BCP Daily Office Lectionary for Sunday, Dec. 12, 2004
Source: http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/index.htm
Morning Psalm(s): AM Psalm 63:1-8(9-11), 98 [PCUSA: 24:1-10]
Evening Psalm(s): PM Psalm 103 [PCUSA: 25:1-22]
Old Testament: Isa. 13:6-13 [PCUSA: 13:1-13]
Epistle: Heb. 12:18-29
Gospel: John 3:22-30
Presbyterian Readings with Biblical Text for the Current Day:
http://www.pcusa.org/cgi-bin/lectiond.cgi
In chapter 13 of Isaiah, we encounter an Oracle (Maśśe’ ) against Babylon (Isa. 13:1-22), as a part of a series of oracles against foreign nations (chaps. 13-23). Babylon is told to:
Wail, for the day of the LORD is near;
it will come like destruction from the Almighty!
Therefore all hands will be feeble,
and every human heart will melt,
and they will be dismayed. (Isa. 13:6-7a)
The coming judgment will include “pangs and agony . . . like a woman in labor,” but more so; “their faces will be aflame” (v. 8). But the judgment takes on cosmic proportions:
See, the day of the LORD comes,
cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,
to make the earth a desolation,
and to destroy its sinners from it. (v. 9)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I will punish the world for its evil,
and the wicked for their iniquity;
I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant,
and lay low the insolence of tyrants. (v. 11)
This chapter and the next seem to be addressed to Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, after it superceded the Assyria of Tiglath Pileser and Sennacherib as the superpower of the region. But the cosmic dimensions suggest that it could apply to all tyrannies everywhere, even modern ones.
The “blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest” which begin the reading from Hebrews (Heb. 12:18) is not the kind of universal judgment of the world found in the Isaiah reading, but rather a reference to the manifestations at Mt. Sinai (Ex. 19:16-18) as God prepared to give the laws to Moses. The writer to the Hebrews reminds his people (or hers) that dealing with God is serious business. “Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, ‘I tremble with fear.’ But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb. 12:21-24). The question comes: “If they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth [i.e. Moses], how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven! [i.e. Jesus, who “entered into heaven itself,” 9:4]” (12:25). The point is that “we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, [so] let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for indeed our God is a consuming fire” (12:28-29).
The reading from John’s Gospel comes from an early period in Jesus’ ministry, in the Judean countryside (Jn. 3:22), when John the Baptist was still active (v. 23). This leads to a report of John’s testimony about Jesus: “I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him” (v. 28). He identifies Jesus as “the bridegroom” and himself as “the friend of the bridegroom” (v. 29). “He must increase, but I must decrease” (v. 30). Later, Jesus would say, “I tell you, among those born of woman no one is greater than John; yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he” (Lk. 7:28). The Sunday Lectionary for the Second Sunday of Advent (last Sunday, Dec. 5, 2004) presents John’s preaching as preparing the way of the Lord (Mt. 3:3, citing Isa. 40:3). John’s application called various groups to repentance. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Mt. 3:2). Jesus’ coming to us at Christmas calls for our coming to him.
Ronald D. Worden, Ph.D.