Saturday, September 12
Morning
Psalm 104; 149
Job 38:1-17
Acts 15:22-35
John 11:45-54
Great and wonderful God, we praise and thank you for the gift of renewal in Jesus Christ. Especially we thank you for
opportunities for rest and recreation...
the regenerating gifts of the Holy Spirit...
activities shared by young and old...
fun and laughter...
every service that proclaims your love...
You make all things new, O God, and we offer our prayers for the renewal of the world and the healing of its wounds. Especially we pray for
those who have no leisure...
people enslaved by addictions...
those who entertain and enlighten...
those confronted with temptation...
the church in North America...
The Lord's Prayer
Meditation
Psalm 104 is today's morning Psalm and Job 38:1-17 is the Old Testament passage of the day. Both show us limits, and the wonderful things God does within those limits. In the Psalm, God has "set the earth upon its foundations that it never shall move at any time." (v. 5) The waters that stood higher than the mountain flee, go to God's appointed places, where God has "set the limits that they should not pass..." (v. 9) But within this constraint and setting of limits, the disciplined hand of God on his creation come free, bustling activity and life. The springs of water nourish birds and beasts (v. 11-12), bringing forth food and wine to gladden our hearts (v. 14-15). Likewise in Job, the Lord asks "who shut up the sea behind doors," and also, "have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place?" (v. 8; v. 12) We see the restraint, the focused framing of things. For what? The Lord seems to exult, not in the weakness of the limited waves, but in their strength: "here is where your proud waves halt." And the dawn, fastened to its watch point, is not passive, but active: it might "take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it." (v. 13) In both passages, God limits, draws boundaries, so that there may be exuberance, multiplication, vitality in all creation. It is a pattern we even see in Jesus' death and resurrection. Look at how Caiaphas seeks to limit Jesus in today's gospel passage, as he wickedly says, "...better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish." But even when Jesus is constrained and limited by death in this way, John knows what is really happening: "...(Caiaphas) prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one." (John 11:51-52) Even this limitation, in God's providence, only ends up creating a frame for God's flourishing creation as the new light of Easter Sunday morning dawn "takes the earth by the edges and shakes the wicked out of it." Nothing in the world can change what took place in Jesus' death and resurrection. The scattered children are one. Let us look to Jesus to find that it may be ever more so.
