Devotion for the Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday (LCMS Daily Lectionary)

Above:  Christ Pantocrator

Exodus and Hebrews, Part I:  Misunderstanding Events

APRIL 2, 2023

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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:

Exodus 8:1-32

Psalm 84 (Morning)

Psalms 42 and 32 (Evening)

Hebrews 1:1-14

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A Related Post:

Prayer:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/prayer-for-monday-of-passion-weekholy-week/

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TECHNICAL NOTE:

Exodus 7:26-8:28 in Jewish and Roman Catholic Bibles equals Exodus 8:1-32 in Protestant ones.  So the Exodus citation in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod daily lectionary refers to the Protestant versification.

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With this post I turn to that part of the LCMS daily lectionary (2006 version) which pairs the Book of Exodus and the Letter to the Hebrews.  The epistle belongs to the Pauline tradition without St. Paul being its author.  Origen, my favorite excommunicated theologian, wrote in the 200s,

As to who wrote the epistle, only God knows.

The epistle opens by explaining the superiority of Jesus:

He is the reflection of God’s glory and bears the impress of God’s own being, sustaining all things by his powerful command; and now that he has purged sins away, he has taken his seat at the right hand of the divine Majesty on high.

–1:3, The New Jerusalem Bible

Meanwhile, in the Book of Exodus, the plagues continue.  Frogs, lice or gnats (depending on the translation one consults), and flies overrun Egypt.  But the Pharaoh is stubborn.  He is the same uncaring character who, in 7:23-24, went home as common Egyptians, desperate for drinking water, dug wells.

How is one supposed to tie these two readings together?  Psalm 32:10 (The New Jerusalem Bible) reads

Countless troubles are in store for the wicked,

but one who trusts in Yahweh is enfolded in his faithful love.

Were the ordinary Egyptians wicked?  No, course not!  They were no more or less sinful than anyone else.  So I have difficulty reconciling the God concept in Exodus 8 with the one in Hebrews 1.  Is the God who inflicts plagues on innocent  civilians the same one whose impress Jesus bears?

I think that a series of natural disasters befell Egypt in rapid succession and that the Hebrews escaped in the process.  I think that authors of now-canonical texts interpreted these disasters as acts of God.  But I do not think that God victimized innocent civilians.  No, that is not the God whose glory I see in Jesus of Nazareth, who sacrificed himself out of love rather than betray it.  We have begun Holy Week.  May we not proceed through it with a concept of God who attacks innocent populations.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MAY 29, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF THE FIRST U.S. PRESBYTERIAN BOOK OF CONFESSIONS, 1967

THE FEAST OF JIRI TRANOVSKY, HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF SAINTS LUKE KIRBY, THOMAS COTTAM, WILLIAM FILBY, AND LAURENCE RICHARDSON, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS AND MARTYRS

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/exodus-and-hebrews-part-i-misunderstanding-events/

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