Nativity of the Lord - Proper III Year B (December 25, 2015)

This is the third of three readings for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Luca Robbia - Christ comforting a poor man

Of these readings I want to remember Hebrews 1:9

You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

Image: Christ comforting a poor man, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=53086 [retrieved December 27, 2014]. Original source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_della_Robbia  -- photographed by Jastrow. 

20141227 - added links, image, fixed formatting, ie everything I can't do in the mobile app

Third Wednesday of Advent (2014 Year B)

Today's Readings

As an improvement over yesterday, I feel like I am at least comprehending what I am reading. I still like the Psalm. I still find it heavy going to reconcile so much of what I am reading with my universalist belief in a loving god.

Malachi 4:1-3 works for me only in the context of revering the name of the Lord being equivalent to trying not to be wicked, arrogant and evil, going back to Jesus' "Love one another"; not in literally revering. We need to read within both the context in which the Bible was written and our own context. (The former for minimal understanding, the later because honestly, we can't help it and because we must if we are going to apply it to our lives.) Perhaps applying this generally to those who try to love one another is a valid interpretation.

¹ See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. ² But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. ³ And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.

I know I've used the weasel word "try" a couple of times here, but as I keep saying, none of us are perfect. (Or only perfect in a Hebrews 10:14 sense.) Only an honest attempt at doing so is possible.

21st Sunday After Penticost - Year B

This week's Lectionary readings are:

• Job 38:1-7, (34-41) and Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c  • 
• Isaiah 53:4-12 and Psalm 91:9-16  • 
• Hebrews 5:1-10  • 
• Mark 10:35-45

In the Job reading, I found it interesting that God brags about feeding the ravens, when today at least, we usually think of ravens as bad or signs of evil or death.

I was also struck by Hebrews 5:2 "[Every high priest] is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness;" and how that varies from so much of the religious based political commentary lately, which assumes that the speaker knows what is right and everyone else better follow them to get on the straight and narrow.


Photo Credit: Crow coming in for a landing (corvus brachyhynchos) by Tony Cyphert