The Narrow Path

  Saturday, April 1, 2023 Psalm 74 Exodus 10:21-11:10 Luke 21:29-22:6 “ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Jesus was in His final days, preparing Himself for His final festival with His disciples, before His battle with evil and death on the cross. Of all the topics to go over with them, of all the lessons He was to give that would be His final teaching, He chose to teach about the end times. There was, of course, the prophetic warning about how His death would mean the end of the sacrificial cult and the temple in Jerusalem. When He would breathe His last on the cross, the curtain in the temple would split in two. There would be no need for any more animal sacrifice. And judgement would come upon those who wouldn’t trust in His blood; the Roman empire was to be used as the instrument of destruction of the temple. All these full stops: no more temple, no more animal sacrifices, no more division between Jews and everyone else. T...

  Friday, March 31, 2023 Psalm 59 Exodus 10:1-20 Luke 21:20-28 Do forgive my sin just this once, and pray to the LORD your God that at the least He remove this deadly thing from me. In all likelihood, Pharaoh was being insincere in making this plea to Moses. At the very least, the public servants working in his government began to understand that there was a God in heaven who was displeased at their evil policies. Maybe Pharaoh was beginning to get the message at this point, but he was still more concerned with how his nation’s success reflected upon his fame, rather than how he personally had offended his Creator. But even in his selfishness, Pharaoh’s prayer for deliverance was answered. When the Bible says that God is quick to forgive, it is saying the truth. While the royal entourage may have been quick to worry about what worse plague would be coming for them next, at least they experienced a fleeting moment of relief from God’s justice. For the Chr...

  Thursday, March 30, 2023 Psalm 72 Exodus 9:13-35 Luke 21:1-19 But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned once more and hardened his heart. Just as our physical body depends utterly on our physical heart, so does our soul depend on our spiritual attitude. When we speak of the heart in the biblical sense, we are talking about that bit of ourselves that is only known by God and the individual. It is why God desires a holy attitude more than dry religious actions. He didn’t make meat robots; He made material creatures in His image. The Bible also speaks about how our salvation is wrought by God when He removes our sinful heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh – all spiritual imagery, but illuminating in how it explains why we mourn over our sin. If God had “given us up in the lusts of our hearts to impurity” (Rom 1:24) then we would never feel remorse for offending Him. This idea of “hardening...

  Wednesday, March 29, 2023 Psalm 69:1-16 Exodus 8:20-9:12 Luke 20:27-47 Observance: John Keble, priest (d. 1866) The sacrifices that we offer to the LORD our God are offensive to the Egyptians. This statement is instantly recognisable to any Christian who has attempted to speak about the message of the cross in public. Moses wanted to lead the Israelites out of Egypt to the holy mountain to offer sacrifices acceptable to God; sacrifices of thanksgiving and atonement for sins. It would not have been the fact that they were slaughtering animals that would have upset their Egyptian masters, as ancient pagans slew beasts all the time. The offensive bit was the why, not the what. Christians love and forgive one another because that is how we are made to be by God. The unbeliever does the same thing; but their reasons are different. Either the idea of God is offensive, or the fact God would demand us to act in this way is offensive. But this is not the core of ...

  Tuesday, March 28, 2023 Psalm 71 Exodus 7:25-8:19 Luke 20:19-26 You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again. The Psalmist is crying out against “enemies”. These are enemies not just of the Psalmist, but of God: they accuse the author of being forsaken by God. In their hubris and arrogance, they presume to think that God would ever forsake one whom He loves. Sometimes, it is not just about us. God works through all people and all of creation. Sometimes there may be other people who need to be ashamed of their enmity towards God; who need to be put to shame and consumed. Sometimes God may decide it is one of us who is to be the vehicle of their humility; but it never means we are the ones who are forsaken. Sometimes we need a bit of humbling, but, once again: God always revives us from the depths of the earth. This narrow path of discipleship we walk is not easy. God makes us see many troubles and calamities along the way....

  Monday, March 27, 2023 Psalm 68:1-20 Exodus 7:8-24 Luke 20:1-18 So they answered that they did not know where it came from. Our conscience is a very useful thing. It is like a dial on the display panel of our soul, telling us whether certain actions and attitudes are spiritually damaging or not. But our conscience is not the same as the voice of God the Holy Spirit. God speaks from somewhere external to our self, telling us “this is the way, walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21) God’s voice then interacts with our conscience; this is when the dial starts moving. Pharaoh had been told by the prophets of the one true God to allow His people to leave. Upon refusal, his river was turned to blood. But his sorcerers were able to conjure up a reasonable enough counterfeit, and so Pharaoh was able to dull his conscience in spite of the definite voice of the Almighty. The dial was bouncing, but Pharaoh looked away. Jesus’ enemies knew the scriptures back to front, ...

  Saturday, March 25, 2023 Psalms 62; 63 Exodus 6:2-7:7 Luke 19:28-48 Observance: The Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary All the people were spellbound by what they heard. There is a very good reason that these devotionals do not go for much longer than three minutes. It is for the same reason that social media algorithms prefer this length of video, and why smartphones are so wildly popular: our attention span is measured in the tens of seconds. As soon as something is no longer fresh, it is swiped off the screen, or used to wrap tomorrow’s fish and chips. While the people in the Temple in Jerusalem did not, as we do, suffer from the curse of the black mirror, they were still people, and the appeal of the new and apathy towards the old still led their desires. But those who heard Jesus’ words were “spellbound”; they were hanging off His every word. This is because the words that proceed from the mouth of God exist outside the categories of “fre...

  Friday, March 24, 2023 Psalms 56; 57 Exodus 4:27-6:1 Luke 19:11-27 Observances: Paul Couturier, ecumenist (d. 1953); Oscar Romero, archbishop of San Salvador, martyr (d. 1980) Bricks without straw. When you are building your world-view, what materials do you use for construction? Some people define the difference between good and evil based on whatever they perceive society to have agreed upon. Others reject the notion of good and evil altogether; the concept that one thing is “right” and another “wrong” is something invented on the spot, according to immediate circumstances. In the age of the Internet Scholar, spirituality has deteriorated into a confused mess of crystals, hubris and apathy. There is no consensus on where humans have come from, why we are here, and what we should be doing about it – and whether we should be concerned about these questions in the first place. Go and find your own straw, says Pharaoh – but you still have to work just as h...

  Thursday, March 23, 2023 Psalms 54; 55:1-12 Exodus 4:1-26 Luke 19:1-10 “ A bridegroom of blood by circumcision.” Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. The lesser elohim who would rebel against the Lord and take us down with them are facing rightful destruction. Fire and brimstone, floods, lightning and thunder precede the Lord’s justice. He looks at His creation, which He made, blessed, and called good, and sees the evil that stains its beauty. The Lord can only do good, for that is His nature, and the ultimate good act is to remove evil so utterly that there is not even a memory left. To be holy is to be set apart; separated from that evil influence and taken into God’s goodness. That is what the Jews thought they were doing when they sent Jesus outside the walls of that holy city of Jerusalem to be crucified. But Christ had to go out into the darkness in order to destroy it: just as He seeks out and saves His los...

  Wednesday, March 22, 2023 Psalm 51 Exodus 3 Luke 18:31-43 Observance: Thomas Ken, bishop of Bath and Wells, teacher (d. 1711) “ What do you want me to do for you?” As we begin the final stretch of Lent, we can see Palm Sunday grow on the horizon: Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. The day we celebrate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords riding into battle to defeat sin and death not in an armoured personnel carrier, to keep Himself safe; nor in a battle tank, to blow away His enemies; but on a donkey, greeted by cheering crowds unaware that His battle is to suffer, die and rise again for the sake of His friends. The heart of Christ, or, the nature of who Jesus is, is such a fascinating topic to ponder that an eternity in His presence won’t be long enough to figure it all out. Here is the great I AM, Yahweh, the Lord God Almighty, whose Spirit hovered over the chaos at the birth of creation, with the power to create and destroy. What does He do? Ente...

  Tuesday, March 21, 2023 Psalm 50 Exodus 2 Luke 18:15-30 Observance: Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, martyr and liturgist (d. 1556) Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it. This would have to be one of Jesus’ most enigmatic statements. Forget His trinitarian puzzles; His apparent non-sequiturs; His commandments both to peace and a sword: this is an absolute statement about entering the kingdom of God, and it requires our attention. These words follow on very closely from Jesus’ teaching that we should be persistent and tenacious in our prayers. Does God find joy in our nagging? Perhaps the kingdom of God is like this: we have been travelling down the highway for several hours now. Us kids are stuffed into the back seats, sweating and jostling, and we have run out of car games to play. Mum and Dad are in the front, starting to think about how they can keep the kids happy. One of us...

  Monday, March 20, 2023 Psalm 48 Exodus 1 Luke 18:1-14 Observances: Joseph, husband of the blessed virgin Mary [ Transferred from March 19 ]; Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, bishop and missionary (d. 687) Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. Cast your mind back to the start of the year when we read about Adam, Eve, and God in the Garden of Eden. It was the cool of the afternoon, and God was walking about, calling out for His children. We only read about one such occasion, but it is not beyond the realm of likelihood that this was a common occurrence; for God to visit His material creatures at the most pleasant hour, to spend time with them, and hear all about their day. To hear about their struggles, and how they overcame them, and to hear their concerns and provide gentle encouragement and wisdom for the following day. Is this not the ideal relationship between creature and Creator? Is this not what Jesus speaks...

  Saturday, March 18, 2023 Psalms 41; 44:1-9 Genesis 50:7-26 Luke 17:20-37 Observance: Cyril of Jerusalem, bishop and teacher (d. 386) Jesus said to them, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.” Some decades ago we had a public awareness campaign encouraging us that if we were to see something, then we were to say something. It was like living during COVID, except instead of being afraid of people who picked their nose in public, we were afraid of men who wore turbans. Back then, as now, we all thought we were being very wise and sensible if we took the decision to use part of our brain power to keep this topic in our minds. But now we have COVID fatigue (and we had terrorism fatigue back then, too). Being sensible about these things might actually not be so sensible; it wears us down, distracts us from issues directly in our control, and ends up warping our view of reality. Christ would have us be free from the worry of the end times....

  Friday, March 17, 2023 Psalm 40 Genesis 49:22-50:6 Luke 17:1-19 Observance: Patrick, bishop, missionary to Ireland (d. 461) “ So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’” Our God has been so good to us, and only knows of good things between Him and us, that there is a temptation on our part to relax into entitlement. Indeed, in our post-monarchical society, we find it foreign to conceive of a sovereign lord who holds the right to have expectations of us. But the gospel message comes as both an invitation as well as a command. “Repent, and believe in the good news” is not just a gentle nudge from a friend, but a command from a suzerain. Death is both the logical result of denying the Lord of life as well as the fair judgement from the Lord of righteousness. The two aspects rest easy with one another. God is good, and warmly draws us into His loving fam...

  Thursday, March 16, 2023 Psalm 38 Genesis 49:1-21 Luke 16:14-31 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet… Imagine the scene: Jacob, now an old man and using his given name Israel, calls forth his twelve sons for a blessing. Something in the air shifts; imperceptible, yet unquestionable. A look comes in to the old mans eyes, and his words are now prophecy: still his own, yet inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. All of Jacob’s life he has been reminded of the promise God gave to him, his father Isaac, and his grandfather Abraham, of a great number of descendants and land for them to live in. Now he speaks not only of the promise given these men, but of the promise given by God to Adam and Eve. The curse upon the serpent, that ancient enemy, is given a flicker of more detail: not only shall his head be crushed, but his reign will one day come to an end. Whenever we read the word “sceptre” in the Bible, remember: ...

  Wednesday, March 15, 2023 Psalm 37 Genesis 48 Luke 16:1-13 The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. People who have money because they go out and grab it are in a world of their own; but the attitude is not restricted to a certain amount of net yearly income. You can see this attitude in the house on the corner that sells drugs just as much as the stockbroker who trades in dodgy mortgages. The attitude of this “age” and “generation” is very good at building relationships based on wealth. Jesus imagines for us a world of Christians behaving the same way, but with the kingdom of heaven replacing monetary wealth. The man or woman who wakes up in the morning thinking about how much money they can make is much better at their job than the Christian who wakes up thinking about how many people aren’t saved into the kingdom. This obsessive mindset of working for the kingdom, of buying up friends i...

  Tuesday, March 14, 2023 Psalm 34 Genesis 47:13-31 Luke 15:11-32 Then Israel bowed himself on the head of the bed. Two situations: one historical, the other illustrative. Both concerning people in hardship, both relying on the one with plenty for their survival. When you are in times of famine, literal, spiritual or otherwise, there is no time to be wasted scraping the side of the dog food bowl for scraps. Do as the people did; run to the Master and His representative, for our God is generous and loving. Evil brings death to the wicked; but the LORD rescues the righteous from all our afflictions. Where humans differ from God is in the response to the needy. If we had to bargain with our God as if He were a man, we would never get past the guard house. There is no amount of livestock we could take to bargain with in exchange for our souls. The bars to heaven are locked tight against those who would enter on their own terms. Jesus teaches exactly wh...

  Monday, March 13, 2023 Psalm 35:1-17 Genesis 46:26-47:12 Luke 15:1-10 Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from the presence of Pharaoh. If the Bible is considered to be one work because of a unifying, grand narrative, then that narrative would be describing a family. That unifying, grand narrative that the Bible describes is the truth of who God is, what God is like, what God likes and doesn’t like, and how God decides to use His awesome power: and that awesome power of God is being used to grow a big family. If the only part of the Bible we had was from Genesis 1 up to today’s reading, then that would be enough for us to know what God is like. In spite of the shameful indiscretions of Jacob’s stronger years, in spite of the fact he learnt that behaviour from his father Isaac, who in turn learned it from his father Abraham, God brought the family back together again through Joseph. It is no wonder that this is such a heart-warming passage: family reunio...

  Saturday, March 11, 2023 Psalms 28; 29 Genesis 45:16-46:7 Luke 14:15-34 The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is majestic. The Lord speaks, and trees splinter. Lightning flashes, and thunder crashes. Deserts are thrown into sandstorms. This is child’s play. When the Spirit of God hovered over the void, God spoke, and the universe rushed into being, a whirlwind of light and sound and smell. Then God breathed into some mud, spoke a blessing over it, and humans were formed. The voice of the Lord wrought relationships into being, and God spoke about a great mission and a grand adventure called “Creation”, and it was so. Not only from unlife, but from the dead does the Lord create life with only His voice. Bleached bones grow muscles, sinews, skin, brain tissue – and they make a shelter for a human spirit, back from the place of the dead. This reborn human hears the voice of their Lord, stands up, and follows Him back home to everla...

  Friday, March 10, 2023 Psalm 25 Genesis 45:1-15 Luke 14:1-14 “ ...God sent me…” There is a curious paradox in the Bible; a tension, between God’s sovereignty and human agency. A very good example is how Jesus handles Himself during the events leading up to His crucifixion, particularly in John’s Gospel. Jesus goes along with His arrest, trial, torture and execution as the one in charge; indeed, He has to remind the cowering mob that they are meant to arrest Him. Let’s immediately get out of the way the idea that this paradox needs resolving. Especially because we must affirm against Molinism and other ridiculous man-made philosophies that seek to explain how the Divine Will cooperates with, directs, and yet still holds humans responsible for their actions. It is like trying to explain the Trinity: anything we can compare it with ends up running into heresy. Just like how we are to approach the Trinity, we should approach our interaction with God’s free...

  Thursday, March 9, 2023 Psalm 22:1-22 Genesis 44:18-34 Luke 13:10-21 Observance: Sister Emma SSA, superior of the Society of the Sacred Advent, Queensland (d. 1939) “ For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Shall we take this familiar quote from Jesus and apply it to ourselves? Is the true depth of the words of our Lord in this passage simply in a wise teaching; a true-ism we should be trying to appropriate? I’m certain we all have heard sermons along those lines. Let us instead look to see how this statement actually reveals the glory of Jesus Christ, beginning with the portion of Psalm 22 we have been given. This Psalm is a direct prophecy about Jesus’ crucifixion: that much is obvious simply from reading about how His clothes have been gambled for (and this is why Jesus quoted the first verse when He hung on the cross). But note the curious line about “bulls of Bashan”. When Jesus was crucified,...

  Wednesday, March 8, 2023 Psalms 20; 21 Genesis 44:1-17 Luke 13:10-21 Observance: John of God, worker among the sick and poor, Spain (d. 1550) The entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that He was doing. “Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?” is simultaneously one of the best and the worst lessons I have ever learned. A comfortable routine and predictable tomorrow has a deceptive allure. There are a million and one reasons I can come up with in order to excuse my conscience from leaving off something important until later. They all sound very reasonable; perhaps I should have been a criminal defence lawyer. The Lord doesn’t procrastinate. There is work to be done now; the tree needs manure to grow, and tomorrow might not have enough spare hours to get into the garden to do the necessary work. If Jesus had decided to become incarnate in our time, and not 2000 years ago, He wouldn’t have ever been found mindlessly ...

  Tuesday, March 7, 2023 Psalm 19 Genesis 43:15-34 Luke 13:1-9 Observance: Perpetua and her companions, martyrs at Carthage (d. 203) Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. Psalm 19 has to be the Psalm par excellence . It is the foundational, key text for an effective apologetic: verses one to six speak of what theologians call “general revelation”. That is, a human being, with zero spiritual training, can stand outdoors and, simply by observing the world around them, know that there is a creator God, that that God is good, and that God is worthy of worship. This means that whenever we need to defend our faith to the aggressive unbeliever, or explain it to the honest seeker, we can all begin from the same starting point. Atheism is a fig-leaf; everyone knows that there is a God. Then, in the next five verses, we read about another theological term called “special revelation”. Th...

  Monday, March 6, 2023 Psalm 18:1-31 Genesis 43:1-15 Luke 12:49-59 “ Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” These are confusing words to hear from the lips of the Prince of Peace. Indeed, the Son of Man, God’s only beloved Son, is the only One through whom we may attain peace with God. But let’s step back for a moment, and think not just of ourselves. If we were to let our mind’s eye wander, and look down upon this world as if from the International Space Station, we would see not only great beauty, but great evil. Certain periods of history have been described as an “uneasy peace”, such as that following the wars of religion in the early modern era, or after Napoleon’s decline and fall, or between the two world wars. The term refers to the fact that there will always be tension between people as long as there remains unresolved arguments over injustice or greed; and quite often, these tensions h...

  Saturday, March 4, 2023 Psalms 11; 12 Genesis 42:18-38 Luke 12:35-48 You, O LORD, will protect us; you will guard us from this generation forever. There are a lot of ideas floating around today (and always have, to be honest) about which group of people is responsible for all the world’s misery, and the corollary, how that misery will be solved by the removal of those people from their positions of influence. In our own culture, we have seen that school of thought evolve into its own religion. And just like the wars of religion in ages past, doctrinal differences between adherents of this religion is being fought in what the internet calls the “culture wars”. One of the most important reasons why we do the daily office – why we follow a strict regimen of prayer and Bible study – is so that we can step back from the base quarrels of the world, connect back into the real world, remind ourselves of the context in which everything in our lives occur, and so appr...

  Friday, March 3, 2023 Psalm 9 Genesis 42:1-17 Luke 12:22-34 “ Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” When the Bible teaches us that Jesus has freed us from slavery, what kind of slavery is it talking about? Christians like William Wilberforce read it to mean freedom from chattel slavery, and was instrumental in leading Britain to release their slaves. God frequently is at pains to remind the Jews that He freed them from slavery in Egypt – again, chattel slavery. There is another kind of slavery at work here in Australia. Yes, we still have chattel slaves in the traditional and literal sense, and there are groups around doing God’s work in exposing their evil masters and freeing those slaves. But the kind of slavery relevant to Jesus’ words this morning is in our enslavement to our own future. The current political battle over tax rates on superannuation accounts is the most recent example. We hav...

  Thursday, March 2, 2023 Psalms 5; 6 Genesis 41:37-57 Luke 12:8-21 Observance: Chad, bishop of Lichfield, missionary (d. 672) O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice. Darkness is terrifying. Whether you are old or young, or if you have built up a tolerance to horror movies, no-one can honestly say they have entirely overcome the fear of the unknown that the night can bring. And I’m doubly certain we have all experienced a night of horror followed by the sweet relief of the dawning day. Earlier in Luke’s gospel, we read Zecheriah’s prophecy that “by the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” The contrast between today’s Psalms gives us a taste of that feeling when, having experienced a night of horror, the dawn begins to break, and we are awash with the feeling of relief and peace. These two Psalms should be read both literally and spiritually. Becaus...