Dec.3 Is. 64, shifts from recollections of the Lord's great deeds to befuddlement at the Lord's apparent/perceived absence. "Where is the one who brought them up...?" (63:11) In contrast with God's great deeds of the past, the Lord's absence is palpable., the prophet invokes the ancient image of the Lord as the cosmic, divine warrior who, according to Israel's collective memory, has victoriously 'come down' to Israel's aid . With a tone of desperation, the prophet implores the Lord to act likewise in the prophet's here and now, "O that you would tear open the heavens and come down" I hear a real note of desperation here, of wanting some sure sign of help now..There is even a hint on the part of the prophet that the Lord's absence is responsible for Israel's sins -- "...because you hid yourself we transgressed," the heavens opened at the baptism of Jesus.Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people." (64:8-9)
From the image of the Lord as the divine warrior who comes bursting out of the heavens that begins the pericope, the prophet brings the poem to a far different place. From a cosmic military-like interventionist, the Lord is envisioned as an artisan; a potter working, molding, fashioning in a continuing way this broken people.
All of us kalanu
Ps 80 prayer again waking up an inattentive deity
I cor `WP A sermon on this text could take the form of a thanksgiving to God for the community to which the preacher speaks. Paul certainly knew the Corinthian community was not perfect; in fact, it is as fractious and fractured as any community to which he writes. Yet he finds much to thank God for as he begins a letter to them. As a preacher, what would you thank God for about the people to whom you preach? What might their experience as a community be if they could hear you thanking God for them and their gifts?
Sometimes churches can be a little self-impressed. Our own virtues captivate us: we are friendly, or generous, or working for justice, or impeccable in our attention to the details of worship. Like the Corinthians, we are indeed “enriched” and, let’s face it, impressed by it. Writing to such a community, Paul thanks God first of all for the grace given to these people in Christ Jesus. Paul will soon introduce the reversal implicit in that grace when he says, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
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1 Mk 13:24 Lewis The link between the baptism of Jesus and the crucifixion of Jesus with "torn apart" frames this Gospel. The verb schizō, used only in 1:10 to describe what has happened to the heavens at Jesus' baptism and then in 15:38 for the temple curtain is no tame "opening." Anything that can be simply "opened" can be easily shut again and we would never know it happened. Lest we think that God can be let out for a little while but when we've had enough put back behind closed doors, Mark's Gospel rips that image apart. That which separates us from God, either the heavens or the holy of holies, has been torn asunder and can never go back to the way it was before. Bookending this Gospel is the conviction that there is no keeping God at a dis
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