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Christian Resources Library
Readings January to March 2003
January
| February | March
5 January
Epiphany of the Lord
Isaiah 60. 1 - 6
Originally an ecstatic statement of hope for the Israel of the prophet's
day, Christians read these words as a foreshadowing of the happiness
of the coming of Christ and his meaning for the whole world.
Ephesians 3. 1 - 12
It was a major initiative when the Christian movement first stepped
out of its original Jewish setting to offer its invitation to all people;
the apostle Paul was the man of courage who chiefly achieved it. We
are among those who owe our faith to his work.
Matthew 2. 1 - 12
Full of Old Testament echoes, the story of the Wise Men moves us by
its joining of splendour and simplicity, earthly repute (magi were the
intellectuals of the time) with timeless and divine wonder.
- We pray to join realism about the world with boundless hope for
the future under God.
- How hard it is - still - to embrace outside our own familiar circle
and culture.
- Beneath the complexity of things, there are simple choices, simple
claims to our love.
12 January
Baptism of Christ
Genesis1. 1 - 5
In the Old Testament, water is commonly a symbol of disorder, chaos
and danger. Out of it, God brings order and, ultimately, life. So the
creation story opens our minds to the truth of baptism, when, through
Christ, we start on the way of assured 'new creation'.
Acts 19. 1 - 7
Some years into the Christian mission, Paul comes across followers of
the long dead John the Baptist. Paul enables them to complete what John
had begun, as they receive baptism in Jesus' name.
Mark 1. 4 - 11
In Mark's Gospel, Jesus' baptism opens the story and strikes us with
force. This act of God unites heaven and earth: salvation is under way,
and Jesus is its accredited agent. The drama has begun.
- Can we absorb the depth of the symbolism of water, focused here
on Jesus but with meaning for the whole of creation?
- We pray for the many for whom water is a scarce luxury: is not baptism
also a privilege to recall with gratitude?
- Give thanks to God for Jesus as the chosen one who brings God to
us and us to God
19 January
Second Sunday of Epiphany
1 Samuel 3. 1 0- 10
the moving story of the call of Samuel to the service of God as the
great prophet in Israel is a familiar story of the mystery of God's
call to us, whatever form it takes.
Revelation 5. 1 - 10
Revelation, set in heaven, tells us about our own lives.
The picture here is one of unbearable tension: will the scroll (and
so its vital meaning) ever be opened? Will God ever make his truth known?
Jesus performs the deed and our salvation can take its course.
John 1. 43 - 51
This is John's story of the call by Jesus of early followers. HE refers
at the end to the story in Genesis of Jacob's ladder linking earth and
heaven. Jesus is the true 'ladder' fulfilling that very role.
- God's 'call takes many forms, some dramatic, some simple, but all
are insistent. We need to respond to what is asked of us, willingly
and faithfully.
- We all feel longing that we shall one day, somehow, 'understand'
-the world, ourselves, God. How does what we see of Jesus help us
to do that?
- To 'follow' Christ is to be ready for a deepening of our grasp of
things and of our own role in his purpose.
26 January
Third Sunday of Epiphany
Genesis 14. 17 - 20
Melchizediek appears only briefly and has always been seen as a mysterious
figure. Christians came to see him as one among many who foreshadow
Jesus in one way or another. He brought out bread and wine: so he can
be seen as a poetic sign of the Eucharist which Jesus would give as
our great priest.
Revelation 19. 6 - 10
A wedding-feast is a powerful symbol of the fulfilment we all desire
and look for. Jesus and all of us who are his followers are to be assured
of such consummation of out hopes and desires.
John 2. 1 - 11
This first 'sign' in the Gospel of John is a symbol of the new ser-up
which Jesus brings: the wine of the Gospel takes over from the water
that represents Judaism - satisfactory in it way but needing radical
renewal.
- Pray for the gift of hope that our earthly worship may life us to
the God of whom they speak.
- we are to refuse to rest content with our present sense of God and
to be ready to 'see' more.
- Is there not always scope for our daily plod to be raised to a new
level of meaning?
2 February
The presentation of Christ in the Temple
Malachi 3.1 - 5
The final prophet in the Old Testament is poised on the brink of great
new disclosure, which will both delight and terrify. Here is always
cost and danger in receiving what is both new and good.
Hebrews 2. 14 - 18
The letter to the Hebrews insists more that any other book in the new
Testament on Jesus being 'one of us' - fully human and so able to fulfil
his unique task of representing us before God.
Luke 2.22 - 40
Luke is keen not to make too much of a divide between old Israel and
the new set-up which Jesus inaugurates. So in his infancy he fulfils
the old rules, and Simeon tells what is to come. For us too there is
never a clean break with our past, but we take it and renew it in our
growth towards God.
- Can we incorporate disaster and crisis into our hope for what is
new? Our tragedies and setbacks are the raw material of our growth
- Pray to see Jesus not as remote and 'different' but as accessible
to us as we are.
- Pray for all who assist us as we grow towards God.
9 February
Fourth Sunday before Lent
Isaiah 40. 21 - 31
Isaiah 40 - 55 is full of beautiful poetic insight into God's dealings
with his people. He shows us both the mysterious power of God and his
great generosity and encouragement to us his creatures.
1 Corinthians 9. 16 - 23
Paul the apostle was determined not to limit his work: he could adapt
to whoever came his way and knew that God was greater that our petty
divisions of race or background. What an example.
Mark 1. 29 - 39
Jesus heals, prays and preaches the kingdom of God. He brings fulfilment
of need at all levels, both body and soul. And he does it all under
God, whose agent he is.
- We must set the work of God on the biggest possible canvas, like
the prophet Isaiah: narrowness of vision is hopeless.
- Pray to tell the difference between what is essential to the gospel
and what is a matter of cherished custom.
- May we know how to bring speech and action together in the devout
service of God.
16 February
Third Sunday before Lent
2 Kings 5. 1 - 14
The importance of this story is that it show that some people in the
world of the Old Testament we able to go beyond a narrow nationalism
when they thought of God's power and compassion.
1 Corinthains 9. 24 - 27
Paul is not complacent about the value of his contribution to the spread
of the gospel: persistence, discipline and faithfulness are essential
qualities for the Christian.
Mark 40 - 45
In the world of Jesus, leprosy was a disease that cut the sufferer off
from society and there wer strict rules to regulate their lives. To
be cured was therefore a major triumph - a gift of new life.
- We pray for an ever wider sense of the scope of God's concern -
and so of our own.
- The service of God cannot ever relax vigilance and attention.
- Pray for the outcasts of society, whoever they may be.
23 February
Second Sunday of Lent
Proverbs 8.1, 22-31
In a poetic passage, God's 'wisdom' speaks as his helper in creation.
The point is that the world is, despite some appearances, neither chaotic
nor random: it is the fruit of God's infinite wisdom.
Colossians 1. 15 - 20
In this passage, Jesus is seen as stepping into the shoes of 'wisdom'
as depicted in a passage like that in Proverbs8: he is the mediator
of God's purposes from beginning to end, and our God come to us 'Jesus-shaped'.
John1. 1 - 14
John uses the image of speech ('word'), which, like wisdom, stands for
God's deliberate purpose in all that he has done, always and in every
way. Jesus brought this glorious purpose before our eyes and we behold
it with gladness.
- Pray to see the world as bearing the mark of God's good purpose.
- Jesus makes God known to us and through him we 'see' God.
- We thank God for the order of his gift and resolve not to frustrate
it.
2 March 2003
Sunday next before Lent (CE)
2 Kings 2.1-12
Together with Moses, Elijah was one of the two greatest figure in the
Old Testament, and the New took care to show that Jesus was greater
than both (see today's Gospel). Here we have the story of Elijah's 'special
treatment' by God as he is carried direct to heaven, with his disciple
Elisha left as his heir as God's true prophet to his people in hard
times.
2 Corinthians 4.3-6
Paul writes as Christ's 'apostle' or agent. In Christ, God brings to
its climax the work of bringing 'light' to the world that goes back
to creation itself, and light stands for all that is true, honest and
good.
Mark 9.2-9
The experience of the Transfiguration is a foretaste of Jesus' high
status as God's full representative for all humankind becoming plain
in his death and resurrection.
- Pray for the gift to discern true from false spokespersons on God's
behalf.
- Pray to see below the surface - and so to recognize in Christ the
full glory of God.
- Pray to hold on to our experience of the depth of Christ's true
self.
9 March
First Sunday of Lent
Genesis 9.8-17
The idea of the 'covenant' between God and his people finds here its
first clear example. We think of ourselves as God's servants, but he
is equally bound to us, for our eternal good.
1 Peter 3.18-22
Noah and family were saved 'through water': the writer sees this as
a picture of Christian baptism, our route to salvation in face of a
godless and directionless world.
Mark 1.9-15
The baptism of Jesus is not like ours: it is the giving of his unique
role on God's behalf, as his agent to right all wrongs and make his
rule plain, with all urgency.
- Water threatens but also saves life: pray to know God as our dependable
rescuer.
- Give thanks for baptism as the route to our deepest good.
- Let Jesus' preaching of God's rule keep ringing in our ears.
16 March
Second Sunday of Lent
Genesis 17.1-7, 15-16
God's covenant with Abraham marks out our faith as being rooted in real
people who follow one another through real time, and being together
through thick and thin.
Romans 4.13-25
Paul saw the essence of God's relationship with Abraham to be one of
faith -- trust in God, come what may, with salvation as God's doing
not man's. The birth of Isaac, against all natural odds, was a picture
of the death and lie of Jesus who, one more against all odds, unites
us to God through his dying and rising.
Mark 8.31-38
Jesus' picture of what 'following' him entails is uncompromising: there
must be a real choice to enter the new world which he makes available,
with its unknown risks and surrenders of life's familiar props.
- Thank God for his constant faithfulness to his people.
- We rejoice to be joined to God by faith, not by any power of our
own to earn his love.
- What does it mean for us to 'take up the cross'?
23 March
Third Sunday of Lent
Exodus 20.1-17
The Ten Commandments have a venerable place in Christian life and once
stood in the sanctuary of all our churches. They began as the core of
the law of Israel long ago. Now, some of them are basic morality, others
need interpreting and discussing to apply to modern life.
1 Corinthians 1.18-25
The death of Jesus seems at first sight to be pure tragedy and to make
anything else of it seems foolish; but look again, its very weakness
is the sign of God's wisdom.
John 2.13-22
The so-called 'cleansing' of the Temple is put forward in John's Gospel
as a sign pointing to Jesus' own death and resurrection, whereby he
does fully the task of linking us to God which the old Temple aspired
to achieve.
- The Ten Commandments point to simple decency. Ought we not to aim
higher than that?
- From Christ's weakness God's power comes before our eyes.
- Jesus occupies for us the central place given to the Temple in old
Judaism and meets all our needs before God.
30th March
Fourth Sunday of Lent (Mothering Sunday)
Exodus 2.1-10
Male Hebrew babies had to be drowned in the Nile, so-Moses' mother acted
shrewdly to save his life. In due course, he in turn was God's agent
to save his people from slavery. It is a picture of Jesus' role for
us all: salvation hangs by a (golden) thread, does it not?
Colossians 3.12-17
Here is Paul's ideal picture of the Christian community: a generous,
kindly people, devoted to God's praise, all for the sake of Christ.
Luke 2.33-35
Like the mother of Moses, Mary has a crisis ahead. Jesus will be a man
at risk as well as the giver of life and freedom.
- Is it hard to accept that the triumph of good is never plain sailing?
- How hard it is for church life to live up to so attractive an ideal.
- Pray for grace to share Mary's pain and suffering for the ultimate
good of us all.
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