This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves.

 

Thursday, October 26, 2023


Psalms 137; 138

2 Kings 7:3-20

Matthew 16:13-28


Observance: Alfred the Great, king of the West Saxons, scholar (d. 899)


This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves.


You have some holidays planned that you are looking forward to; but this is a day of good news. There is a time fast approaching when that job will finally be done; but this is a day of good news. So much planned for the future, a future bursting with expectation, of problems resolved, of celebrations planned; but this is a day of good news.


These lepers were sitting at the entrance to the city gate. Not in the city; simply at the gate. They weren’t welcome inside, for they were considered unclean. Even with the city starving so badly that mothers were eating their own children, these diseased men were still considered of a lower moral and social standing. They could starve as beggars in Samaria, or Jerusalem, or anywhere you please – there was nothing to look forward to. Yet even men as miserable as these had a love for their kinsmen back in the city. Even these miserable offenders knew that this was a day of good news that they should share with those who sneered at them.


What spiritual armies are besieging us? What manner of darkness could possibly be strong enough to overcome the Lord who fights for us? Demons are so pathetic they flee just at the possibility that they might have heard the footsteps of Jesus Christ. But Christ’s presence in our lives is more than a mysterious echo in the hills: His Spirit dwells within us, guiding us, protecting us, loving us. What worries can be greater than the comfort of Christ? What promises could be greater than the love of God which has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us?


There is no need to wait for tomorrow; today is a day of good news! There is no reason to keep it to ourselves.

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