Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, Nov. 24, 2013.

First Reading: Jeremiah 23:1-6
The prophet Jeremiah spoke these fierce words of woe to the leaders of Babylon, who were holding Jerusalem and its leaders in exile. He foresaw a mighty new King David restoring the glory of Israel and Judah, the lost kingdoms of the chosen people. It is important for us to understand these ringing verses in their original intent. But it can be reassuring for Christians, too, to see reflected in these words another promise: our hope in Jesus as both good shepherd and mighty king and savior, who reigns over all with justice and righteousness

Psalm: Psalm 46
Even when terrible things happen, God is with us. This assurance offers simple hope, and yet it can be hard to hear. When Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines, surely the mountains shook in the heart of the sea as its waters roared and foamed. God does not promise us a world where horrors can’t happen and no one suffers. But even in the worst of times, God is there, inviting us to take refuge in God’s strength. Today’s verse reflects the beauty of our Prayer for Quiet Confidence (BCP p.832): “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Psalm (Track 2): Luke 1:68-79 (Canticle 16, BCP)
Zechariah, a temple priest who God had struck mute for refusing to believe that his elderly wife, Elizabeth, had become pregnant after an angelic visitation, gets his voice back when he holds and names the infant John. The child, he declares, will be a prophet in the tradition of Abraham and Sarah – who also had been blessed with a child through God’s action in their old age. We know that John, the Baptist, will proclaim the fulfillment of God’s covenant in Jesus, who will set us free as our mighty savior.

Second Reading: Colossians 1:11-20
Like Jeremiah and the Psalmist, the author of the letter to the Colossians, too, speaks to a people in trouble, the persecuted Christian community of Colossae in what is now Western Turkey. These verses urge them to endure their difficulties with patience and the strength that comes from God’s glorious power through Jesus, whose incarnation as God in human flesh makes him the first of all creation and the head of the body of the church.

Gospel: Luke 23:33-43
And so we come to the end of Pentecost season and Jesus’s long road to Jerusalem with a Gospel reading that recalls Good Friday … and our hope for Easter and the resurrection! Jesus is crucified, a horrible death reserved for Rome’s most despised evildoers, in the company of criminals. The soldiers and one criminal taunt him as a failed king, while Jesus quietly invites the repentant criminal into a different kind of kingdom, for all humanity and for all time.