There Must Be a Place Where All is Light

Devotional Reflection, Monday, July 7, 2025

Proper 9, the week of the fourth Sunday after Pentecost

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

Key phrase for reflection from today’s reading:

50 Now there was a good and righteous man named Joseph, who, though a member of the council, 51had not agreed to their plan and action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea, and he was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God.

(You will find the full text of today’s Gospel reading at the end of this reflection.)

Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 974)

AM Psalm 1, 2, 3; PM Psalm 4, 7

1 Samuel 15:1-3,7-23; Acts 9:19b-31; Luke 23:44-56a

David's Reflections

Luke and Acts are skillfully composed.  One of Luke’s literary devices appears in this text, that of inclusio.  Inclusio involves beginning and ending a poem, a speech, a story in the same way.  At the beginning of the Gospel, Simeon and Anna, welcome the baby Jesus in the Temple.  Both of them are said to be expecting the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God (or the consolation/deliverance of Israel).  Here, at the end of the Gospel, Joseph of Arimathea is said to share that same hope.  People with that hope embraced the new baby, and a man with that hope embraced Jesus in death and gave his own burial place for Jesus' interment. With this literary device, Luke underlines his focus on maintaining expectant hope of the fulfillment of God’s kingly rule in spite of the delay of that fulfillment.

What does it mean to wait expectantly for the reign of God?  For Joseph, prior to Jesus' coming, it probably meant looking for a deliverer who would free Israel from Roman oppression.  For the post-resurrection Christian community, it had come to mean waiting for the return of Jesus when he would complete his work of deliverance and fully banish evil and suffering.  We speak to that hope when we say the Our Father.  “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

We wait for the final vanquishing of evil and suffering, a vanquishing that has been assured by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  But, ours is not a passive waiting.  Wherever there is ignorance, lostness, separation from God, brokenness, suffering, injustice or oppression, we have a calling from God to proclaim, witness, pray, serve, and exert ourselves.  We seek to collaborate with the Spirit to bring the realities of the future kingdom into present experience as fully as possible.

We are like people watching for the dawn, anticipating that brightening light on the eastern horizon while making war on the darkness that the dawning of Jesus' coming will fully vanquish. There is no room in our faith for withdrawal from and fear of the world.  We have no resemblance to those so fascinated with dating the time of the end and so pessimistic about the power of evil in the world that they disengage from the world in fear. We are called to radical engagement with a world that Jesus came and comes to save.

In the words of poet Lawrence  Ferlinghetti, “there must be a place where all is light.” For people of faith that place is the kingly realm of God that Christ embodied and brought into realization through his unique personhood, his words and deeds, his death and resurrection. Every time the light breaks into our darkness, we are seeing a hint of the dawning of that kingly realm in our experience. Like the poet, we yearn for that place where all is light.

The opening lines from his poem “Laughing & Crying.”

I laugh to hear me say what I am saying

Walking in my cave of flesh

   There must be a place

        Where all is light.+

+Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Endless Life: Selected Poems. (New York:  New Directions, 1981), pp. 127-128.

Collect of the Day, Proper 9, the fourth Sunday after Pentecost

O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  (BCP, 230)

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)

Of the Holy Angels

Everlasting God, you have ordained and constituted in a wonderful order the ministries of angels and mortals:  Mercifully grant that, as your holy angels always serve and worship you in heaven, so by your appointment they may help and defend us here on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  (BCP, 251)

In the Order of Worship for Evening

Almighty, everlasting God, let our prayer in your sight be as incense, the lifting up of our hands as the evening sacrifice. Give us grace to behold you, present in your Word and Sacraments, and to recognize you in the lives of those around us. Stir up in us the flame of that love which burned in the heart of your Son as he bore his passion, and let it burn in us to eternal life and to the ages of ages. Amen.  (BCP, 113)

A Collect for Mission

O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 100, 257)

Daily Office Gospel, Luke 23:44-56

44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last. 47When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, ‘Certainly this man was innocent.’ 48And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. 49But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

50 Now there was a good and righteous man named Joseph, who, though a member of the council, 51had not agreed to their plan and action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea, and he was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God. 52This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 53Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. 54It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning. 55The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. 56Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

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