, as he used v.16 in his Small Catechism. Many newer editions of the Bible put some sort of separation between verses 8 and 9, but these text critical issues should not disturb our faith, as there is nothing foundational to our faith in vv.9-20 that we do not find elsewhere in the Bible. (For more on this matter, see the related Q&A linked below.)

Q&A

• 15:34 is Jesus’s statement an accusation against God the Father?
• 16:8-13 seeming contradictions in the Resurrection accounts

Please feel free to ask a question of your own.

Sunday Lectionary Use

• 16:1-8 -- Easter Sunday
• 16:14-20 -- Ascension Day

Hymn References

• 15:29, 30 -- #145 (author Girolamo Savonarola [1454-1498] was an Italian Dominican Friar who tried to reform the Roman Catholic Church before Martin Luther and was hung and burnt for trying; the hymn was first published in 1563)
• 15:34 -- #174 (said to be one of British pastor and hymnwriter John Ellerton’s finest hymns; he lived from 1821-1893)
• 16:6 -- #190, #191 (both hymns have roots that run very deep in church history)
• 16:16 -- #301 (one of TLH’s better Baptismal hymns, the first stanza was changed to plural forms [thus given a new name, "All who believe ..."] and was slightly altered in other ways for Lutheran Worship #225 and then was apparently altered further for Lutheran Service Book #601)

You can find the tunes for the hymns by following this link.

God bless you!

Ps 41 / Mk 14

As you read Psalm 41 today, you might think of the words on the lips of our Lord during the events described in Mark 14, which we also read today.

Psalm 41

Psalm 41 was David’s prayer when he was sick, and it also can be our prayer when we are ill, but we need not limit praying it to such times. Sickness is in the world because human beings sin, but when we get a specific illness we should not see the specific illness as punishment for a specific sin (though it may be a consequence of a specific sin).

Overview

Composed of four three-verse stanzas, Psalm 41 symmetrically consists of a two stanza prayer (vv.4-6 and 7-9) preceded and followed by two stanzas expressing the psalmist’s confidence (vv.1-3 and 10-12). Verse 13 is more likely a close to the so-called “Book I” of the Psalms, than it is a close to this particular psalm. Note also that Psalm 41 is a “Blessed” psalm, as is Psalm 1, which began “Book I” of the Psalms.

Comments

Psalm 41 certainly can be read as applying to David. Note how the Lord’s blessing and deliverance, His protection and retention, and His sustenance and restoration (verses 1-3) all could be taken to be the product of one’s regarding the weak (verse 1). The king especially was obligated to defend the powerless, but all of us share that obligation to some extent, and we all fail to do what we should. The real reason for the Lord’s blessing, deliverance, protection, retention, sustenance, and restoration is the Lord’s mercy (verses 4, 10). When the Lord in His mercy forgives us, then the Spirit at work in us brings about from us the good things Christians do. These fruits of the Spirit are according to our individual callings (vocations), which in the case of the king meant holding the enemies to account (verse 10). As for those of us without that particular vocation, we want to repay evil with good, and thereby, as St. Paul says, heap burning coals on their heads (Romans 12:17-21).

We can also read Psalm 41 as applying specifically to us. As I prayed Psalm 41, I began to hear its words as law showing me my sin—I don’t have the regard for the weak that I should and so don’t deserve the promised deliverance, protection, blessings, sustenance, and restoration (vv.1-3). Then, however, I got to verse 4’s confession of sin and appeal for mercy (see also v.10). There is Gospel implicit there, and there is also Gospel hearing even those opening verses on the lips of Jesus—He had regard for me—and you!—and so the Father delivered, protected, blessed, sustained, and restored Him as He accomplished His work of redeeming me—and you! Therefore He is in a position to give us those same blessings, not because we have earned them, but because He loves us and chooses to give them, along with forgiveness of sins, to us freely.

Specifically in connection with verse 9, note that the close friend who betrayed David had likely shared a covenant meal with him, which friend at least one commentator suggests is Ahithophel (see also Psalm 55). See also how Jesus uses verse 9 in John 13:18 (which I had not previously noticed was a reference to a psalm verse).

When our enemies fail to triumph completely over us in the big picture, why is that? We might take Psalm 41:11 to say that there’s something in us that keeps that from happening. But, I think we know from elsewhere in Holy Scripture that that perception must be mistaken, at least in so far as it refers to us apart from Christ. With faith in Him, we have His righteousness and so God can be pleased with us. His pleasure is not so much despite our sin, for He forgives our sin and remembers it no more. Such are the blessings of faith in Christ!

Q&A

So far no readers have asked any questions about Psalm 41, but you are welcome to ask one.

Sunday Lectionary Use

• Palmarum (Palm Sunday)
• Maundy Thursday
• The First Sunday after Trinity Sunday
• The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday

Hymn References

No hymns in The Lutheran Hymnal are said to refer or allude to verses from Psalm 41.

Mark 14

Mark 14 tells of Jesus’s anointing at Bethany and then the beginning of the events of Jesus’s Passion.

Overview

We might break the narrative of chapter 14 into the following sections: Jesus’s anointing (vv.1-11), the Lord’s Supper’s institution (vv.12-26), Jesus’s predicting Peter’s denial (vv.27-31), Jesus’s praying in Gethsemane (vv.32-43), Jesus’s betrayal and arrest (vv.43-51), Jesus’s trial before the Sanhedrin (vv.53-65), and Peter’s denial of Jesus (vv.66-72). This long chapter is very rich; a few select comments follow below according to the preceding sections.

Comments

The anointing of Jesus by Mary, Martha’s and Lazarus’s sister (John 12:3), indicated her “deep devotion to Jesus”, but Judas (Matthew 12:4-5; see also Mark 14:10) objects that the act was a waste; Jesus’ comments in reply should by no means be taken as indifference to the poor.

Note well that Jesus’ betrayal and death are closely connected to the Passover celebration, as Jesus is the once-for-all sacrifice to which the Passover pointed. The ordinary unleavened bread and wine of the old Passover meal are given new meaning and additional substance--Jesus' real, physical body and blood--as Jesus explains to His disciples. (Again the “many” in v.24 is either a figure of speech for “all” or a reference to the “many” who will believe and thereby benefit from Jesus’ blood in the Sacrament of the Altar.) Note well the singing of a hymn in verse 26!

Jesus tells the disciples that they will fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah 13:7 (rich in imagery we have seen in places such as Isaiah 40:11 and Psalm 23), which they later do.

In verse 33 note again the inner circle of disciples (treated differently back in Mark 3:13-19). Verse 36 is another example of how the personal union of the Divine and human natures in Christ and the relationships between the three Persons of the Trinity are ultimately beyond our understanding. Verse 38 is a good example of how saint and sinner are at war within us (see also Romans 7:23).

The young man fleeing naked from the Garden of Gethsemane as described in verses 51-52 is thought to be St. Mark, the author of this Gospel account. The young man is of course not central to the story, but the detail does let us see a little more of his personal side, as it were. The image that accompanies this post is a woodcut first published in a 1702 Nuremberg edition of Dr. Luther’s German translation of the Bible (to see a slightly larger version of the image, either click it or see from where we got it), and the unknown artist responsible for the woodcut chose to include what is thought to be Mark’s appearance in the Garden scene. Mark’s family may also have provided the guest room for the Lord’s Supper, and such a juxtaposition of involvement reminds us that we, too, can be loving towards our Lord and then hours later—if not minutes or seconds later—abandon Him, no better than any of His other followers at that moment. Betraying, fleeing, and denying are equally evil.) With God’s help, though, we come back to Him in sorrow over our sin and trusting in His merits for forgiveness, which is given by that same Lord’s Supper. (In one of the Q&As linked below there’s more on the possible connections to St. Mark and his family.)

Jesus's statement in verse 62 is regarded as blasphemous by the Jewish leaders because Jesus claimed to be God, Who, of course, He was.

Finally, note how Peter reacts after his sin with sorrow and eventually trust that Jesus will forgive Him, in contrast to Judas elsewhere, who despairs of God’s mercy and sins further. After our manifold denials of Jesus in our lives we want to be sure to have Peter’s posture of sorrow and combine it with faith that trusts God to forgive us for Jesus’ sake.

Q&A

• 14:3 just how Jesus was anointed and see here
• 14:13, 14, 51-52 Mark the Evangelist’s connection to our Lord’s Passion
• 14:62 Jesus’s identifying Himself as God and Jewish expectations
• 14:66-72 who betrayed Jesus and repented

Please feel free to ask a question of your own.

Sunday Lectionary Use

The Lutheran Liturgy, which we use for church services at Grace, does not tap Mark 14 for any appointed Gospel readings.

Hymn References

• 14:22-25 -- #310 (a wonderful “Lord’s Supper” hymn that confesses the real, physical presence of Christ in the Sacrament)
• 14:36 -- #420 (I expect a somewhat familiar and perhaps popular hymn that helps us follow Christ on the way of the cross, submitting our wills to God’s)

You can find the tunes for the hymns by following this link.

God bless you, and may you let Him make today holy for you by rightly using His Word and Sacrament!

Ps 40 / Mk 13

Both of our readings today give us opportunities to consider the fulfillment of prophecy.

Psalm 40

Psalm 40 is one of my favorite psalms, in part because of its use in connection with the Office of the Holy Ministry and partly because of a beautiful song by the group U2 based on this psalm. (See also here for another reference to that song in a folo on the reading of Jeremiah 28:15-17 that also makes a connection to Revelation 6:10.)

Overview

David, the divinely-inspired psalmist, in Psalm 40 recalls the Lord’s past deliverance (vv.1-5) and how it prompted him to praise the Lord and faithfully confess and proclaim the Lord (vv.6-10). Then, David turns to the Lord with his present needs (vv.11-17).

Comments

Verse 6 used to make me want to get an ear pierced and wear a cross in it to reflect the custom in which the servant’s ears would have a nail driven through them into the doorpost of the home where he worked. (See the Q&A linked below for more on v.6.)

You may know, from Deuteronomy 17:18-20, that Israel’s kings were supposed to always keep a copy of God’s Word with them. An alternate reading of the Hebrew for verse 7 would have the king say he has “come with the scroll written for me”, as in the NIV margin, which reading is a probable reference to the scroll the king was supposed to have. Even with the reading the NIV gives in the text, “it is written about me in the scroll” could still be a reference to that same copy of the torah, God’s teaching of law and Gospel. I think I had always thought the phrase was referring to prophecy about the king, and, reflecting again on the copy of the law, even that is not a completely separate understanding. In a very real way God’s written word talks about us, too, as that same written word is the means whereby we learn that we are sinners and that in Christ God has done something about our sin, offering free forgiveness through faith in Him.

As someone with not so much hair, I am especially sensitive to the verses from the New Testament where Jesus says “the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:30 and Luke 12:7). Not downplaying the verse's teaching of God’s incredible care for us, in lighter moments I think that God’s knowing how many hairs I have can’t be much of a challenge for Him, since there are so few! You are probably familiar with those verses, too, but you may be less familiar with the reference to “hairs of my head” that we read today in Psalm 40. Verse 12 says either the “troubles without number” or their roughly parallel and perhaps causative “sins” are “more than the hairs of my head” (confer Psalm 69:4). (Although the grammatical gender of the first is feminine plural and the grammatical gender of the second is masculine plural, the verb form, which implies the subject we have expressed as a pronoun, is “common”.) Again, in my case it wouldn’t take too many troubles or sins to exceed the number of hairs, but that’s not really the point. To be sure, one sin is enough to damn us and therefore drive us to God, and one trouble should do the same, for without God we are utterly helpless. (Before the days of products such as those made by Clairol and Grecian formula, Jesus in Matthew 5:36 said we have no power over our hair color). See how verse 12 leads to the psalm’s petition in verse 13. Thanks be to God that by grace through faith in Christ He not only forgives all our sins, no matter their number, but also gives us all we need, including ultimate deliverance from all of our troubles. In the end, not one hair of our heads will perish (Luke 21:18, and see 1 Samuel 14:45; Daniel 3:27; and Acts 27:34), figuratively speaking, anyway.

Verses 13-17 may sound extra familiar, as Psalm 70 is said to be “a somewhat revised duplicate” of those verses of Psalm 40.

Q&A

• 40:6 the translation of the Hebrew word karah, meaning roughly “digged”, as “pierced” or “opened”

Please feel free to ask a question of your own.

Sunday Lectionary Use

• The Circumcision
• The First Sunday after Epiphany
• Jubilate (the Third Sunday after Easter)
• The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday

Hymn References

• 40:8 -- #406

You can find the tune for the hymn by following this link.

Mark 13

Mark 13 gives us Jesus’s teaching on the Mount of Olives regarding the end times, which teaching about the end times you should find at least a little clearer than most of Revelation.

Overview

Shorter-term and longer-term prophecy often merge together so that it is hard to tell how much time will elapse between their fulfillments, and sometimes prophecy even can begin to be fulfilled in part at one time, with a greater and final fulfillment coming later. Those considerations make it particularly difficult to try to distinguish sections in Jesus’s teaching, such as between those things that He intends to be connected with the days and years after His own death, resurrection, and ascension and those things He intends to be connected with the great Last Day.

Comments

Getting caught up in the external beauty or impressiveness of something is easy, and the disciples’ getting caught up in the external beauty and impressiveness of the Temple and its complex is essentially what launched Jesus into some teaching about the end times. Note the Temple off on the left, to which Jesus is pointing in the image with this post, which is by Caspar Luiken (1672-1708, also spelled "Casper Luyken" or in some combination or with other alternatives) and depicts Jesus giving the so-called “Olivet Discourse” (to see a larger version of the image, either click it or see from where we got it). Caspar and his father Jan Luiken were Dutch copper engravers, said to be “the most productive and renowned illustrators in Amsterdam”, which was then “the publishing centre of the world”. Among the books they illustrated were Bibles and other religious and historical works, including an edition of Flavius Josephus, a Jewish Roman historian noted for a reference to Jesus Christ.

The “parable” or illustrating example in verses 32-37 (it’s not actually called a “parable”) may not seem too relevant to us. Who goes away and leaves servants in charge but doesn’t tell them when he or she will be back? These days it seems our trips are much more scheduled; we usually book a round trip airplane ticket and, before we go, have complete itineraries with return days and times. When massive winter storms inevitably disrupt air travel, however, people asked how reliable their itineraries were would probably say “Not very”. But, buried in the fine print of their tickets was probably some sort of language about unexpected weather delays and the airlines not being responsible for accommodating them in any way while waiting for the weather to clear. No traveler really pays any attention to such fine print until they have to, such as when the snow starts to fall. Travelers tend to look at the big picture, and so should we. Instead of getting bogged down in every last detail of what Jesus says in this chapter, perhaps a few things can be pulled out for our benefit. The disciples asked for a date and signs, and Jesus essentially answers both questions, although in an opposite order. He addresses the date question second (vv.32-27) and begins by giving them some of the signs (vv.5-31). No matter how frightening the thought of the end might be, we can be comforted, for by Holy Baptism we who persevere in the faith know we are part of the elect that are not deceived (v.22) but are safely gathered in the end (v.27). In the meantime, we should be on our guard (v.23) and watch (v.37). In verse 23, we might question whether Jesus has told the disciples “everything” (we might even question, as some commentators do, what exactly “everything” refers to or whether Jesus even said it), but we who focus on the big picture know that we know what we need to know, and we faithfully take heed and watch.

With those generally general comments made, let me make a few more more-specific points. With verse 10, remember that we with the church since New Testament times can expect Jesus to return at any time, so we see the “sign” of the Gospel being preached to all nations as already having been fulfilled (there’s more on that in a Q&A linked below). One way of understanding verse 14 is to see Jesus' body hanging on the cross as the abomination that causes desolation, though a more usual understanding is to locate the fulfillment of Jesus’ words in the Romans setting up a statue of the emperor in the Most Holy Place of the Temple after taking Jerusalem in 70 A.D. (though by then the Temple was meaningless as far as God was concerned). In verse 30, the “generation” is often taken as “race”, which allows for some of the signs still needing to be fulfilled (there is also more on both of those matters in the Q&A linked below). Verse 31 is a great comfort for us as we read through the Bible. Finally, for more on verses 23-37, including an explanation of what it means that the Son doesn’t know about the day or hour (v.32), see this Memorial Moment.

Q&A

• 13:10 the Gospel going out to all
• 13:13 a complicated dating scheme
• 13:30 exploring “generation”
• 13:30 whether, and if so what, signs still need to be fulfilled

Please feel free to ask a question of your own.

Sunday Lectionary Use

Mark 13 is not tapped for any Gospel readings by the historic 1-year lectionary we use at Grace for Sunday and festival services.

Hymn References

No hymns in The Lutheran Hymnal are said to refer to verses from Mark 13.

God bless you, and may you let Him make tomorrow holy for you by rightly using His Word and Sacraments!

Ps 39 / Mk 12

In our reading today we have an interesting contrast between the example of the psalmist who in some ways is “frustrated” with God and the example of the widow who gives a God-pleasing offering.

Psalm 39

Psalm 39 is summarized differently by different commentators: one calls it “prayers of one sorely tried at the sight of the prosperity of the ungodly” and another “the poignant prayer of a soul deeply troubled by the fragility of human life”.

Overview

Four stanzas make up Psalm 39, with the first three about the same measure and the final, shorter stanza serving as an epilogue. The comments below follow the four-stanza structure, after a paragraph about the psalm’s relationship to other psalms.

Comments

Psalm 39 appears to be related to a number of other psalms. Psalm 39 is closely related to Psalm 62 in the following ways: by the superscription’s mention of Jeduthun (one of David’s three choirmasters, this one representing the family of Merari), by a similar theme (the nothingness of humanity), by similar Hebrew vocabulary, and by the same theoretical background (possibly the rebellion by David's son Absalom). More to the immediate context in the Psalter, where Psalm 38 spoke of silence before the enemy, Psalm 39 speaks of silence before God. In both the psalmist confesses both his sin and his faith in God for forgiveness. Psalms 40 and 41 in some ways continue from 38 and 39 the theme of troubles aggravated by gloating of enemies.

Witnessing the prosperity of the wicked, the psalmist wanted to not complain, especially not in such a way that his enemies might know of it, but keeping quiet ended up only making the matter worse (vv.1-3). On the topic of sins of the tongue, you might want to check out the Memorial Moment for January 10, 2006, (which deals a bit with the 8th Commandment), what one reader called “a good sermon on protecting the sheep from wolves”.

Since keeping quiet made matters worse, the psalmist turned to God in prayer, asking God to help him calmly submit to the suffering by showing him that the suffering could only be brief since life itself was short (vv.4-6). (If you are wondering, one handbreadth is about four inches.) Do you think knowing when our lives would end would be a good thing? I can imagine arguments on either side of that question. Perhaps more than wanting to know when his life will end, the psalmist may want to know when his suffering will end. One commentator suggests the real purpose is for the psalmist to “become fully conscious of his own frailty!” Note the Selah, perhaps a musical crescendo, at the end of verse 5 as the psalmist’s lament reaches great intensity. As for the end of verse 6, I one time saw someone who thought they were dying be quite anxious over details of the estate to be left. I think there can be positive aspects to such concern, although in the context of the psalm I also thought that such effort can be for naught if the courts or tax collectors step in and overrule the wishes of the deceased.

The only hope both for this brief life and for that life which is to follow is the Lord—the same Lord who justly lets the psalmist suffer the consequences of his sin (vv.7-11). Note well in verse 8 the plea for forgiveness of sins—the same plea we make to God in our daily confession of sins, which plea He answers with His Means of Grace, especially Holy Baptism, individual Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar. In verse 9 the psalmist’s admission that the Lord is behind His affliction is also striking.

Finally, the psalmist repeats his prayer for an end to his present suffering (vv.12-13). Though usually the Lord’s “look” is a look of love and blessing, in this case the psalmist refers to the Lord’s “look” of wrath, wanting that “look” to be turned away.

Q&A

So far there are no readers’ questions on Psalm 39, but you are welcome to ask one.

Sunday Lectionary Use

• Reminiscere (the Second Sunday in Lent)
• Tuesday of Holy Week
• The First Sunday after Trinity Sunday
• The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday

Hymn References

• 39:12 -- #586 Another good Paul Gerhardt hymn, this hymn is said to be based more on Psalm 119:19 and Hebrews 11:13-16. (A reader’s comment on the hymn is here.)

You can find the tune for the hymn by following this link.

Mark 12

Mark 12 continues the narrative, begun yesterday in chapter 11, of Jesus’s final confrontation with the Jewish leaders.

Overview

Set during Holy Week, today we read the Parable of the Tenants (12:1-12), Jesus’s comment on paying taxes (12:13-17), what Jesus had to say about marriage after the resurrection of the body (12:18-27), what are the greatest commandments (12:28-34), the real relationship between David and “David’s Son” (12:35-40), and the so-called Widow’s Mite (12:41-44).

Comments

The Parable of the Tenants, as the Jewish leaders themselves realized, targeted them for their past mistreatment of the prophets and for their future mistreatment of Jesus. Jesus draws on such passages as Isaiah 5:1-2 and quotes from Psalm 118.

Then, some of the Pharisees and influential Jews who supported Herod and his position given by Rome tried to get grounds for Roman charges against Jesus. Jesus, however, saw through their trap and tried to teach the people both to give that which bore the image of Caesar (the coin) to Caesar and to give those things which bear the image of God (themselves) to God.

Next, another of the Jewish parties, the Sadducees, tried to trap Jesus. The Sadducees denied the resurrection of the body but set that denial aside long enough to use the resurrection as part of a challenge to Jesus. Again, Jesus saw through their challenge and flat-out rebuked their error, even limiting Himself to the little part of the Old Testament that group accepted. In the process, Jesus also made a comment that is often misused to claim that people will not know other people, such as their spouse, in heaven. What Jesus says is that men will not take wives, nor will women be given in marriage. One of my married seminary friends one time said well that it was hard to imagine that one would not know in heaven someone who had been such an important part of one’s life on earth.

Next in Mark’s account, Jesus lists two commandments, love of God and love of neighbor, as an answer to the Pharisee’s question about the greatest commandment. Notice well that Jesus’ later comment to him that he is “not far” from the Kingdom of God does not put him in it, since he was still trying to justify himself by his works.

Then, Jesus, quoting Psalm 110:1, stumps the Jewish leaders by asking them a question they could not answer, a question about David’s relationship to the Messiah. Jesus indicts the Pharisees of various wrongs, including devouring widow’s houses, which charge seems to lead to the next and final section of the chapter.

In a large, busy place, the most interesting thing of all may be happening quietly off to the side where no one else seems to be looking. We might get that sense in our reading of Mark 12:41-44, as it tells of a widow who put two mites into the temple treasury as an offering. The Jewish leaders’ challenging Jesus only to go down in defeat may have been the main attraction of the chapter’s preceding verses, but the more important event from Jesus’s perspective seems to have been the widow’s putting two mites into the temple treasury. (A “mite” apparently was a small brass coin, the smallest in circulation in Palestine then, equivalent to one-seventh or one-eighth of a farthing, and thus said to be roughly equal to one-fifth of a cent. For more on “mites”, including a mention of the LWML’s collection of them, see here.) The widow gave generously from the little she had, in sharp contrast to others who gave a much smaller percentage of their abundance. We want to cheerfully give back to God from what He has entrusted to our care in keeping with His blessings to us.

I was intrigued by the differences between images as I searched for one to accompany this post (to see a larger version of the selected image, again apparently from some turn-of-the-20th-century Sunday School material, either click it or see from where we got it); some available images showed an older widow and some a younger, some showed her with children, and some without. We don’t have to be a widow or have children to make sacrificial offerings to the Lord, of course; earlier in the chapter (v.17) Jesus Himself makes clear what we ought to give to God: our very selves (see the hymn linked below).

Q&A

• 12:1-12 just who is listening to the parable and reacting to it
• 12:10 the “stone” of Jesus’ quotation of Psalm 118
• 12:25 how the resurrected are like the angels
• 12:35-37 the relationship between David and David’s Son

Please feel free to ask a question of your own.

Sunday Lectionary Use

Mark 12 does not come up in the historic 1-year lectionary from The Lutheran Liturgy that we use for Sunday and festival services at Grace.

Hymn References

• 12:17 -- #404 With a familiar tune, this hymn emphasizes our giving to God our heart, soul, and body—which bear His image. (Another good hymn lost from Lutheran Worship and Lutheran Service Book.)

You can find the tune for the hymn by following this link.

God bless you!

Ps 38 / Mk 11

Today’s reading consists of a penitential psalm and the beginning of St. Mark’s account of our Lord’s Passion.

Psalm 38

Psalm 38 is another one of the seven penitential psalms and overall a good model of our own confession to God in confident faith He will forgive us for Jesus’s sake.

Overview

Psalm 38 is another 22-verse psalm with its length indicated by the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. There are five four-verse stanzas, followed by a two verse conclusion.

Comments

Reading Psalm 38 I was struck both by the psalmist’s extended description of his plight mixed in with his plea and by the lack of any sort of expressed confidence that God will hear the plea or promise to praise Him when He does! Having made that observation, however, I think we can identify with the psalmist. Sometimes, when our plights are as dire as the psalmist’s, it is all we can do to pray for help, let alone express our confidence that God will hear our prayer or promise to praise Him when He does. The prayer itself is arguably an act of faith that expects God to answer it, however. Truly the Spirit moves us to pray, gives us the words, and, when we do not pray ourselves, intercedes for us (Romans 8:26-27). And, on account of the Son’s sacrifice for us, the Father hears those prayers and ultimately delivers us by grace through faith.

We can rest assured that God does not rebuke us in His anger or discipline us in His wrath (v.1). Rather, God rebukes and disciplines in mercy and grace that is intended to lead us to repentance, sorrow over our sin and faith in God for the forgiveness of sins for the sake of Jesus’s suffering and death.

Reading verse 3 we realize that David by Divine inspiration recognizes how he deserves the Lord’s punishment on account of his sin but nevertheless pleads for deliverance. Sickness is a consequence of sin in the world, but we ought not interpret David’s words to mean God sends specific illnesses as punishment for specific sins. David confesses his sin and pleads for the Lord’s forgiveness, confident he will receive it on faith, not on the basis of anything he has done.

When someone says something against us to our face, it seems almost impossible for us not to reply, usually defending or justifying ourselves in some way. Yet in Psalm 38:13-14 we hear the psalmist say how, in response to his enemies and former friends, he acts as if he is a deaf man who hasn’t heard what has been said and as if he were a mute man who cannot reply to them. The silence to their false charges is in part due to his awareness of his own sin that warrants the rebuke he is getting, directly or indirectly, from God. Yet, the psalmist is not silent to God, to Whom he confesses his sin and appeals for help, patiently waiting for the Lord’s answer of deliverance (vv.15-16). Before God, of course, the only way we are justified is by grace through faith in the birth, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let us endeavor to follow the psalmist’s model of silence to our foes and confession and petition to God based on faith in Christ.

Verses 21-22 may be familiar from liturgical usage.

Q&A

No readers have asked questions about Psalm 38, but please feel free to ask one.

Sunday Lectionary Use

• The Second Sunday of Advent
• Ash Wednesday
• Reminiscere (the First Sunday in Lent)
• Tuesday of Holy Week
• The Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Trinity
• A Day of Humiliation

Hymn References

• 38:4 -- #317 (Note well the “I gladly suffer” at the end of the fourth stanza. Although there are other versions of the hymn with more stanzas, the six stanzas in the version we have are the ones thought certainly to be by Johann Major. While this hymn made it into Lutheran Worship, it did not make it into Lutheran Service Book.)
• 38:22 -- #402 (This is a nice hymn that I don’t think I have sung in a long time; of course, we know that God will never forsake us, but there’s nothing wrong with making such a plea to Him. Unlike Lutheran Worship, which used a different tune for this hymn, Lutheran Service Book uses the TLH tune and setting of this hymn but, like LW uses updated language; LSB also drops the fourth stanza that was in TLH and LW.)

You can find the tunes for the hymns by following this link.

Mark 11

Mark 11 begins this Gospel account’s telling of our Lord’s Passion.

Overview

In Mark 11, we read of Jesus entering Jerusalem (11:1-11), withering a fig tree (11:12-14, 20-25), clearing the Temple (11:15-19), and facing a final confrontation with the leaders of the Jews (11:27-33).

Comments

Lots of people get heroes’ welcomes these days, such as university football teams that win college football national championships receiving ticker-tape parades. (In connection with New Year’s Eve in New York City I once read something referring to “ticket-tape”; I guess the writers didn’t know better, since stock tickers that used ticker-tape have long since been replaced with electronic displays.) Mark 11 in part tells of Jesus’s “hero’s welcome”. On the day we commemorate as Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem and was greeted as the Lord’s Messiah with psalm verses used in Passover processions that anticipated the Messiah’s arrival. Note that “Hosanna” is Hebrew for “Save” and that in the Sanctus of the historic Christian liturgy the cries of the people as Jesus entered Jerusalem have been combined appropriately with the “Holy, Holy, Holy” of heavenly worship (Isaiah 6:3). As shown in the turn-of-the-20th-century Sunday School image accompanying this post (to see a larger version of the image, either click it or see from where we got it), palm branches, which were a sign of victory, welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem (John 12:13; confer Matthew 21:8, but compare Luke 19:36 and Mark 11:8, which would allow straw, rushes, or other leaves). Commentators are divided on just how much the people really thought was going on, but one thing apparently is for sure: such a welcome had taken place before, as for Simon Maccabaeus (1 Maccabees 13:51), with the people celebrating the driving out of an enemy of Israel. (You can read more about that event in the folo here.) Simon Maccabaeus and his clan may have raised the people’s hopes, but they were ultimately dashed. Jesus, however, is the true Messiah, and, though we may have grown more used to ticker-tape than palm branches, Revelation 7:9 suggests we will use them again.

The fig tree Jesus cursed on the Monday of Holy Week is found withered the next day, and, after His disciples express surprise at that fact, Jesus speaks about how prayer should be made with confidence and after one has forgiven the sins neighbors have committed against him or her.

Jesus clears the Temple because those selling items there were doing it not to provide a service to worshipers traveling long distances but to take advantage of them and because in the process they were denying the Gentiles the sanctity of their only place of worship.

The incensed leaders of the Jews confront Jesus over His authority to act as He did, but, because they would not answer His question, neither did He answer theirs.

Q&A

• 11:1-11 so much for the “Messianic secret”
• 11:24 praying in full confidence
• 11:29-33 Jesus’s stumping the Jewish leaders

Please feel free to ask a question of your own.

Sunday Lectionary Use

The historic 1-year lectionary we use at Grace for Sunday and festival services does not tap Mark 11 for any Gospel readings.

Hymn References

No hymns in The Lutheran Hymnal apparently refer to verses from Mark 11.

Someone sent me this link to a CNN story about an amazing 12-year-old girl (the link should open your Windows Media Player). God bless you!

Ps 37 / Mk 10

Believers’ real inheritance is a theme common to both of our readings today.

Psalm 37

Anyone who has ever wondered why the evil seem to prosper while the Christians seem to decline needs to read Psalm 37!

Overview

Psalm 37 is an irregular alphabetic acrostic, in which, generally speaking, two verses are devoted to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The main theme of the psalm is developed in verses 1-11 and elaborated on in the verses that follow. In addition, the psalm is framed or bookended with statements contrasting the briefness of the wicked (vv.1-2) and the Lord’s sustenance of the righteous (vv.39-40.

Comments

Where good and evil struggled in the psalmist’s day for control over Israel’s territory, for us the struggle is not over the literal land of Israel but for the new earth of eternity after Christ’s return in glory. The theme of the psalm is the question over who gets this “land”; see verses 9, 11, 22, 29, 34. Verse 11 seems to be echoed by Jesus in Matthew 5:5; in fact, the statements are essentially the same: the meek (or “gentle”; to be more precise we could say “humbly repentant”) inherit the land (or “earth”; to be more precise we could say “new heaven and new earth”). The wicked try as they might with all their various tactics, while the righteous humbly trust in the Lord and by His Spirit produce the works that identify them as righteous through faith. The wicked may flourish for a time, but in the end the righteous have the eternal inheritance and the secure dwelling in the “land”.

Note the patience the psalmist encourages us to have as we trust in the Lord to deliver us. Especially verse 2, using an illustration we all can relate to, helps us remember that our enemies will not always endure. The psalmist continues the theme in verses 9-17, 20-22, 28, and 34-38, returning to a plant illustration in verses 35-36. The psalmist makes it clear that the Lord will in time deliver the faithful.

Also note what the faithful do while waiting for the Lord to deliver them. In verse 7, the Divinely-inspired psalmist tells us to “Rest” in the Lord (KJV, ASV, NASB) or “Be still” before the Lord (NIV). One commentator describes a resigned, quiet mind that renounces self-help and rests on God, submitting to His will. This particular Hebrew verb, damam, is used of resting in quiet meditation (see also Psalm 4:4, 131:2). We should not think of the transcendental type of meditation, sitting in a yoga posture and repeating some nonsensical mantra, but of meditation that is reading God’s Word, reflecting on its message to us, and praying. The other “be still” passages I often think of, Exodus 14:14 and Psalm 46:10, use different Hebrew verbs, haresh and rapa, respectively. Their meanings can be parallel, but in Exodus 14:14 the Lord seems to be telling the people to stop calling to Him, that He is answering their call. In Psalm 46:10, if understood to be spoken to the faithful, the Lord seems to be saying “relax”, and we note well that faith is the basis for that relaxing and the patience we need. (Such is a good example of how English translations can lead us astray and how people who base their comments on the English alone can easily overstate their case.)

One time in a social setting I had someone wrongly suggest to me that the Old Testament and New Testament are not consistent in that they have different views of such things as God and salvation. A similar idea is that Jesus is a new lawgiver, surpassing Moses, and that His so-called “Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew 5-7 is an example of the “new” teaching that distinguishes the Old Testament from the New. Jesus no more in this case gives a new law or presents a different view of God and salvation than the psalmist contradicts himself by saying in verse 9 that “those who hope in the Lord” inherit the land or in verse 29 that “the righteous” inherit the land. God makes righteous those who humble themselves before Him in repentance and trust in Him for forgiveness for Jesus’ sake, ultimately blessing them for eternity in the new heavens and new earth. The God of the Old Testament and New Testament wills such salvation for all people, but, as is the case in the Old and New Testaments and now, sadly not all people avail themselves of this salvation in Christ that God so freely gives. (A helpful little saying about the Old and New Testaments is that “The New is in the Old concealed, and the Old is in the New revealed.”)

Q&A

• 37:23 human free will

Please feel free to ask a question of your own.

Sunday Lectionary Use

• The Feast of the Holy Innocents
• St. Mark’s day

Hymn References

• 37:5 -- #520 This "cross and comfort" hymn is said to be “the most comforting” of Paul Gerhardt’s hymns. While there’s a popular tradition about its composition related to his expulsion from Berlin for faithfulness to the Lutheran Confessions, the more likely story is that he wrote it during his service in Mittenwalde before going to Berlin. The hymn’s inclusion in a large number of hymnals of various languages is said to be evidence of its popularity, and I was pleased to see that it is included as #754 in Lutheran Service Book, even if they so altered the text as to give the hymn a different name and reduced by half the number of stanzas.

You can find the tune for the hymn by following this link.

Mark 10

Today we hear six more sections of words and deeds as Mark tells about Jesus, the man of action.

Overview

Mark 10 narrates Jesus’s ministry in Judea (essentially the old southern kingdom of Judah) and Perea (east across the Jordan): teaching about divorce (10:1-12), blessing little children (10:13-16), answering the rich young man (10:17-31), making another passion prediction (10:32-34), addressing the request of the “sons of thunder” (10:35-45), and healing blind Bartimaeus (10:46-52).

Comments

In the teaching about divorce, we want to remember that the hard-hearted are generally outside of the faith, that verse 9 can have the sense that human beings cannot separate what God has joined together, and that St. Mark’s divinely inspired account gives an absolute “no” to remarriage after divorce. (Luther and most Lutheran theologians grant the possibility of divorce and remarriage for the so-called "innocent party" in a marital breakup and in some cases for the "repentant-guilty party", although they have to practice some questionable exegesis to get around the clear teaching of Mark 10 and Luke 16:18.) Strikingly, Jesus puts Himself on the same side of the issue of Herod’s and Herodias’s marriage as John the Baptizer had, which move resulted in John’s death (Mark 6:14-26). Jesus's clear teaching in Mark’s account ought to be especially noticed by anyone considering divorce and remarriage.

When our congregation is blessed with the birth of another child, it is sometimes my privilege to share with the parents and child a Gospel account about Jesus blessing little children, similar to the one we read today in Mark 10:13-16. (By an unknown artist, the image with this post depicts that scene, apparently for some turn-of-the-20th-century Sunday School material; to see a larger version of the image, either click it or see from where we got it.) In the blessing of little children, notice that in verse 14 the KJV’s and ASV’s “suffer” means the same as the NIV’s “let” and the NASB’s “permit”. Jesus teaches that we are to have child-like faith (not childish faith), and His teaching should raise questions for those who would deny Baptism, the Divinely-appointed means of entering the Kingdom, to little children.

The rich young man wants to get eternal life on his own merits without the grace of God, even though he is unwilling to keep the first commandment (without which it is impossible to keep any of the others). Nevertheless loving the man for his earnestness, Jesus makes it clear that entering the kingdom is only possible with God, and His comments in verses 29-31 must not be taken as any sort of promise of prosperity in this life.

As the group makes its way towards Jerusalem, likely in the procession of Passover pilgrims, Jesus again predicts His death and resurrection, perhaps intending to remind His followers that the resurrection was a part of the expected events so that they would not so completely fear the coming crucifixion.

As happened shortly after the previous recorded passion prediction (Mark 8:31-38 and 9:33-37), the disciples again miss the nature of Christ’s kingdom. James and John want positions of glory, when the nature of Christ’s work is to serve (note well 10:45 and its theme of your and my redemption, and remember that here “many” is the same as “all”).

Finally, as if to illustrate the healing and saving nature of His work, Jesus gives sight to the son of Timaeus. Let me draw your attention to the cry of Bartimaeus that we can make our own: “Jesus, mercy!” (The historic liturgy of the church makes a similar cry in the "Kyrie Eleison" ("Lord, have mercy!".) As the Lord heard it then from Bartimaeus, so he hears it now for us, whether we are one day, one decade, or one century old.

Q&A

• 10:26-31 Peter’s and the other apostles’ wives?
• 10:37 what may have given the “Sons of Thunder” their nickname
• 10:38 Jesus’ cruxifixion as a “baptism”

Please feel free to ask a question of your own.

Sunday Lectionary Use

The Lutheran Liturgy, which we use for church services at Grace, does not tap Mark 10 for any Gospel readings.

Hymn References

• 10:13-16 -- #300 (Pastor Sullivan has taken to sarcastically calling this my favorite Baptismal hymn; while I'm not completely against it, I do think there are better Baptismal hymns. This one has too much talk for my taste about what “we” are doing, and I also lament the fact that two previously omitted stanzas emphasizing the connection to Jesus’s blood remain omitted in Lutheran Service Book.)
• 10:14 -- #302 (also a somewhat lacking “baptismal” hymn that seems more suited to a “dedication”), #627 (a hymn someone assembled from three hymns by someone else), #630 (you'll have to check your hymnal for this one) (None of these three made it into Lutheran Service Book.)

You can find the tunes for the hymns by following this link.

God bless you!

Ps 36 / Mk 9

Today we have two readings very timely for our Epiphany season. (Remember this Daily Lectionary we are following is described as “generally in harmony with the liturgical church year”.)

Psalm 36

In Psalm 36 we find a sharp contrast between the wickedness of some and the goodness of God.

Overview

Verses 1-4 describe the wicked as having no regard for God, plotting evil when planning the day’s activities, and the like. Verses 5-9 describe God’s goodness and mercy towards the world, preserving humans and animals, providing life and illumination to all types of people, etc. Verses 10-12 present the prayer that God would continue to be gracious to the faithful, and especially verse 12 confidently anticipates God’s just judgment on the wicked.

Comments

What do you think about when lying on your bed as you fall asleep or when you first awaken? At night I think I tend to review that day’s activities more than I anticipate those of the next day, and in the morning I tend to need to get out of bed so as not to fall back asleep! Today in Psalm 36:4 we hear the psalmist refer to the wicked people who plot evil while lying on their beds. Maybe we are guiltier of plotting or even doing evil there than we’d care to admit. Part of our review of the day’s past activities might be in prayer, confessing our sins and thanking God for His mercy and grace forgiving those sins and sustaining us through the day. Likewise, part of our anticipating the next day’s activities