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The intent of Pilgrim Processing is to provide commentary on the Daily Lectionary from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The format for the comment is Old Testament Lesson first, Gospel, and Epistle with a portion of one of the Psalms for the day as a prayer at the end.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

7 March 2013




Is it possible that the god we worship, the god we think about, is actually an idol?  We may not create carved images for ourselves and worship them but we often reduce Him to a god of our own imagination.  We lose sight of the fearsomeness and power of God and make Him tamed, it is no longer a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.  Jeremiah reminds the people of God's awesome creative power that brought all things into being in contrast to the gods and idols of the people.  Too often we think wrongly about Him, we think of a pale, thin Galileean man hanging on a cross as a pitiable sight, a travesty of justice and forget that in that form on the cross is all the power that created all things, power enough certainly to come down and wreak vengeance but loving enough to restrain Himself for their sakes.  Jeremiah knows this and begs the Lord to come not in anger but in justice. 

"Who are you?"  Paul knew that question didn't he?  It was the same thing he asked of the voice from heaven that asked why Paul was persecuting Him.  The answer, I am Jesus, must have undone Paul as Isaiah was undone in the temple when he saw and heard the seraphim.  Why did they not ask this question of Him more often?  Why come to conclusions on your own based on your own wisdom and knowledge?  Jeremiah was right when he said that every man is stupid and without knowledge.  The reason that is true is that we rely on our own understanding rather than His.  Jesus tells the truth that unless they believe they will die in their sins and yet who could have heard it and believed it?  He doesn't say the magic words, I am God, but in all that He did and all that He said, they should have known.  We need to pray in all that we do that the Lord would be made known through us and our words.

In Jewish lore and teaching all pass by Adam after death and shake their heads, blaming him for death.  In reply, Adam says it is not for his sin they died and are judged, but for their own sins.  In Christian teaching we all pass before Jesus who sits at the right hand of the Father and He takes on those sins in order that God's judgment might pass over us and we be justified.  It is not for Adam's sin that we are condemned, it is for our own.  That condemnation no longer falls on us, it has fallen on Jesus if we have put our faith in Him.  Justification by faith in Christ alone teaches us about the love and grace of God.  We are dead in our own sins, not the sin of Adam, but we are made alive not in our righteousness but through the righteousness of the one man, Jesus, therefore grace indeed abounds.  We have been justified, now let us live lives of righteousness and obedience.

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