Living Toward a New Day

Devotional Reflection, Monday, December 30, 2024

Friday of the Week after Christmas

The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.

Key phrases for reflection from today’s reading:

6 On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. 7And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. 8Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.

9 It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the LORD for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

You will find the full text of this reading at the end of this reflection.

Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 940)

Psalms: AM 20, 21:1-7(8-14); PM 23, 27

Isa. 25:1-9; Rev. 1:9-20; John 7:53––8:11

David's Reflections

This week, the Daily Office readings express themes central to our experience of salvation.  Today, Isaiah proclaims a loving, saving God whose salvation he compares to deliverance from evil and a grand feast set by God.  The prophet/poet seems to be looking to the end of the ages when the entire world will be converted to faith in the God of Israel.  His image of a city being overturned does not have reference to any specific city of the past but seems to be an image for the cumulative power of evil that is resistive to God. (See Isa. 25:2 in the full reading for today below.)

Here the experiences of poverty and oppressive evil are compared with a violent thunderstorm and a blast of desert heat.  Death he compares to a shroud that covers the entire earth.  The world labors under the impact of evil and death,  feeling disgraced and grieving.  But, God will be a shelter from the heat and from the thunderstorm.  (I was thankful once when camping to find a hut in the San Francisco Peaks of northern Arizona when a violent thunderstorm struck during a hike.)

God's deliverance of all nations is described with three verbs.  First, God will swallow up (the NRSV translates "remove") death by consuming the shroud of death that weighs the world and darkens our view of the sun.  He also will wipe away all tears.  Finally, he will take away our disgrace.

At the end of this year, Isaiah gives us a vision of the end of the reign of evil and the full triumph of God's kingly rule of love and salvation.  Death swallowed up, tears wiped away, disgrace taken away.  The great city of evil that has dominated human experience will lie in ruins.  And, we, delivered from death, dry-eyed, and shame-free, will sit at table with God and celebrate God’s triumph in a great feast.

It's a small leap from these images to the Sunday Eucharist, a meal shared in anticipation of that final feast with God and Christ.  That Gospel song, "Soon and Very Soon," expresses the truths of this text.

"Soon and very soon, we are goin' to see the King."

"No more cryin' there, we are goin' to see the King."

"No more dyin' there, we are goin' to see the King."

Our lives can take on a note of praise, as does the life of the prophet in this reading.  Even now we can praise God that the world we now know will not be our ultimate and final reality. This world will be swallowed up by God's saving love and made new.  And, our personal reality will not be final.  God's delivering love will not leave our individual brokenness and caughtness untouched.  Our moments of deliverance, our moments of triumph are like the Eucharist, an anticipation and a foretaste of the ultimate moment of deliverance, a sample as it were of what lies in store for us.

The complete text of the Serenity Prayer came to mind as I reflected on this text. Reinhold Niebuhr, a Twentieth Century theologian and ethicist penned it:

 PRAYER FOR SERENITY

          God, grant me the serenity

  to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

           Living one day at a time,

       enjoying one moment at a time;

accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;

            taking, as Jesus did,

         this sinful world as it is,

           not as I would have it;

trusting that You will make all things right

          if I surrender to your will;

   so that I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with You forever in the next.

                  AMEN +

+http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer

Collect of the Day, the first Sunday after Christmas

Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word: Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 213)

A Collect for the Renewal of Life

O God, the King eternal, whose light divides the day from the night and turns the shadow of death into the morning: Drive far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to keep your law, and guide our feet into the way of peace; that, having done your will with cheerfulness while it was day, we may, when night comes, rejoice to give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.  (BCP, 99)

A Collect for Peace

Most holy God, the source of all good desires, all right judgments, and all just works: Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give, so that our minds may be fixed on the doing of your will, and that we, being delivered from the fear of all enemies, may live in peace and quietness; through the mercies of Christ Jesus our Savior. Amen. (BCP, 123)

Of the Departed

Eternal Lord God, you hold all souls in life: Give to your whole Church in paradise and on earth your light and your peace; and grant that we, following the good examples of those who have served you here and are now at rest, may at the last enter with them into your unending joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.  (BCP, 253)

A Prayer for Light

Grant us, Lord, the lamp of charity which never fails, that it may burn in us and shed its light on those around us, and that by its brightness we may have a vision of that holy City, where dwells the true and never-failing Light, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 110)

A Collect for Mission

Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified:  Receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before you for all members of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.  (BCP, 100)

Daily Office Old Testament Reading  Isaiah 25:1-9

25:1O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will praise your name; for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure.  2For you have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin; the palace of aliens is a city no more, it will never be rebuilt. 3Therefore strong peoples will glorify you; cities of ruthless nations will fear you. 4For you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat. When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm, 5the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place, you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds; the song of the ruthless was stilled.

6 On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. 7And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. 8Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.

9 It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the LORD for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

Daily Prayer Offices in The Book of Common Prayer 

Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, Book of Common Prayer

Noonday Prayer, p. 103, Book of Common Prayer

Order of Worship for Evening (Vespers), p. 109, Book of Common Prayer

Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer 

Compline (Night Prayer), Page 127, Book of Common Prayer

Daily Devotionals, page 136, Book of Common Prayer