Devotion for Monday and Tuesday After the Third Sunday of Advent, Year B (ELCA Daily Lectionary)

Above:  Thermal Hot Spring

Image in the Public Domain

A Spring of Living Water

DECEMBER 18 and 19, 2023

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The Collect:

Stir up the wills of your faithful people, Lord God,

and open our ears to the words of your prophets,

that, anointed by your Spirit, we may testify to your light;

through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns

with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 19

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The Assigned Readings:

1 Kings 18:1-18 (Monday)

2 Kings 2:9-22 (Tuesday)

Psalm 125 (Both Days)

Ephesians 6:10-17 (Monday)

Acts 3:17-4:4 (Tuesday)

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The scepter of the wicked shall not hold sway over  the land allotted to the just,

so that the just shall not put their hands to evil.

–Psalm 125:3, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)

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We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

–The Nicene Creed, in The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 359

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The assigned readings for these two days, taken together, speak of prophets, water, and the reality of evil.

As St. Paul the Apostle reminds us, evil exists.  I harbor strong doubts regarding personalized evil (as in the Satan, the theology of which changes greatly within the pages of the Bible), but I am certain that evil exists.  King Ahab, whom the prophet Elijah accused correctly of troubling Israel, acted in evil ways toward others.

The theme of water also holds the readings together.  Water is essential for life.  The substance is especially precious in a barren wilderness.  Water occurs in the lection from 1 Kings in the context of a drought, which the text describes as divine punishment for idolatry.  The lesson from 2 Kings provides a mythological origin story for a freshwater spring crucial to agriculture.  The metaphor of a spring from the heart of Jesus occurs in the Gospel of John, where God (Yahweh) and Jesus are the sources of the Holy Spirit.  Yes, I know of disagreements regarding the proper interpretation and translation of John 7:38, but I defer to the overall context of the Johannine Gospel, in which the living water flows from God (Yahweh) or Jesus, not from the heart of any believer.

Jesus, who stands in chronological and spiritual lineage with the Hebrew prophets, invites each of us to take up his or her cross, follow him, and drink of the living water which flows from his heart.  That water surpasses the value of all substitutes.  May we drink deeply then act accordingly.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

OCTOBER 26, 2014 COMMON ERA

PROPER 25:  THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

THE FEAST OF SAINT ALFRED THE GREAT, KING OF THE WEST SAXONS

THE FEAST OF SAINT CEDD, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF LONDON

THE FEAST OF DMITRY BORTNIANSKY, COMPOSER

THE FEAST OF PHILLIP NICOLAI, JOHANN HEERMANN, AND PAUL GERHARDT, HYMN WRITERS

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/a-spring-of-living-water/

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