BCP Daily Office Lectionary for Sunday, Nov. 28, 2004
Source: http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/index.htm
Morning Psalm(s): AM Psalm 146, 147 [PCUSA: 24:1-10]
Evening Psalm(s): PM Psalm 111, 112, 113 [PCUSA: 25:1-22]
Old Testament: Isa. 1:1-9
Epistle: 2 Pet. 3:1-10
Gospel: Matt. 25:1-13
First Sunday of Advent
-- See the index (link given above) for special readings.
Presbyterian Readings with Biblical Text for the Current Day:
http://www.pcusa.org/cgi-bin/lectiond.cgi
Isaiah begins with the LORD’s complaint:
I reared children and brought them up,
But they have rebelled against me.
The ox knows its owner,
And the donkey its master’s crib;
but Israel does not know,
my people do not understand. (Isa. 1:2b-3)
The continuation describes a “sinful nation” that has “despised the Holy One of Israel” (v. 4), that is deathly ill “from the sole of the foot even to the head” (vv. 5-6), nothing “but bruises and sores/and bleeding wounds” (v. 6). Desolation is described, for “aliens devour your land,” which is “overthrown by foreigners.” Victor R. Gold and William L. Holladay relate this to “a people heedless of the significance of Judah’s devastation by Tiglath-Pileser III (734-733 B.C.; 7:1-2) or Sennacherib (701 B.C.; 36:1).” The past tense here apparently anticipates future invasion; otherwise the call to repentance (vv. 16-20) would seem pointless. The specific sins are first mentioned in Tuesday’s reading (vv. 21-23, 29-30); today’s reading focuses on the desolation.
If the LORD of hosts
Had not left us a few survivors,
we would have been like Sodom,
And become like Gomorrah. (v. 9)
The reading from Second Peter defends the Christian hope for Christ’s Second Coming against “scoffers” who “will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming [parousia]” (2 Pet. 3:3-4). The scoffers continue, “For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!” (v. 4). But Peter responds by referring to the creation of the earth “out of water” (v. 5 ), and its destruction by water (v. 6). This was “by the word of God” (v. 5), and the prediction of judgment is “by the same word” (v. 7). It “will come” (v. 10), though the Lord “is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance” (v. 9). G. H. Boobyer (Peake’s Commentary) sees in this passage an echo of a theme from chapter one, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming [parousia] of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:16). He notes the term parousia in 1:16 and 3:4. The Latin Vulgate has praesentiam in 1:16, but adventus in 3:4, but whether 1:16 refers to the first “Advent” or the second, the connection with the Advent season is apparent. If you think about it, the “coming” (advent) is a precondition of the “presence” (parousia).
In Matthew’s Parable of the Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids (Mt. 25:1-13), the focus is again on the delay of the “coming,” the bridegroom’s coming. The final warning, “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (v. 13), “is repeated as a refrain from the previous chapter . . . since all ten fell asleep (v. 5)” (Krister Stendahl, Peake’s Commentary). “The point in Matthew is made by stressing the wisdom of five of the maidens.” The coming of the bridegroom, surely a reference to the Lord’s coming, is delayed (v. 5), but he does come (v. 10). Let us prepare our hearts for his coming this Advent season.
Ronald D. Worden, Ph.D.