Devotion for Saturday Before the First Sunday of Advent, Year A (ELCA Daily Lectionary)

Above:  Saint John on Patmos, by the Limbourg Brothers (1385-1416)

Risks of Discipleship

NOVEMBER 26, 2022

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The Collect:

Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come.

By your merciful protection awaken us to the threatening dangers of our sins,

and enlighten our walk in the way of your salvation,

for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and forever.  Amen.

–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 18

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The Assigned Readings:

Genesis 6:11-22

Psalm 122

Matthew 24:1-22

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Some Related Posts:

Genesis 6:

http://lenteaster.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/devotion-for-the-fifth-day-of-lent-lcms-daily-lectionary/

https://ordinarytimedevotions.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/proper-4-year-a/

Matthew 24:

https://ordinarytimedevotions.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/devotion-for-november-7-lcms-daily-lectionary/

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For there are thrones of judgment,

the thrones the house of David.

–Psalm 122:5, Book of Common Worship (1993)

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Matthew 24 contains much apocalyptic content which need not be bad news for everyone because, even in dark times, there is deliverance for some.  Genesis 6:22, at the end of technical instructions regarding the ark, says:

Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.

—The New Revised Standard Version

Thus Noah and those with him survived.

Faithfulness to God is not always a recipe for temporal survival, of course, for the roll of Christian saints includes many martyrs.

They they will hand you over to be tortured and will put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name.

–Matthew 24:9, The New Revised Standard Version

The baptism of many martyrs is solely of blood.  Yet, despite numerous difficulties,

the one who endure to the end will be saved.

–Matthew 24:13, The New Revised Standard Version

I am writing this devotion in late Spring, a time which feels much like early Summer.  Yet this is, of course, a devotion for late November and the eve of Advent.  So now I pretend that today is at the tail end of the Season after Pentecost, immediately before Advent.  We Western Christians are about to begin a time of preparation for Christmas.  May we recall that Jesus of Nazareth, born into a world in which a tyrant wanted him dead immediately, died by order of a Roman imperial official.  Our Lord and Savior died under the banner of the Pax Romana, a peace based on violence.  We make a desert, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote, and call it peace.  If we Christians follow Jesus, human violence might befall us also.  It continues to befall many of my coreligionists around the world.  Even when such violence does befall us, there is light at the end of the tunnel.  Nevertheless, I quote the martyrs in Heaven from the Revelation to John:

How long?

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 5, 2013 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF ROBERT FRANCIS KENNEDY, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL AND SENATOR

THE FEAST OF SAINT BONIFACE OF MAINZ, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP

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Next in the Sequence:

http://adventchristmasepiphany.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/first-day-of-advent-first-sunday-of-advent-year-a/

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/risks-of-discipleship/

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