I am an emeritus professor from Cornell University and was a Commissioned Lay Preacher in the Presbyterian Church (USA). For many years I have followed the Daily Lectionary as printed in the Mission Yearbook of my church. For each day of a two-year cycle, the lectionary lists four psalms and three other scriptural passages--usually one from the Old Testament and two from the New Testament. My practice is to copy down a verse or two from one of the psalms and from each of the other three passages. After I have written out all four selections, I reflect upon them, rearrange their order, and incorporate them into a meditation. Sometimes I retain much of the original wording; sometimes all that remains of a selection is an idea that was stimulated when I read the original words. All selections are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. For the Daily Lectionary, see the link below.

February 25, 2006

I. Readings
Psalms 63, 100, 122
Proverbs 8:22-36
2 Timothy 1:1-14
John 12:20-26

II. Selections
Psalm 122:2
Our feet are standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem.

Proverbs 8:30b-31
...and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.

2 Timothy 1:11-12
For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.

John 12:24
Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

III. Meditation: Within your gates
Our feet are standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem.

In your wisdom you have made us,
daily to delight you.

You have made us to put our trust in you,
confident that you will guard what we have entrusted to you.

You have created us to die in you,
that for you we may bear much fruit.

Within your gates, O Jerusalem,
our feet are standing.

Posted by Elmer E. Ewing

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