Key:
Bold = verse commented upon
Blue = Comment
Highlight = Direct command
Overall Comment
A theme running through these readings is
that God has our ultimate good in mind, and although achieving that good requires
some suffering on our part, See Hebrews 12:5-13, particularly Hebrews 12:11, He wants us to get to that
good. He therefore sends us encouragement along the way.
We do
not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, about those who have fallen
asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and
rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen
asleep. Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord, that we who are
alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not precede those
who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself, with a word of command, with the
voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven,
and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will
be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus
we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore,
console one another with these words.
God does not want us to worry needlessly,
particularly as a result of ignorance about His benevolent plan for His
creation. Instead, He wants us to trust Him and His perfect plan, even when
that plan involves suffering along the way. See
Romans 8:18-39. He wants us to take an active
part in allaying worry/distress, by consoling those who are distressed (as in
this reading) and by communicating to all God’s utter goodness and rejoicing in
the hope it provides (as in the Psalm 96
below).
Sing
to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all you
lands. Tell his glory
among the nations; among all peoples, his wondrous deeds.
***
For great is the LORD and highly to be
praised; awesome is he, beyond all gods.
For all the gods of the nations are things
of naught, but the LORD made the heavens.
***
Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice; let the sea and
what fills it resound; let the plains be joyful and all that is in them! Then
shall all the trees of the forest exult before the LORD, for he comes; for he
comes to rule the earth. He shall rule
the world with justice and the peoples with his constancy. This seems to refer to the same dynamic as Romans 8:19-22 .
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the
poor.
Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown
up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He
stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the
scroll and found the passage where it was written:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable
to the Lord.
Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back
to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked
intently at him. He said to them, “Today this
Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke highly of
him
and were amazed at the gracious words that
came from his mouth. They also asked, “Is this not the son of Joseph?”
He said to them, “Surely you will quote me
this proverb, ‘Physician, cure yourself,’ and say, ‘Do here in your native
place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.’” And he said, “Amen, I
say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you,
there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed
for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It
was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in
the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of
Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the
Syrian.” God extends His love to all peoples, not just to “insiders.”
When the people in the synagogue heard
this, they were all filled with fury.
They rose up, drove him out of the town, and
led him to the brow of the hill
on which their town had been built, to
hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and went away.
