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The Things That Make For Peace (Luke 19:42)

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  Saturday, April 5, 2025 Psalms 82; 84 Exodus 6:2-13; 6:28-7:7 Luke 19:28-48 The Things That Make For Peace (Luke 19:42) When we speak of Jesus as King, we speak of things far greater than the Caesars or Hapsburgs of this world. Where mere men gain kingdoms by birth or conquest, our King’s rule comes from the greatest, holiest, most sacred of virtues. Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem comes hot on the heels of his Parable of the Ten Minas, which as we reflected upon yesterday, was an application of the doctrine taught in Psalm 2. As King and Messiah, he now rides into his capital, and everyone around him is filled with the joy of the promises of scripture coming true before their very eyes. The whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, quoting Psalm 118:26. One wonders if they knew what Jesus knew; if they had connected the dots of the ancient prophecies they...
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Receiving For Himself A Kingdom (Luke 19:12)

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  Friday, April 4, 2025 Psalm 80 Exodus 4:27-6:1 Luke 19:11-27 Receiving For Himself A Kingdom (Luke 19:12) When reading a parable like today’s, we get a sense of the wisdom of our Christian forefathers when they decided it was appropriate to read several Psalms a day, alongside other readings. Because Jesus’ words make wonderful sense when read alongside Psalm 2. In that Psalm we read about a populace grumbling at their ruler, and that ruler being given a great kingdom. There is also the lesson that this ruler is one whom we can and should kiss; but should we spurn that love, then his anger is very great, and the results for that person very poor indeed. Jesus is that ruler in the Psalm, and the nobleman in today’s parable. He is about to approach Jerusalem, and perform that great work of redemption on the cross. By virtue of this he will be raised from death, ascend into heaven, and be given all things by the Father. The people to whom Jesus told th...
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Received Him Joyfully (Luke 19:6)

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  Thursday, April 3, 2025 Psalm 78:16-38 Exodus 4:1-26 Luke 19:1-10 Observance: Richard of Chichester, bishop (d. 1256) Received Him Joyfully (Luke 19:6) We are now half a chapter away from Jesus’ final approach into Jerusalem. And we are also a week and a half away from Holy Week, and two and a half weeks away from the Resurrection. Our Lord has been very emphatic about the difficulty of balancing a love of money with a love of God, for one cannot serve two masters. And Jesus is a much kinder and loving master than money. Remember the rich ruler who went away very sad when he was told that he had to give away everything he had in order to follow Jesus? Jesus finished that conversation by announcing that “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” (Luke 18:27) Today we have another rich ruler: Zacchaeus, the tax collector. And so what is impossible with man, Jesus will make possible; for the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. A m...
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Everything Will Be Accomplished (Luke 18:31)

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  Wednesday, April 2, 2025 Psalm 77 Exodus 3 Luke 18:31-43 Everything Will Be Accomplished (Luke 18:31) As we get ever closer to Easter in our calendar this year, so too does Jesus in our morning readings. For the third time in this Gospel now does Jesus tell his disciples about his death and resurrection. And yet they still “understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.” (Luke 18:34) Perhaps it is difficult for us to remember what Christ went through on the cross. We celebrate Easter every year – so we remember it at least once every 364 days. Perhaps your church celebrates Holy Communion every week – we remember it one in every seven days, then. But do we, like the twelve in today’s reading, still find that we understand none of these things? There is certainly plenty to know about God. We will never know him fully, even if we do know him truly. Every aspect of our lives, of how we sh...
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What Must I Do? (Luke 18:18)

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  Tuesday, April 1, 2025 Psalm 74 Exodus 2 Luke 18:15-30 What Must I Do? (Luke 18:18) As we read through the Gospel according to St Luke this Lent, we find ourselves today on the precipice of Jesus’ final days. We have been travelling with him from his birth, seeing and marvelling at him, for he has done all things well. Soon Jesus will enter Jerusalem for the final time and complete his purpose in life; that he was born to die. There will be arguments and disputes with various vested interests in the Holy City, and wisdom will spill from his lips like water from a waterfall. But his final lessons before he enters the viper’s cave surround the danger of the love of money. His last words to the normal people living in the regions outside the big smoke are to love God and serve him, and beware the fact that to enter the kingdom of God while wealthy is the most difficult thing in the world. This is a tough lesson to learn. Our politics are all about who ...
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Going Home Justified (Luke 18:14)

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  Monday, March 31, 2025 Psalm 59 Exodus 1 Luke 18:1-14 Going Home Justified (Luke 18:14) A couple of weeks ago we heard a great quote from Jesus, one that we should always have sitting at the front of our mind, that “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14:11) Today, we hear him say the exact same thing, yet in a different context. Jesus is teaching the same thing in both places, and that is why this saying appears both times. This second occasion of the saying comes after some discussion by Jesus about 1. the second coming, and 2. prayer. The apparent warning is that both of these topics have in themselves the danger of pride. A telling line is when Jesus concludes the section of prayer and muses to himself, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (v. 8) An important aspect of faith is trust – and trust does not sit will with pride. We also remember that in the middl...
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There The Vultures Will Gather (Luke 17:37)

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  Saturday, March 29, 2025 Psalm 69:1-16 Genesis 50:7-26 Luke 17:20-37 Observance: John Keble, priest (d. 1866) There The Vultures Will Gather (Luke 17:37) I love this saying of Jesus. It makes absolutely no sense. The passage we have just read makes perfect sense – the kingdom of God is revealed in Jesus, not by reading tea leaves or the latest news from the Middle East. And since the kingdom of God is revealed in Jesus, we should be focusing on him, because the day of his return will be like the Great Flood or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. But this line about the corpse and the vultures seems out of place – what does that have to do with anything that has come before? Perhaps we could do a little bit of Bible study and look if this saying appears anywhere else. And what do you know – it does. Job 39:26-30 is almost exactly what Jesus says in Luke 17:37, if we account for the difference between the ancient Greek of Luke and the ancient ...
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