Daily Office Readings for Saturday of the 5th Week of Epiphany: Year 1
Morning, Psalms 87 and 90; Evening, Psalm 136;
Isaiah 61:10-62:5; 2nd Timothy 4:1-8; Mark 10:46-52:
“For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.” (Isaiah 61:11)
We human beings and all earthly creatures are so blessed. God has taken care of all of us with this wonderful earth. And we humans are able to manipulate the earth in small gardens to produce what we need and what we fancy or just plain want. This earth is the bedrock of all people everywhere. Maybe it is through the earth that we can make known to all people everywhere that God wants us to love God and one another, and to praise God and to acknowledge God as our universal Savior.
We are fast approaching the reminder that from the dust of the earth we come, and back to the dust of the earth we shall return. But perhaps not our whole selves will go back to the dust. Maybe, just maybe, the God-spark, the soul, the Spirit of God planted in us will ascend to the realm of heaven someday. But more than that, we believers are the garden of God. We are the garden in which God has sown goodness. We believers are the soil and God causes what has been sown in us to spring up before all nations. All we have to do is believe and be.
Today we remember Thomas Bray, Priest and Missionary (February 15, 1730), and his information may be found at: Thomas Bray.
As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
Let us pray: (The Collect for Saturdays BCP p. 99)
Almighty God, who after the creation of the world rested from all your works and sanctified a day of rest for all your creatures: Grant that we, putting away all earthly anxieties, may be duly prepared for the service of your sanctuary, and that our rest here upon earth may be a preparation for the eternal rest promised to your people in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
onewhoponders 