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.

March 17, 2008

I. Readings
Psalms 6, 119:73-80, 121
Lamentations 1:1-2, 6-12
2Corinthians 1:1-7
Mark 11:12-25

II. Selections
Psalm 119:75
I know, O LORD, that your judgments are right,
and that in faithfulness you have humbled me.

Lamentations 1:1b
How like a widow she has become,
she that was great among the nations! [ Referring to Jerusalem, the lonely city]

2Corinthians 1:5
For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ.

Mark 11:18
And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching.

III. Meditation: Suffering

In the week of your Passion, we think of suffering.
The topic is inescapable, the explanation impossible.
People were afraid of you, looked for ways to kill you.

Not that you were the first or last to suffer, of course.
There is the case of Jerusalem, become like a widow;
and even we ourselves have been humbled by pain.

Yours was like ours, yet of a different dimension.
As your sufferings are abundant for us, so also
our consolation is abundant through you.

Posted by Elmer E. Ewing

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