Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 36:5-11; Hebrews 9:11-15; John 12:1-11
Monday of Holy Week by Rev. Jerry Eve
Today’s readings provide us with a rich variety of different passages. The first, from Isaiah, includes the first of four so-called Servant Songs in that prophetic book. This is Isaiah 42:1-4, and the other three are to be found at 49:1-6, 50:4-7 and 52:13-53:12. They will all sound familiar to you, as much of their material is either quoted (both directly and allusively) in Matthew, Mark and Luke, or referenced in Christian hymns. Christian theologians, from earliest times, have understood them as prophetic of Christ as someone who never sought to impose justice by dint of any kind of force, but, with hope and courage, by other (peaceful) means instead.
The second is part of the 36th Psalm, and it’s helpful, I think to read the whole psalm as this puts verses 5-12 in context. And so we see that the section titled, ‘The Goodness of God’, in the Good News Translation springs from a consideration of ‘Human Wickedness’. This is something we often do with the psalms for worship – we chop out the ‘nasty’ bits and keep those that are ‘nice’ – and so I’m almost surprised that we’re being asked, for example, to continue to verse 12 and not end at verse 9 instead.
The Scottish Psalter, for example, leaves out verses 1-5 and 10-12 (i.e. the whole context), and preserves only what is then an absolutely beautiful worship song. I am surprised though, if you know the hymn, Thy mercy, Lord, is in the heavens, that it chooses to omit what I think is the best bit of the whole psalm, and that is where King David writes, “O Lord, thou preservest man and beast” (KJV). For this is quoted by Saint Augustine (354-430) in his writings as proof that animals also receive salvation. As such I’ve often found it quite a good one to quote, then, whenever I’ve been asked if people’s pets are going to be with them in heaven. ‘How could it possibly be heaven without them?’ I’ll ask.
And so, on this the first weekday of Holy Week, as Jesus begins his preparations to become not just the High Priest (who stands between God and us, presenting us to God as Himself) but the sacrifice upon the altar too (see Hebrews 9:11-15), we also have a reading from John about Jesus spending time with his friends, the three siblings – Mary, Martha and Lazarus. It’s in this chapter that we hear the last of Lazarus, and we are left to wonder whether the Chief Priests plans to have him put to death were successful or not.
I suspect they probably were, and yet there are two happier legends, albeit that he is said to have only smiled once in the thirty more years he had: 1) that he fled to Cyprus where Paul and Barnabas made him a bishop; and 2) that, together with his sisters, he was put out to sea in a boat with no oars, sails or a rudder, but that they came to land at Provence where Lazarus became the first Bishop of Marseille.
Let us pray:
God,
while coronavirus preoccupies all our thoughts,
and we do pray, for example, that our Prime Minister
will get well soon,
we do still worry about all those other news items
that just a short time ago used to preoccupy us instead,
and about issues and concerns that will not have gone away;
such as the plight of all those Syrian refugees
gathered on the border between Turkey and Greece;
such as the ongoing war in Yemen;
such as preparations for a United Nations
Climate Change Conference here in Glasgow;
and – dare we ask it – whatever is happening with Brexit?
God, may the prioritisation of the preservation of life
that has been a hallmark of the worldwide response
to this massive health scare
be a focus that will continue to be maintained
long after COVID-19 has ceased to be a threat.
Amen.
