Thursday • 4/25/2024 •
Thursday of the 4th Week of Easter
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 50; Exodus 34:1-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:13-20; Matthew 5:21-26
This morning’s Canticles are: before the Psalm reading, Pascha Nostrum(“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)
My experience with the Daily Office is that on some days, one of the passages will invite a “deep dive.” Other days, a single thought or verse may emerge. Some days—like today—I’ll read all the passages over and over again, finding myself pondering themes interwoven among them. So, today I’ve simply gathered common threads from across our readings under three heads.
God’s Word will stand. Moses may have broken the tablets of the “Ten Words.” But the “Ten Words” don’t thereby stop being the measure of image-bearing. God intends to make himself known to the world through a people of his possession. And so, the Lord replaces the tablets (Exodus 34:1-4).
The psalmist rebukes those who “toss” the Lord’s “words behind” their “back,” recasting God in their own image (“you thought that I am like you”). Making themselves the measure of all things, they justify stealth, adultery, lying (Psalm 50:17-20). Rejecting God’s Word, they turn life on its head.
To pagan Thessalonians, Paul offers Jesus Christ as the path to the knowledge of the “living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9). When they came to believe his message, he says, “you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).
Jesus expounds what God’s Word does when it works in the hearts of those who read it in faith. “You shall not murder,” says Scripture. When that word from God genuinely takes hold in a person, it restrains not just the hand, but the heart (Matthew 5:22).
You know, puzzles emerge in reading the Bible. The Bible is filled with flawed people. Sometimes you are left wondering why God does what he does, or why he permits what he permits. Still, throughout, it’s God’s living and active Word, which searches out our hearts, displays his character, and takes us deeper into communion with him.
God’s justice will stand resolutely. The psalmist maintains that people’s attempt to make the Lord over into an image of themselves (“you thought I am like you”) will prove false. “Our God,” maintains the psalmist, “will come and not keep silence” (Psalm 50:3). The Lord will “rend you and there be none to deliver you” (Psalm 50:23).
Moses warns that the cost of breaking covenant with Yahweh will be severe. If they marry idolators, Israelites will become idolators—they will prostitute themselves to their unbelieving spouses’ gods (Exodus 34:16).
For his part, Jesus refuses to endorse worship on just anybody’s terms—you can’t love God without loving neighbor. So, don’t even think about bringing your offering without first taking care of things when your brother or sister “has something against you” (Matthew 5:23).
To Paul, his fellow Jews’ fundamental mission in the world was to bring its Savior to them. Failing to recognize the Messiah, they killed him instead. As a result, “they displease God and oppose everyone,” putting themselves, alas, in the crosshairs of God’s wrath (1 Thessalonians 2:15-16).
It’s all quite sobering. God is not to be trifled with. Every once in a while, I need to take stock and examine my own assumptions about who he is, lest I re-fashion him into a cuddly chaplain of my own me-created, me-centered religion.
God’s mercy will stand even more resolutely than his justice. Judgment may extend to the fourth generation, but the Lord’s “steadfast love and faithfulness” will extend to the thousandth, he tells Moses (Exodus 34:5-7).
The psalmist holds out the promise: “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall honor me” (Psalm 50:15).
Our Savior Jesus came, calling us to be reconciled with those from whom we are estranged (Matthew 5:24). Not only that, he has come on a mission to reconcile heaven and earth on the cross, ending the warfare between God and ourselves: “for he himself is our peace” (for this, see Romans 5:5-8; Colossians 2:21-22; Ephesians 2:14a).
Sad though the apostle Paul is about people who reject God’s peace in Christ, it is even more the case that he is grateful for those who embrace it: “For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at this coming? Is it not you? Yes, you are our glory and joy!” (1 Thessalonians 219-20). So, as James 2:13 says, “mercy triumphs over judgment.”
I leave today’s readings resolved to do three things. First, I determine to trust God’s Word as God’s Word even in the places it seems unclear, demanding, or even puzzling. Then, second, I determine to hold onto the complete rightness of God’s judgment against all that stands against him. And third, I determine to hold onto the steadfast love that broke through on the Cross of his dear Son, where God showed himself to be both “just and (mercifully) justifier” (see Romans 3:26). Praise be!
Be blessed this day.
Reggie Kidd+