Daily Office Readings for Tuesday of the 4th Week of Lent: Year 2
Morning, Psalms 97 and 99; Evening, Psalm 94:
Genesis 49:29 to 50:14; 1st Cor. 11:17 to 34; Mark 8:1 to 10
“For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is foryou. Do this in remembrance of me.’” (1Corinthians 11:23 – 24)
In the Synoptic Gospels we learn about how our Lord Jesus wants us to remember Him, as well as here in 1st Corinthians, where Paul reports how our Lord Jesus gives us the image of how he wants us to remember Him: by the bread and the cup.
It was the bread and wine, the body and blood, that was missing by not being able to go to Church during the onset of Covid. I never thought I, or anybody, would lose Church attendance for Lent, but we did. I missed it as did all of my flock. As we began to come back to Church, we did so without Holy Communion. Later we resumed with bread only. Even now as I write these words we have returned with both kinds but there is a difference. Now we come to the rail to receive the bread and then proceed to a designated place to receive the wine from individual little glasses. Perhaps we will never again drink from a common cup. I don’t know.
Yielding to change for the sake of safety makes sense. We again get the body and blood as commanded by our Lord Jesus. But we are using reason, one of the legs of the three-legged stool (of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason), as introduced by Richard Hooker, the 17th Century Anglican Priest. We are a reasonable people who find ways to fulfill our Christ given destiny of eternal life.
President Zelenskyy of Ukraine (while not Anglican), also uses reason as he attempts to negotiate with Russia for peace. I am reminded that when we pray for God to intervene in a crisis or anything, we can’t dictate to God how or what to do. That’s God’s Job and God’s alone. I, and I hope all of you, continue to pray for peace in Ukraine. Let us remember that the Lord’s Supper originated on the night He was betrayed. It is amazing that something so wonderful came at such a horrible time in human history. But it did. Such is God’s Job, and God’s alone.
As we listen to what the Spirit is saying to us, let us live to love, to serve, and to teach, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
onewhoponders 