Devotion for Saturday Before the First Sunday in Lent, Year C (ELCA Daily Lectionary)

Above:  Fruit of the Christ Passion, an Icon

Image in the Public Domain

Upside-Down

MARCH 9, 2019

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The Collect:

O Lord God, you led your people through the wilderness and brought them to the promised land.

Guide us now, so that, following your Son, we may walk safely through the wilderness of this world

toward the life you alone can give, 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 27

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The Assigned Readings:

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

John 12:27-36

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Psalm 91 reads in part:

Because you have made the Lord your refuge

and the Most High your stronghold,

There shall no evil happen to you,

neither shall any plague come near your tent.

–Verses 9 and 10, Common Worship (2000)

That stands in stark contrast to Jesus’s experience in John 12:27-36, for his time to die was near.  His exaltation was a form of execution the Roman authorities intended to be humiliating.

Often reality contradicts expectations.  Following God faithfully does not necessarily lead to peace and prosperity.  God can transform shame into glory, pain into a means of salvation, death into life, and defeat into victory.  The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-11 and Luke 6:20-23) and Woes (Luke 6:24-26) contradict conventional wisdom.  God steadfastly refuses to fit into our figurative boxes.

One might find that reality maddening or liberating.  The reality of Hod frees us (if we permit it to do so) from illusions and folly dressed up as wisdom.  So yes, the crucifixion proved inadequate to keep Jesus dead.  And the recurring theme of the reversal of fortunes in the Gospel of Luke has challenged readers of that text for nearly 2000 years.  I refuse to avoid discomfort with those passages by distorting their plain meanings.  The Kingdom of God seems upside-down relative to the dominant human order, but the latter is actually upside-down.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

NOVEMBER 10, 2015 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF EDWIN HATCH, ANGLICAN PRIEST, SCHOLAR, AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF SAINT LEO THE GREAT, BISHOP OF ROME

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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2015/11/10/upside-down/

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