Friday 15th May | Alice Wilkinson
Readings
Reflection
In Numbers 12:1-25, we meet the Israelites having just been told that the Promised Land is very fortified, heavily defended, and powerfully armed. In comparison, they feel weak, underprepared, and underqualified. They doubt themselves, and they doubt God’s plan. Yet Joshua replies, “If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us”. Joshua acknowledges, having seen God work powerfully among His people, that God works with the lowly; with the underdog.
In Luke 6:1-11, When Jesus proclaims that the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath, he implicitly declares that the Son of Man is able to interpret and rule over the Law, through His sovereign authority. We know that Jesus is the Son of Man, and that he therefore has all of Heaven’s authority. In fact, He tells us elsewhere in the Gospels that he came to fulfill the law, and we see the outworking of this in the Sermon on the Mount. And having established His authority over the law - over the Sabbath - what is the next story that we’re told? What does Jesus do? He sees a man with a physical disability, he invites him to stand alongside Him, and He heals him.
I think Psalm 138 clearly puts into words the underlying themes from the two previous passages. And we see this in two senses. David perceives that although God is high and exalted himself, God is always close to the lowly. He loves the poor and the widowed and he comes into the hearts and lives only of those humble enough to know they need a saviour.
At the moment, we understand, some of us for the first time, what it really means to be without. The excess luxuries of ‘normal life’ have been stripped and strimmed away, leaving us with ourselves, our homes, and our God. And in this, God draws near.
Prayers
(Taken from Psalm 149)
Lord, help me to praise you.
Help me to sing you a new song, and to praise you with others, even as I am apart from them.
Help me to rejoice in you, my Creator, and make music to the King.
Thank you that you take delight in me, and that you crown the humble with victory.
Let your praise be in my mouth, and your Word in my heart.
Lord, help me to praise you.
Amen.
Collect
Almighty God,
Who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ
Have overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
Grant that, as by your grace going before us
Your put into our minds good desires,
So by your continual help
We may bring them to good effect;
Through Jesus Christ our risen Lord,
Who is alie and reigns with you,
In the unity of the Holy Spirit,
One God, now and for ever.
Amen.
