Devotion for January 5 (LCMS Daily Lectionary)

Above:  Saint John in the Wilderness, by Thomas Cole

Great Expectations and Great Disappointments

JANUARY 5, 2024

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

–The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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The Assigned Readings:

Isaiah 65:8-25

Psalm 99 (Morning)

Psalms 96 and 110 (Evening)

Luke 3:1-20

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For behold!  I am creating

A new heaven and a new earth;

The former things shall not be remembered,

They shall never come to mind.

Be glad, then, and rejoice forever

In what I am creating….

–Isaiah 65:17-18a, TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures

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New creation was the order of the day at the end of the Babylonian Exile.  After so much destruction, what else could there be but something better?  This is a Biblical pattern:  Grace for the remnant follows judgment.  Restoration follows destruction.  The forms of grace and restoration might not be those we expect; they might be better.

John the Baptist proclaimed the arrival of Jesus, the incarnate Son of God.  This was not the variety of Messiah many people expected.  As a matter of fact, there were Judaisms in First Century CE Palestine, with a range of messianic expectations, from none to military leader to spiritual savior.  Yet is accurate to say that Jesus disappointed certain people in his faith tradition.  He was simultaneously something very new and very old.

The ideal kingdom which Isaiah 65:16-25 describes has not become reality, despite the coming and going of Jesus twenty  centuries ago.  So the promise of Isaiah 65:16-25 remains for the future.  How and when will God bring it to fruition?  I do not know, but may each of us do our part(s) to bring our reality closer to that vision.  This is possible, for society consists of people.  Social conditions are what people have made them.  People can change them.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

FEBRUARY 23, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT WILLIGIS, ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF MAINZ, AND SAINT BERNWARD, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF HILDESHEIM

THE FEAST OF SAINT DOSITHEUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONK

THE FEAST OF SAINT POLYCARP, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF SMYRNA

THE FEAST OF SAMUEL WOLCOTT, U.S. CONGREGATIONALIST MINISTER

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/great-expectations-and-great-disappointments/

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