Heavy Loads--June 14, 2022

[From June 15, 2010 archive;

adapted from my journal of June 20, 2000]

 

Sometimes our load is too heavy,

and tears are the food we eat,

and people ask where you are.

 

Then we remember how Paul said

he was not ashamed of the gospel—

in it he found your power of salvation.

 

And we remember that our burdens

are made bearable by the Son of Man,

whose burden was heaviest of all.

 

Lectionary Readings

Ps. 42; 146; 102; 133

Numb. 11:1-23

Rom. 1:16-25

Matt. 17:22-27

 

Selected Verses 

Ps. 42:3

My tears have been my food

          day and night,

while people say to me continually,

           “Where is your God?”

 

Numb. 11:14

“…I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me.  …  ”  [Moses to the LORD]

 

Rom. 1:16

For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

 

Matt.17:22-23

As [Jesus and his disciples] were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.”  And they were greatly distressed.