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.

We Are Your Children--April 12, 2013


[from May 6, 2011 archive]

We are your children now;
we do not know what we will become;
but we are your children.

As your children we hope in your deliverance.
Even if you do not deliver us, we are your children;
and you regard the lowly.

Your Spirit descended upon Jesus;
may your Spirit descend upon us.
We need no other defense.

 

Lectionary Readings

Ps. 96; 148; 49; 138
Dan. 3:1-18
1 John 3:1-10
Luke 3:15-22

Selected Verses

Ps. 138:6
For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly;
            but the haughty he perceives from far away.

Dan. 3:16-17
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter.  If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us.  …”

1 John 3:2a
Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.

Luke 3:21-22a
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.


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