Lectionary Readings for October 24, 2021
Preparation Song: For All You’ve Done (lyrics here)
Reflection
As we make our way through this week’s lectionary texts, we’re invited to consider the actions of God on our behalf. Each of these texts speak to the gracious ways God intervenes on behalf of his children, and in doing so they offer deeper insight into the depth of God’s love for us.
Before engaging the texts, you’re invited to take a moment to prepare yourself to read God’s word. This Song of Preparation is a new feature we’re adding to the Weekly Song Reflections. Combined with the four readings from the lectionary, this provides a fifth moment of reflection for those who would like to use these as daily devotionals during the week. As always, you’re invited to read through and reflect on these passages at whatever pace and according to whatever schedule works best for you.
Our Song of Preparation this week is “For All You’ve Done” by Wayne Watson. With this week’s readings offering insight into God’s actions on behalf of his people, it’s a good song to remind us that responding to God’s works is the heart of worship. Worship is first and foremost a response to God’s grace and mercy shown to us in so many ways, most supremely in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
As we enter into this week, spend some time sitting and reflecting on the ways God has intervened in your life. How has he shown himself to you in ways that demonstrate his mercy and grace? Meditate on the lyrics of this song as you sit in a responsive posture of worship.
How wonderful Your mercy is
How awesome are Your ways
I come, I come
To worship You
For all You've done
Reading One: Jeremiah 31:7-9 (NRSV)
Song: All Things New (lyrics here)
Reflection
Our reading from Jeremiah comes in the midst of one of the most hopeful passages in all of Scripture. In this part of Jeremiah, God speaks of his plan to restore the people of Israel after years of separation, exile, and destruction. The land promised to Abraham will once again be theirs, and God will bring them to the land of their ancestors.
The return to the Promised Land is a joyful one, as these verses describe. The scattered ones of Israel will find their way home, and God will guide their every step. It is an image of renewal and rebirth for God’s chosen ones, who have long suffered as a result of their sin. As difficult as things have been, God has not turned a deaf ear to his people. At the right time, he will bring them home.
A few verses later in Jeremiah 31, God makes it clear that bringing his people back from exile is not the only work he will accomplish. He will be making a new covenant with them, one that is radically different from the old. This new covenant will re-establish the relationship between God and humanity that was broken by our rebellion, and will result in transformed lives and community:
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord.
I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.” (vv. 33-34)
As we reflect on this passage, you’re invited to consider how God is the one who restores. Although we wander into exiles of our own making, God is always at work, seeking to restore us and bring us back into fellowship with him. He makes all things new.
How have you experienced God as the one who restores? When you consider the image of God leading his people home, what does that mean to you? What longings does it stir? Offer to God the places of exile that still have power over you, and receive the restoring mercies he longs to pour out in your life.
Reading Two: Psalm 126 (NRSV)
Song: House of the Lord (lyrics here)
Reflection
The image of God bringing his people home continues in our Psalm reading. This psalm, which one of the songs of ascent used by pilgrims to Jerusalem for the great feasts, captures the absolute elation of God’s children returning to the land of promise:
“When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy…” (vv.1-2)
The return from exile is so wondrous, so marvelous, that to the people of God it seems like a dream. And their response?
Joy. Pure, unadulterated joy.
Four times in these few lines the focus is on the joy of God’s children as they experience his restoring grace and mercy. Their tongues are filled with shouts of joy, they rejoice in the great things God has done for them, even those who have known weeping are overcome by joy—the sowing of their tears has now reaped a harvest of jubilation. The moment is so powerful that even the surrounding nations take notice—“The Lord has done great things for them,” they declare.
Let’s join our voices with the pilgrims of old and spend some time in praise of the God who gives joy. Like them, we have been brought back from our wanderings and have been invited into God’s holy presence. If that isn’t cause for rejoicing, what is?
Spend some time in God’s presence remembering the many things he has done for you. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart even more to the pure, unadulterated joy that only God can stir in us. Give thanks for the ways he has moved in your life, as today’s song puts it:
We were the beggars
Now we're royalty
We were the prisoners
Now we're running free
We are forgiven, accepted
Redeemed by His grace
Let the house of the Lord sing praise
Reading Three: Hebrews 7:23-28 (NRSV)
Song:You Are My King (Amazing Love) (lyrics here)
Reflection
One of the most important feast days that would have seen pilgrims heading to Jerusalem was the Day of Atonement. It was the most solemn of all the Old Testament feast days, when the high priest would make a sacrifice in the temple to atone for the sins of the people. The Day of Atonement was a yearly reminder to God’s people of the pervasive nature of sin, and the fact that the Old Testament sacrificial system never fully dealt with its effects.
In our passage from Hebrews we are given an image of a different Day of Atonement—the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. He is the eternal high priest, unlike the earthly ones who die and pass on their role. As such, he is portrayed as one who makes constant intercession on behalf of those who approach God through him.
The divine nature of Christ, the author continues, makes his priesthood superior in every way. He is perfect and undefiled, he is holy and exalted. And his sacrifice, the sacrifice of his own body on the cross, is a superior sacrifice. Unlike the Old Testament sacrificial system, which was a continual experience of repentance and atonement, the death of Jesus is once for all. It is the final sacrifice for sin, because it is the perfect sacrifice for sin. As musician and author Michael Card put it in his song A Violent Grace:
In all of time no one had ever heard
And to the world the thought seemed so absurd
Beyond their wildest dreams no one could ever tell
Of a high priest who would sacrifice Himself
The author of Hebrews invites us to consider another aspect of God in our weekly reflections: he is the God who makes the ultimate sacrifice to atone for our sin. He does what we were unable to do for ourselves. By sending his Son to die for our sins, he accomplishes the ultimate work of restoration. He forgives us.
Spend some time reflecting on these verses about Christ’s sacrifice. Which speak most to your soul today? Why? What do they communicate to you that you need to sit with right now? Take some time to do just that.
“But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:1-2)
“For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God.” (1 Peter 3:18)
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-7)
“In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us.” (Ephesians 1:-7-8)
Reading Four: Mark 10:46-52 (NRSV)
Songs: God Who Listens (lyrics here)
Reflection
The God who restores
The God who gives joy
The God who atones for sin
To these we add one more attribute of God: he is the God who hears. Our gospel text tells us about the healing of blind Bartimaeus on the road out of Jericho, whose cries for mercy catch Jesus’ attention. Jesus stops and speaks to Bartimaeus, and miraculously his sight is restored.
There are some who seek to turn God’s healing work into a formula, but the truth is that healing is a mystery. I wish I knew why some prayers result in God’s healing touch, while others seem to be met with only silence. It’s a question that pastors, theologians, and laypeople have been wrestling with for generations. And the only thing we can say for sure is that healing is a mystery.
But even as healing remains a mystery, the attentiveness of God to his suffering children is clear. I love the picture of Jesus in this story—the one who is willing to hear a cry for help while others are trying to stifle it. It’s the image of a God who is always attentive to the prayers of his people. We may not always understand the response he gives to those prayers, but the testimony of scripture is clear—he is listening.
As you come to God in prayer today, he is listening. You can pour out your heart to him, every part. He listens, and he responds in love and grace. Use the words of Chris Tomlin’s song to guide you in praise and thanksgiving to the God who hears your every cry.
The God who made the winters and the summers
The One who put the stars all in their place
The only One who stands above all others
He knows me by name
The angels hide their faces in His presence
The demons run for cover when You speak
You rule the world and reign above the heavens
And still draw close to me
And when I close my eyes
I know that I'm not just hoping, I'm not just wishing
I know I'm praying to a God who listens
I know He hears me, I know He's living
Yes, I am praying to a God who listens
He walks with me and leads me by still waters
I lay my troubles down at His feet
It's amazing that the Savior and the Father
He is a friend to me
How can it be?
I'm not just hoping, I'm not just wishing
I know I'm praying to a God who listens
I know He hears me, I know He's living
Yes, I am praying to a God who listens
You're a God who listens
Who knows me, who loves me
Who never will fail me
Who tells me that I am His own
And You surround me, remind me
You always are for me
So I come boldly to Your throne