Monday, December 9, 2013 — Week of Advent 2, Year Two
[Go to Mission St Clare for an online version of the Daily Office including today’s scripture readings.]
Today’s Readings for the Daily Office:
Psalms 25 (morning) // 9, 15 (evening)
Amos 7:1-9
Revelation 1:1-8
Matthew 22:23-33
Even though he went by “Dave,” my grandfather’s first name was actually Alpha. I suspect that his name was a tribute to today’s second reading, in which the Lord God announces, “I am the Alpha and the Omega.” (My grandfather came from a pious Mennonite family.) Our reading from Revelation this morning wants us to know the God “who is and who was and who is to come,” the God who is consistent from beginning to end.
As we grow in the knowledge and love of God, we can look for those aspects of God that are the same from A to Z. The witness of the Bible and the testimony of human beings includes a variety of ways to describe and experience God. But what can we hold onto throughout this experiential diversity?
Our Psalmist this morning reminds God of who he has always been: “Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love, for they are from everlasting.” After reminding God of his everlasting compassion and love, the Psalmist asks God to forget (“Remember not”) his youthful sins. Instead, he asks God to “remember me according to your love and for the sake of your goodness, O Lord.”
Perhaps we can return the favor to God. The Psalmist wants God to see him in light of compassion, goodness, and love, and not through the lens of his life’s mistakes. We can also learn to see God in light of this same compassion, goodness, and love, which he tried to communicate to us from the beginning of creation and especially through the ministry of Jesus. What if we saw God this way, instead of through the experiences of destruction and judgment that people have attributed to God?
From beginning to end, God shows us compassion, goodness, and love. Remember this. Forget the rest.
Lora Walsh blogs about taking risks and seeking grace at A Daily Scandal. She serves as curate of Grace Episcopal Church in Siloam Springs and as director of the Ark Fellows, an Episcopal Service Corps program sponsored by St. Paul’s in Fayetteville, Arkansas.