Friday, June 25

Second Samuel 13: David, it seems, was not the ideal father, and this chapter presents us with first evidence that all was not going well on the home front. Incestuous rape and murder are not favorable signs. Indeed, the tragedies in the present chapter put the reader in mind of David’s own actions with respect to Bathsheba and Uriah, a sexual offense followed by a murder.

Ammon himself was the crown prince of the realm, David’s heir apparent, and the devout reader will discern the hand of God in his removal from the scene. A man that would rape his half-sister was no fit heir to the throne. Unlike his father, Ammon did not repent; indeed, he did not even perform the minimum obligations toward Tamar required in the Mosaic Law (Deuteronomy 22:28-29).

Arguably worse in the context, however, was the neglect of David himself, who refused to deal with the terrible situation. David became angry, but that was all (verse 21). This failure to deal discipline with his son puts the reader in mind of Eli at Shiloh, who also was indulgent toward his sinning offspring. David’s own moral failures had evidently deprived him of the moral authority to chastise his own children, and this failure eventually led to rebellion and civil war.

Having waited two years in vain for David to deal with the situation (verse 23), the frustrated Absalom, Tamar’s full-brother, decided at last to take charge of the matter himself. He was able to do this because he sensed a vacuum of authority in the realm, a vacuum that he tempt him, we know, even further in the near future. David’s kingdom will soon come unraveled.

Acts 13:4-12: Chapters 13-14 narrate Paul’s first missionary journey during the years 47-48, also mentioned in 2 Timothy 3:11. The apostles depart from the port of Seleucia, which, sitting sixteen miles west, served the city of Antioch. They first visited the homeland of Barnabas, the island of Cyprus, which had a good number of Jewish inhabitants (cf. 1 Maccabees 15:23). The ruins of the ancient city of Salamis, on the east coast of the island, can easily be reached by taxi from the nearby modern city of Famagusta, and, if the visitor is as fortunate as myself, the taxi driver will include a private tour and some local fresh oranges for a reasonable price.

It will be standard practice for the apostle Paul, when he comes to evangelize any new city, to pay his first visit to "the synagogue of the Jews" (13:5,14; 14:1; 16:13; 17:10,17; 18:4,19; 19:8; 28:17,23). (Indeed, this expression, "synagogue of the Jews," is preserved on a small marble plaque that once adorned the synagogue at Corinth; it may be seen today in the small museum in that city.)

Traversing the length of Cyprus, the apostles arrive at Paphos on the island’s southwest coast. Here they make the right impression on the local proconsul, Sergius Paulus, by putting a false prophet in his proper place. Sergius Paulus, of the illustrious Roman family Paula, was well known in his day and is mentioned by name in inscriptions from Cyprus, Antioch in Pisidia, and Rome. Easily ranking the Centurion Cornelius of Caesarea, Sergius Paulus becomes the most highly placed Roman official to join the Church.

Saturday, June 26

Acts 13:13-31: It should also be noted that we no longer hear about "Barnabas and Saul" but "Paul and his companions." Obviously there has been a dramatic shift in the personal dynamics of the mission.

Paul and Silas, evidently accompanied by others at this time, sail north to the southern shore of what we now call the Turkish peninsula, landing at the port of Attalia and journeying some five miles inland to Perga, capital of Pamphylia. From there they pass on to "Pisidian Antioch," which is actually in Phrygia near the border with Pisidia and served as a governmental center for the south of the province of Galatia. (Will these be the people who will receive the Epistle to the Galatians in about six years?)

From a local inscription we know that many Jews live in Pisidian Antioch at this time, and the two apostles visit their synagogue on the following Sabbath. Answering an invitation to give a "word of exhortation" (logos paraklesis –verse 15; cf. Hebrews 13:22), Paul gives the first of his great sermons to be preserved in the Book of Acts. One will observe that it is a three-point sermon, each point beginning with a renewed form of address (verses 16-25, verses 26-37, verses 38-41).

The synagogue congregation has just been listening to the writings of the prophets (13:15), and now Paul speaks of the fulfillment of their prophecies in the death and Resurrection of Jesus (13:27). This has been a standard theme in Acts, of course (cf. 3:18,21,24; 4:28; 10:43). Luke does not identify which prophets Paul and Barnabas listened to in the synagogue on this day.

Surely it is significant, nonetheless, that Paul introduces Jesus into his "word of exhortation" precisely in connection with the Davidic covenant (verse 22-23), about which we have been reflecting, of late, in our Daily Chapter.

Sunday, June 27

Second Samuel 15: In calling Him “the Son of David,” the early Christians expressed their conviction that Jesus was the fulfillment of everything Israel had been promised in that great historical figure, who was the father of Judah’s messianic line. For this reason Christians studied carefully the life and career of Israel’s second king, so as to miss no aspect of the prophecies associated with him. In fact, we find this detailed preoccupation with David already obvious in the Church’s first sermon (Acts 2:29–36).

Moreover, in interpreting David through the lens of Christ, those Christians were not obliged to start from scratch, because Israel’s prophets had bequeathed them a great deal of material interpretive of David’s life and significance.

One such prophet was Zechariah, who based one of his messianic prophecies on the figure of David as the latter fled from the rebellion of Absalom (2 Samuel 15—17). He remembered King David, crossing the Kidron Valley eastwards and ascending the Mount of Olives, rejected by his people. The king left in disgrace, riding on a donkey, the poor animal of the humble peasant. David was the very image of meekness. As he went, he suffered further humiliation from those who took advantage of his plight, but in his heart was no bitterness; he bore all with patience, planning no revenge. Unlike the usurping Absalom who drove “chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him” (2 Samuel 15:1), David rode on the back of a little donkey. The Prophet Zechariah, seeing all of this as a narrative prophetic of the greater David yet to come, exclaimed, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! . . . Behold, your King is coming to you; . . . Lowly and riding on a donkey, / A colt, the foal of a donkey”
(Zechariah 9:9). This oracle the early Christians saw strikingly fulfilled near the end of the earthly life of Jesus (Matthew 21:5).

Furthermore, amidst all King David suffered that day, there was even a foreshadowing of Judas the traitor. The man’s name was Ahithophel, and he was one of David’s trusted counselors. Truly, the resemblances between Judas and Ahithophel are remarkable. Ahithophel, joining the conspiracy against David (2 Samuel 15:12; 16:15, 23), sought to seize him by night (17:1), just east of Jerusalem (15:23), so that all his companions would flee (17:2). Judas, joining the plot against Jesus
(Matthew 26:3–4, 14–16), led the conspirators to seize Him by night
(26:47–48), just east of Jerusalem (26:36), causing His companions to flee (26:56). Whereas Ahithophel hanged himself when his treachery failed (2 Samuel 17:23), Judas hanged himself when his treachery succeeded (Matthew 27:5).

Just as Judas Iscariot, then, is the obvious traitor in the New Testament, Ahithophel is the obvious traitor in the Old. The one betrayed the “type,” the other its fulfillment.

There was a good reason that Ahithophel’s betrayal did not succeed like that of Judas, and the reason’s name was Hushai the Archite. A sagacious man worthy of the office of “king’s companion” (1 Chronicles
27:33), Hushai hoped to join the fleeing David’s paltry force and partake of his flight. From this plan he was dissuaded nonetheless. Meeting the king on the Mount of Olives, near the very site where Judas would later betray Jesus (2 Samuel 15:30–32; Luke 22:39), Hushai was persuaded by David to return to Jerusalem in order to serve as the king’s secret agent in the capital and thereby thwart the evil counsel of Ahithophel (2 Samuel 15:34–37). Going back to the city, Hushai succeeded completely, both frustrating Ahithophel’s designs (17:5–14) and then disclosing Absalom’s schemes to David (17:15–22). Joab and the army would do the rest.

This union of wisdom and personal loyalty, fused in the perilous setting of Absalom’s rebellious court, renders Hushai one of the truly attractive figures in Holy Scripture. He also well exemplifies the biblical principle that true wisdom is tried by fire and strife. His obedience to David caused Hushai to do a dangerous thing, but he very bravely placed his wisdom at the service of his loyalty, rather than his own safety, and in doing so he became the instrument of God’s intention to frustrate what even the biblical author thought the sounder counsel of David’s betrayer: “For the Lord had purposed to defeat the good advice of Ahithophel, to the intent that the LORD might bring disaster on Absalom” (17:14).

Monday, June 28

Psalms 106 (Greek and Latin 105): This psalm uses historical narrative as the structure of a sustained confession of sins and ongoing motive for repentance. The praise of God in this psalm, then, springs from the consideration of God’s fidelity to His people notwithstanding their own infidelities to Him: “Praise the Lord, for He is gracious, for His mercy endures forever!”

The examples of the people’s continued sin are drawn from the accounts of the Exodus and the Desert Wandering, a period of such egregious unfaithfulness that only a few of that entire generation were finally permitted to enter the Promised Land. The examples are detailed: the constant murmuring against the Lord both in Egypt and in the desert, the rebellion of Dathan and Abiron, the cult of the golden calf, the succumbing to temptation from the Moabites and other moral compromises with the surrounding nations, child-sacrifice to Moloch, and so forth. In all of these things God nonetheless proved His patience and fidelity to the people of His covenant: “Who will tell the mighty deeds of the Lord, or make all His praises heard?”

This poetic narrative, which summarizes much of the Books of Exodus and Numbers, deals with the period of the Desert Wandering as a source of negative moral example: “Don’t let this happen to you.” Such is the approach to that period through much of biblical literature, from Deuteronomy 33 to 1 Corinthians 10.

The value of this perspective is that it tends to discourage a false confidence that may otherwise deceive the believer. Never has there been missing from the experience of faith the sort of temptation that says: “Relax! God has saved you. You are home free. Once saved, always saved. Don’t worry about a thing. Above all, no effort.”

Certain discerning men in the Bible itself recognized this temptation. Thus, the Prophet Jeremiah saw it working insidiously in the hearts and minds of his contemporaries near the end of the seventh century BC. They reasoned among themselves that God, because of His undying promise to David, would never permit the city of Jerusalem, to say nothing of His temple, to fall to their enemies. After all, had not the Lord, speaking through Isaiah a century earlier, promised King Hezekiah that such a thing was unthinkable? And had not the Lord, at that time, destroyed the Assyrian army as it besieged the Holy City? Even so, reasoned Jeremiah’s fellow citizens, there was no call now to fear the armies of Babylon. Thus, fully confident of divine deliverance, they permitted themselves every manner of vice and moral failing. After all, once saved, always saved. Much of the message of Jeremiah was devoted to demolishing that line of thought.

The identical sort of temptation seems likewise to have afflicted the first readers of Hebrews, whose author also took the period of the Desert Wandering as exemplifying their moral dilemma. Repeatedly, then, he cautioned those early Christians of the genuine danger of stark apostasy facing those who placed an unwarranted, quasimagical confidence in their inevitable security. This entire book is devoted to warning believers that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (10:31).

The gravity of this temptation, of course, arises from its resting on a solid truth: God is faithful to His promises; He will never abandon those who place their confidence in Him. The danger here is not that of trusting too much in God’s fidelity, but of not guarding too little against man’s infidelity. Just as the Galatians were warned against forsaking the Gospel of pure grace, they were also instructed that “God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7).

Even the believers at Philippi, though manifesting no discernible disposition to false confidence, were admonished to work out their salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12).

And even as the Ephesians were reminded of being sealed and rendered secure “with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance” (Eph. 1:13, 14), they were earnestly exhorted not to “grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed” (4:30).

The history of Israel in the desert of old, a sustained account of such grieving, is the theme of Psalm 106.

Tuesday, June 29

Saints Peter and Paul: Both the East and the West, from the earliest centuries, have celebrated this double feast day of those two apostles, who are linked in a special way by their both being martyred in the city of Rome. Even though there seem to have been Roman Christians right from the day of Pentecost (cf. Acts 2:10), the origins of that local church were always associated with the two great men who there shed their blood for the name of Christ. Writing to the Christians at Rome in the year 107, Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch in Syria, could say to them: "I do not give you commands, as did Peter and Paul." With respect to the ministry and martyrdom of Peter and Paul at Rome, the evidence from the dawn of Christian history is overwhelming, nor was there any dissenting voice on this matter from any source in ancient history.

With respect to Paul, of course, we have the Book of Acts and the Second Epistle to Timothy. With respect to Peter, we are not entirely sure when he did reach Rome, but it must have been in the early 60s. If he were at Rome in the late 50s, it is impossible to understand why he was not mentioned among that long list of Christians who are named in Romans 16.

However, we do know quite a bit about the place, time, and circumstances of Peter’s death. The fourth century historian, Eusebius, cites testimonies from the second and early third centuries to bolster his thesis that the chief of the Apostles was crucified in Rome during Nero’s persecution (mid-60s): Tertullian in North Africa, Gaius of Rome, Dennis of Corinth. From another writer of about 200, Clement of Alexandria, we learn that Peter’s wife was also martyred and that the apostle was a witness to it. The African Tertullian speaks even more boldly of that crucifixion at Rome, “where Peter equals the Lord’s passion,” he treats the information as though it were common knowledge.

Indeed, the early Christians seem to have been so familiar with the circumstances of Peter’s martyrdom that Clement of Rome (writing from that city) and Ignatius of Antioch (writing to that city) had not felt the need to elaborate on the place and circumstances. The story of the Apostle’s crucifixion was so widely reported among the churches that the Gospel of John, probably writt
en at Ephesus, could simply refer to the stretching out of Peter’s hands as “signifying by what death he was to glorify God” (John 21:18f). John did not have to explain the point; everyone knew exactly how Peter had died. That this Johannine passage (“thou shalt stretch forth thy hands . . . signifying by what death he was to glorify God”) did in fact refer to Peter’s crucifixion in Rome was perfectly obvious to Tertullian. Citing that Johannine verse, he wrote: “Then was Peter ‘bound by another,’ when he was fastened to the cross" (Scorpiace 15.3). Moreover, the symbolic extension of the hands as signifying crucifixion is attested to in early Christian and even pagan writings (Pseudo-Barnabas, Justin Martyr Irenaeus, Cyprian of Carthage, Epictetus).

The Christians at Rome, however, have never clung to this special two-fold grace in any jealous or exclusive fashion. Throughout the years they have shared this feast day of the two apostles with all other Christians, and this feast day is observed with equal solemnity throughout the Christian East. Indeed, in recent years it has become customary for Rome and Constantinople to exchange special delegations and greetings on this day, with the intention of maintaining those cordial relationships of charity that may, in God's time and by God's grace, bring the Christians of the East and the West back to full communion one with another.

Wednesday, June 30

Acts 13:42-52: In this scene we discern the context of certain impulses that produced agitation in the early Christian mission. Judaism itself already had an extensive mission in the Greco-Roman world (cf. Matthew 23:15). As synagogues were established in the major cities, serious pagans were impressed by what they saw, because the life of the synagogue stood in stark contrast to the cultural and moral decay of the surrounding world, where despair was common. In the pagan world some of the major cultural institutions, particularly marriage and the family, were in serious trouble. Sex had become increasingly separated from marriage and from child-bearing, and there was some sense that this separation was related to various forms of polytheism.

What the pagans beheld in the local synagogues, however, were communities of great strength and hope, solid marriages and the joys of family life, a strict moral code in which all of life was integrated and filled with purpose, a firm emphasis on simple labor as the basis of economic existence, a rich inherited literature that imaginatively interpreted the life of the community, and the regularly scheduled, disciplined worship of a single, no-nonsense God. All of this proved to be very attractive to those serious pagans who felt distress and discomfort at the popular culture.

Some of these pagans accepted circumcision and the observance of the Law, thus becoming full-fledged Jews; these were known as proselytes (Acts 2:10; 6:5). Other pagans were unwilling to go so far, because such a decision obviously tended to cut them off from their own families and friends.

This second group simply attached themselves to the synagogues as best they could, bringing certain structures of Jewish piety into their lives, such as regular prayer and fasting and the study of the Scriptures; these were known as “fearers of God,” of which we have already seen examples in Cornelius and his friends. Thus, there were two groups of Gentiles who in varying degrees joined themselves to the local synagogues in the larger cities of the Roman Empire. Now both of these groups felt a spontaneous attraction to the Gospel when they heard it proclaimed in the synagogue by Paul and his companions. In the Gospel they saw a form of religion with all the advantages of Judaism, but with none of the social disadvantages, such as circumcision and the observance of the Mosaic Law.

In the present reading, we observe that these people invite their other Gentile friends to come with them to the synagogue on the following Sabbath (13:44). Now, all of a sudden, the Jews find their own synagogue over-run with all sorts of “undesirables.” They perceive Paul and his companions simply to be “taking over” the synagogue, preaching doctrine that they themselves cannot control, and, from their perspective, things are getting entirely out of hand. The local Jews react with jealousy and animosity (13:45,50). After all, the Jewish religion had survived pure and intact by preserving those very disciplines that Paul and his friends seem to want to overthrow.

The Gospel, then, they experience as chaos. The very “popularity” of the Gospel becomes a reason for the stricter Jew to feel uncomfortable about it. Trouble breaks out. This sequence of events, repeated over and over again in the synagogues of the larger cities, causes the Christian Church to grow among the Gentiles, who are finally obliged to establish their own local congregations apart from the local synagogues (14:1; 16:13; 17:1,10,17; 18:4,6,19; 19:8; 28:28).

Thursday, July 1

Acts 14:1-7: The city of Iconium (the present Konya), located about ninety miles southeast of Pisidian Antioch, was the regional capital of Lycaonia (cf. 14:6; 2 Timothy 3:11).

The pattern of the mission in Pisidian Antioch is repeated in Iconium. Once again the apostles begin to evangelize the city by visiting the local synagogue, and the diverse responses of the various groups is identical to what we saw in the previous chapter.

There is more going on than meets the eye, however. The very active Jesus continues to work His wonders within the body of believers (verse 3); however concealed from the view of the world, Jesus still walks among the candlesticks (Revelation 1:13; Matthew 28:20; Mark 16:17-20; 2 Corinthians 6:16).

As the apostles flee from Iconium (verse 6), the Gospel is spread still farther. Lystra, whither they flee, is about twenty-five miles to the southwest.

Psalm 133 (Greek and Latin 132)” This is arguably among the loveliest of the small compositions in Holy Scripture: “Behold how good and delightful a thing, for brothers to abide as one; like balsam on the head, descending down on the beard, the beard of Aaron, descending to the hem of his robe; like the dew of Hermon, descending on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord decreed blessing, life for evermore.”

This translation preserves a delicate but structurally important feature of both the Hebrew and the canonical Greek texts; namely, the psalm has only one finite verb, and it is found in the final line: “decreed” (eneteilato, tsivvah). The blessing in this psalm is a matter of God’s command and ordinance.

Now the blessing decreed of the Lord is everlasting life, and He decreed it in the holy mountains of Zion. This is Jerusalem, which appears in the final chapters of the Book of Revelation as the home of those brothers who abide as one. This is the ultimate meaning of “good and delightful.” It is eternal life.

The place of the Lord’s decree, “there,” is accented in both the Greek (ekei) and the Hebrew (sham). The blessing of this psalm is not some sort of general benediction poured out at random; it is specific, rather, with respect to place. It is defined and fixed in the institutions of the holy city of Jerusalem, especially in the priesthood, most particularly the high priesthood of Aaron. That is to say, the blessing decreed by the Lord is related to the consecration of that priesthood by which the people of God is defined as a priestly people and holy nation.

The emphasized “there” of the last verse stands in structural parallel and contrast with the earlier sense of “here” conveyed by the “behold” (idou, hinneh), with which the psalm begins. The poem commences, then, with the atmosphere and feeling of presence. Accordingly, there are no verbal sentences; the action in these early verses is entirely conveyed, as in both the Hebrew and Greek, by an infinitive, “to abide,” and t
he threefold repetition of a single participle, “descending.”

Moreover, this steady descent is described so as to suggest the slow flowing down of a consecratory blessing, and the same words for “descending” are used for both the priestly oil and the dew of Hermon in both the Greek (katabainon) and the Hebrew (yored). This sustained blessing is also conveyed by the advancing flow of the ointment, poured out in consecration on the high priest’s head, then oozing down to saturate his priestly beard, before flowing onto the hem of his priestly vestment. The “oil” of the Hebrew (shemen) is enriched and sweetened to “balsam” (myron) in the Greek text.

The high priest’s beard is mentioned twice in connection with this bountiful anointing, portraying the accumulated saturation of the blessing into this supreme symbol of his manhood. (Indeed, Holy Scripture is very strict on the point. The priest may not shave his beard, and the man who can’t grow a beard cannot be a priest.)
Beneath the beard of the high priest there hangs from his neck a pectoral of stones on which are engraved the names of Israel’s twelve tribes. When he comes to appear before the Lord, Aaron thus bears all of Israel upon his breast, directly in the path of the descending ointment of his sacerdotal consecration. The whole people of God is rendered holy in his priesthood. The oneness celebrated in this psalm is the unity of God’s people gathered in worship with their priest.

This pervasive saturation is high and exotic poetry, of course. Indeed, the picture of the heavy dew descending all the way from Mount Hermon, up in Syria, down to Jerusalem in Judah can only be introduced in a poetic context already conditioned by the psalm’s earlier and more plausible images.

The priesthood of Aaron is, moreover, the ministry preparatory to the definitive priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is He who ever lives to make intercession for us (cf. Heb. 7:25). “For brothers to abide as one” is the blessing given to the Church, described in St. Paul’s epistles as the “body of Christ” and in St. John’s Gospel as the vine with its branches. Our unity is in Christ, and more specifically in that unchangeable priesthood by which He ministers in heaven on our behalf, the one mediator between God and man. There the Lord decreed blessing.

Friday, July 2

Acts 14:8-18: The response of the crowd in their own native tongue indicates what we might not otherwise have known: namely, that the apostles have been preaching through an interpreter. Inasmuch as a great deal “gets lost in translation,” the crowd itself has evidently missed some of the finer points in the apostolic message—the mention of monotheism, for instance! Witnessing the miraculous healing, these enthusiasts promptly identify the apostles with pagan gods.

Their identification of Paul with Hermes, or the Latin “Mercury,” is explained in verse 12, where we learn that Paul does most of the talking. With respect to Barnabas, it is reasonable to think that his identification as Zeus, or the Latin “Jupiter” (“Zeus Pater,” or “Zeus the father”) probably has something to do with certain physical features (great height, large head, broad shoulders, and a majestic beard over a massive chest) and a more solemn presence. (Contrast this with Paul’s physical appearance in 2 Corinthians 10:10) So Paul is Hermes the messenger; Barnabas is the strong, silent Zeus, who commands by his presence.

Historians of literature draw our attention to a parallel story of Zeus and Hermes visiting Phrygia, preserved by Ovid, Metamorphosis 8:611-628).

The very brief sermon of the apostles (verses 15-17) probably represents their typical approach to pagans outside the synagogue; it may serve as the outline to the longer sermon that Paul will give the philosophers in Athens in 17:22-31. The fickle crowd ends the story by stoning Paul, an incident he will later mention in 2 Corinthians 11:25 and 2 Timothy 3:11.

Psalm 143 (Greek and Latin 141): This psalm is a prayer of desolation and loneliness: “With my voice have I cried to the Lord, with my voice have I prayed to the Lord. Before Him will I pour out my prayer; my desolation shall I declare in His presence. Even as my spirit takes its leave of me, You are the knower of my paths. In the way wherein I walk, have they concealed a snare for me. I looked to my right hand and beheld, but no one there acknowledged me. Flight itself fled from me; there was no patron for my soul. I cried to You, O Lord, I said, ‘You are my hope, in the land of the living my inheritance.’ Attend to my entreaty, for I am greatly humbled. Deliver me from my pursuers, for they are mightier than I. From the dungeon free my soul, unto the praising of Your holy name. The righteous shall await me, until You recompense me.”

Following an impulse early found in biblical history, an unknown hand added a note to the title of this psalm, describing it as the prayer (tefilla) offered by David “when he was in the cave.” As, in his younger years, he was being pursued by Saul, David probably concealed himself in several caves, there being no shortage of them in the Judean desert. First Samuel 22 tells of his seeking refuge from Saul in “the cave of Adullam,” and two chapters later there is a dramatic description of David’s concealment from Saul in a cave near Engedi by the Dead Sea. Perhaps these are the scenes that the scribal hand intended. Anyway, it is easy to think of this psalm as inspired by such experiences in the life of David. Or to imagine David praying it later on when he was fleeing from Absalom.

Holy Scripture contains no end of stories in which this would have been an appropriate psalm to pray. One thinks of Jacob fleeing from Esau, walking alone from Beersheba up to Haran at the top of the Fertile Crescent. Such a prayer could have been made just before he laid his head on the stone at Luz: “I cried to You, O Lord, I said, ‘You are my hope, in the land of the living my inheritance.’ Attend to my entreaty, for I am greatly humbled.”

Or the mind may jump forward to his son, Joseph, sold into slavery by his own brothers, falsely accused and thrown into prison, with no friend in this world. This could be the prayer of Joseph: “I looked to my right hand and beheld, but no one there acknowledged me. Flight itself fled from me; there was no patron for my soul.”

The sentiments of this psalm fit well what we know of the prophetic career of Elijah, living in secrecy in the desert, then making the long trek down to Sinai, pursued by the forces of Jezebel, to meet the Lord at the mouth of the ancient cave: “Even as my spirit takes its leave of me, You are the knower of my paths. In the way wherein I walk, have they concealed a snare for me.”

Surely this psalm graced the lips of Jeremiah, cast into the well, and drawn out of it only to be imprisoned until the fall of Jerusalem: “From the dungeon free my soul, unto the praising of Your holy name. The righteous shall await me, until You recompense me.”

No effort is needed to hear this prayer welling up from the throat of Job, as he sat on his dung heap, bereft of every earthly consolation: “With my voice have I cried to the Lord, with my voice have I prayed to the Lord. Before Him will I pour out my prayer; my desolation shall I declare in His presence.”

When we think of those unjustly accused who may have prayed this psalm, various characters come to mind from the Book of Daniel, such as Susannah, the three youths in the furnace, and the Prophet himself. And if this psalm is a fitting supplication for those in prison, then the Prophet Micaiah and John the Baptist are to be counted among those who may have prayed it. Likewise the Apostles Peter, Paul (“in prisons more frequently”), and John.

But most of all, and adding superabundant dignity to the rest, there is Christ our Lord, the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, abandoned by His closest friends, betrayed by one of them and denied in public by another, but finding His sole refuge in the Father.

Friday, June 18

Acts 10:34-48: Among the polarities employed in the Bible’s treatment of salvation, that of universality and holiness is perhaps the easiest to describe. Universality is wide, and holiness narrow. We are bidden by the former, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28), while the latter declares, “Unless you repent you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3, 5). The first is inclusive and brims with encouragement, whereas the second is restrictive and hurls out a challenge. Thus, when the principle of universality proclaims that
God “desires all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4), the principle of holiness answers that “narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:14).

The tension inherent in this polarity is first theological, to be sure, hinting at the mysterious confrontation of God’s freedom with man’s. But because salvation is worked out in history, we are not surprised to find the tension between universality and holiness taking shape in discrete contingent forms. For example, against the backdrop of the Roman Empire’s political universality, the Acts of the Apostles portrays the strain that the early Church felt between her universal call to mission within that world and the stern demand laid upon her to be a people set apart from it. That is to say, the theological tension assumes flesh as a tension of history, and then again, issuing from the pen of St. Luke, a tension of narrative.

Within Luke’s lengthy account of how that theological tension was maintained by the counterweights of history, the conversion of Cornelius and his friends is of central importance. So the story is worth revisiting under the aspect of that consideration.

Cornelius’s entrance into the Christian Church is especially significant, not only because he is a Gentile, but also because, in his military office, he represents the Roman Empire. In this representation Cornelius is prefigured by Luke’s earlier centurion at the foot of the Cross, who pronounced Rome’s final verdict, as it were, on Jesus of Nazareth: “Certainly this was a righteous man!” (Contrast Luke 23:47 with Matthew
27:54 and Mark 15:39.) In this adjudication the representative of a political universality receives the grace to discern, by the light of universal norms of righteousness, that Jesus at least meets the common standards of a moral claim. In this respect he takes Rome’s first step in favor
of Jesus and is, thereby, the forerunner of Cornelius. It is for this reason
that the Acts of the Apostles will end in Rome (28:13–16).

The story of Cornelius is told with great care. Indeed, it is told twice: once by Luke as narrator and once by Cornelius himself. (Peter’s part is also told twice, by the way—once by Luke and once by Peter.) As angelic announcements solemnly indicated the beginning of the Gospel (Luke 1:11, 26; 2:9), so this coming mission to the Roman Empire is announced by an angel (Acts 10:3). The calling of Cornelius is, for Luke, a decisive step in the universalizing of the Gospel, foreseen by the prophetic Simeon’s “light to bring revelation to the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32). It is Peter’s reception of this centurion into the Church that prepares the universal mission (and trip to Rome) of Paul, himself converted in the previous chapter.

In the tale of Cornelius, even the time frame is easy to find. Since we know that the angel instructed him on one of the weekly Jewish fast days (Monday or Thursday), and since we should presume that Peter would not have traveled from Joppa to Caesarea on a Sabbath, we may be quite sure that the “four days” of the story began on a Monday (Acts 10:9, 24, 30).

These references to fast days (and the maintenance of the “canonical hours” —10:3, 30) are also relevant to our theme, for they indicate the “holiness” pole in the tension of salvation. Cornelius represents, not only the universality of grace, but the restricting efforts of spiritual discipline. Luke describes him as “a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always” (10:2). Praying, fasting, and giving alms are not incidental to the story. Cornelius is told, on the contrary, “your prayer has been heard, and your alms are remembered in the sight of God” (10:31). Both universality and holiness pertain to the picture.

Saturday, June 19

Acts 11:1-18: From the perspective of those whose lives had been governed by strict adherence to the strictures of the Mosaic Law, Peter had played a bold hand at Caesarea, and they require an explanation from him (verses 2-3).

His explanation permits Luke to tell once again the story of Peter’s heavenly vision, along with the subsequent events at Caesarea. Thus, every aspect of this story is told once again. Indeed, more, because Peter even tells again the story of Cornelius’s own vision (verses 13-14) — the third time this story has been included in the Book of Acts. Obviously Luke is taking considerable pains to demonstrate that what was done at Caesarea was done under divine guidance.

In this connection Peter comments that what happened at Cornelius’s house reminded him of what Jesus had earlier asserted with respect to the Holy Spirit (verse 16; cf. 1:5). Moreover, one of the Spirit’s chief gifts is that of reminding Christians of the teaching of Jesus and throwing further light thereon (cf. John 2:17,22; 14:26).

Psalm 136: After three introductory verses that call for the praise of God, one may distinguish three stanzas in Psalm 136 (135 in Greek and Latin):

Stanza 1, verses 4–9, we may think of as the “cosmic stanza,” because it deals with God’s work of Creation described in the opening verses of Genesis. This stanza is structured on four verbs (descriptive participles in Hebrew): “does great wonders . . . made the heavens . . . laid out the earth . . . made great lights.” Verses 8 and 9 are a continuation of verse 7 (“the sun to rule by day . . . the moon and stars to rule by night”) and bring the “cosmic” portion of the psalm to a close.

But Creation is the stage on which God makes history, so in stanza 2, verses 10–22, we move from Genesis to Exodus. This we may think of as the “history stanza,” containing material from the Books of Exodus, Numbers, and Joshua. In this stanza likewise there is a fourfold series of verbs (again, descriptive participles in Hebrew), this time mainly in pairs, that describe God’s redemptive activity for His people: (1) “struck Egypt . . . and brought out Israel;” (2) “divided the Red Sea . . . and made Israel pass through;” (3) “overthrew Pharaoh . . . led His people through the wilderness;” (4) “struck down great kings . . . slew famous kings . . . and gave their land as a heritage.”

Finally, stanza 3, verses 23–26, speaks of God’s continuing care for His people down through the ages. He is not simply a God of the past, but of “us,” the present generation of believers. The last part of the psalm is about here and now: “remembered us in our lowly estate . . . rescued us from our enemies . . . gives food to all flesh.”

Thus, Psalm 136 pursues a threefold theme: creation, deliverance, and the continued care of the redeemed. In this respect, the triple structure of our psalm is identical with that of the Nicene Creed: God made us, God saved us, God stays and provides for us all days unto the end. In the Creed, this structure is explicitly Trinitarian: “one God, the Father Almighty, the Creator . . . one Lord, Jesus Christ . . . the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life.”

Psalm 136 insists—literally in every verse—that the root of all of God’s activity in this world, beginning even with the world’s creation, is mercy—hesed. This mercy is eternal—le‘olam—“forever.” Mercy is the cause and reason of all that God does. He does nothing, absolutely nothing, except as an expression of His mercy. His mercy stretches out to both extremes of infinity. “For His mercy endures forever” is the palimpsest that lies under each line of Holy Scripture. Thus, too, from beginning to end of any Orthodox service, the word “mercy” appears more than any other word. The encounter with God’s mercy is the root of all Christian worship. Everything else that can be said of God is but an aspect of His mercy. Mercy is the defining explanation of everything that God has revealed of Himself.

Sunday, June 20

Mark 3:7-12: Jesus now makes His third trip to the sea (verse 7). On each occasion He has called disciples, this time a great number from a very wide area, from as far south as Idumea (in the Negev Desert) to as far north as Tyre and Sidon (in contemporary Lebanon), and even from east of the Jordan River.

To this image of the sea Mark now adds that of the boat (mentioned in passing in 1:20), which Jesus uses to escape the press of the crowd (3:9). In the next chapter the boat itself will become the place of catechesis (4:1).

Although Jesus’ human enemies are absent from the present scene, His demonic enemies are once again very much in evidence, and their perception of Jesus has become more defined. Whereas they had earlier called Him “the Holy One of God” (1:24), they now address Him very specifically as “the Son of God” (3:11 and again in 5:7). What the Pharisees cannot bring themselves to see is becoming unmistakable to the demons. This is the fifth instance in which Mark has spoken of them.

Acts 11:19-26: Having narrated the conversion of Saul, and Peter’s proclamation to Cornelius, Luke now goes back to the dispersion of the Christians at the murder of Stephen (cf. 8:1,4). His intent is to focus on Antioch, where so many Jews and Gentiles had joined in such close fellowship that a new name had to be devised to identify them, "Christians."

This communion of Jews and Gentiles in the Church was beginning to put considerable strain on the Church’s relationship to Judaism. It was becoming more difficult to think of the latter as simply containing the former. The situation was also causing strain in the consciences of some Jewish Christians who still felt obliged to observe the Mosaic Law, particularly the regulations about kosher foods and abstention from close contact with Gentiles.

Concerned about this, the apostles sent the ever-trusted Barnabas to Antioch to investigate the situation. Barnabas, realizing the great potential for further growth and evange
lism represented in Antioch, went on to Tarsus to find his energetic friend Saul (cf. 9:3). Together they spend a year at Antioch, that year apparently being A.D. 45-46.

Psalm 67: Twice during Psalm 67 (Greek and Latin 66) comes the double refrain: “May the peoples bless You, O Lord, may all the peoples bless You.” Just as God begins, at the opening of the day, to cause His sun to shine alike on both the just and the unjust, all the earth is invited to laud His universal mercy.

The God of the Bible, in the definitive covenant that He has given us in Christ, has brought to perfection and fulfillment the promises contained in all of the earlier, preparatory covenants of sacred history. One of the earliest of these was the covenant with Noah, that primeval compact of God with “every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” This ancient arrangement of grace, described in Genesis 9:16 as berith ’olam, “a covenant forever,” has never been abrogated, nor can it be, for it rests solely on the infallible promise of a gracious God. Using the specific technical expressions “give” () and “establish” (haqim), Genesis describes this covenant as both gratuitous and permanent (cf. 9:9, 11, 12, 17).

Symbolized in that heavenly “sign” (’oth) of the rainbow, it is God’s covenant with creation itself: “While the earth remains, / Seedtime and harvest, / Cold and heat, / Winter and summer, / And day and night / Shall not cease” (Gen. 8:22). As such, it is a universal covenant, for Noah is the father of us all. God’s covenant with Noah, moreover, is universal in two ways—in space and in time.

First, space, and all that it contains. The covenant with Noah is the Lord’s guarantee that His disposition toward His creation will forever stay gracious, that His grace will be hierarchically expressed in the very structure of the natural universe, linking higher and lower natures in a wise and eternal order, and placing all of it under the governance of a provident God.

In particular, the human being, who stands near the top of this covenanted hierarchy of natures, remains forever the special object of God’s salvific attention, and the contract with Noah found its fulfillment in the Incarnation, the Redemption, and the preaching of the Gospel. The very movement of the sun across the sky was regarded by St. Paul as symbolizing the advance of the apostolic proclamation (cf. Rom. 10:18). God’s everlasting mercy is written in the heavens.

Second, time. As we have seen, Genesis 9 lays particular stress on the permanence of God’s covenant with Noah. It is the contract that binds each generation to both the generations gone before and those yet to appear. History itself thus becomes hierarchical, as each new generation, learning its language (and therefore the structured patterns of thought and evaluation) from the one preceding it, submits in faith to the accumulated wisdom of ages past, and then, it is hoped, enhances and further refines that wisdom for the children still to come. The covenant with Noah is, thus, our sacred partnership with history—what Edmund Burke calls “the contract of eternal society,” extending down through the centuries, joining the living with those who have already passed on, with those yet unborn, but most of all with the God who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

This permanent and universal covenant with Noah is the foundation for what the Romans called “piety,” the cultivated, deep, heartfelt respect for our stewardship of tradition, for the ancestral associations whence derives our identity, and for the gracious God above who sanctions the order of the world and invests it with the majesty of His wisdom.

Monday, June 21

Mark 3:13-19: The “authority” (exsousia) that Jesus has manifested in teaching (1:22) and in driving out demons (1:27) is now shared with the Twelve (3:14-15), who are promptly named. Accounts of these Twelve are found here and in 6:7-13, and in both instances these accounts appear in proximity to stories of Jesus’ blood relatives (3:21 and 6:1-6), as though to suggest that this group of disciples are to be His new family.

The selection of these Twelve may profitably be compared to Numbers 1:1-15. For example, Peter’s name, “Rock,” finds a correspondence in the names of two of Moses’ companions: Eliesur (“God is my rock”) and Surisadai (“the Almighty is my rock”). Similarly, like James and John, two of Moses companions are blood brothers. Moreover, as in the Book of Numbers, Jesus chooses these Twelve on the mountain (verse 13). We should also note that this list of the Twelve ends on the theme of the Lord’s Passion: “and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him” (verse 19).

Acts 11:27—12:4: The famine mentioned here (verse 28) fell in the reign of Claudius (A.D. 41-54), evidently the year 46 (cf. Josephus, Antiquities 20.101). In prophesying this famine, Agabus is the spiritual heir of ancient Joseph in Egypt. The transfer of this charitable donation to relieve the famine (verse 29) becomes the occasion of Saul's’ second visit to Jerusalem since his conversion.

Acts 12, from the perspective of chronology, is something of a "flashback." Luke’s narrative so far has taken us up to the year 46. Now, however, he looks back to the reign of Herod Agrippa I (A.D. 37-44), and more specifically to the end of that reign. He will return us to A.D. 46 at the end of this chapter.

Psalm 89 (Greek and Latin 88): This psalm is composed of three parts. The first has to do with God’s activity in the creation of the heavens and the earth, the second with His covenant and promise with respect to the house of David, and the third with certain crises of history that threaten that covenant and put its promise at peril. All three themes are organically connected. In fact, all of God’s dealings with this world are of whole cloth, including the grace of creation. All the historical covenants are expressions of the one covenant. From the beginning of time there has been only one God, one Lord, one faith.

One especially observes the recurrence of two expressions in this psalm: mercy (five times) and truth (seven times).

Tuesday, June 22

Mark 3:20-30: In response to His exorcisms in Chapters 1 and 3, Jesus’ critics advance the accusation that He is using demonic force to expel demons.

The Lord’s answer breaks into three parts: (1) Their accusation violates logic, implying that the demonic world had radically turned on itself (verses 23-26); (2) The expulsion of the demons is much more plausibly explained by their having met a superior force (verse 27); (3) The accusation itself is an act of blasphemy, because it ascribes to the demons what is in truth accomplished by the Holy Spirit.

Such a confusion of light and darkness indicates total intellectual and moral depravity—so radical a commitment to evil as to preclude repentance. The scribes’ accusation of blasphemy (2:7) is thus turned back on them (3:29).

In the course of His argument, Jesus uses certain plays on Aramaic words that are rather lost in translation (whether English or the inspired Greek!). For example, the “house” in verse 25 is zebul in Aramaic, which is part of the name “Beelzebul” (“lord of the house”). Similarly, the verb “divide” (verses 24-26) is pharas, which is the root of the word “Pharisee.”

Acts 12:5-19: For a proper understanding of this story of Peter’s imprisonment, it is important to make note of the time when the event happens. Peter is delivered from prison at the Passover, the very night commemorating Israel’s deliverance from bondage in Egypt. As the angel of the Lord came through the land that night to remove Israel’s chains by slaying the first-born of Israel’s oppressors, so the delivering angel returns to strike the fetters from Peter’s hands and le
ad him forth from the dungeon.

And as Israel’s earlier liberation foreshadowed that Paschal Mystery whereby Jesus our Lord led all of us from our servitude to the satanic Pharaoh by rising from the dead, so we observe aspects of the Resurrection in Peter’s deliverance from prison. Like the tomb of Jesus, Peter’s cell is guarded by soldiers (verses 4,6). That cell, again like the tomb of Jesus, is invaded by a radiant angelic presence, and the very command to Peter is to "arise" (anasta —verse 7). It is no wonder that in regarding Rafael’s famous chiaroscuro depiction of this scene in the apartments in the Vatican (over the window in the Stanza of Heliodorus), the viewer must look very closely, for his first impression is that he is looking at a traditional portrayal of the Lord’s Resurrection.

And what is the Church doing during all that night of the Passover? Praying (verses 5,12); indeed, it is our first record of a Paschal Vigil Service. Peter’s guards, alas, must share the fate of Egypt’s first-born sons (verse 19).

Wednesday, June 23

Mark 3:31-35: The Lord’s own blood relatives have already been introduced in a negative way in 3:21, assessing Jesus as “out of His mind” (exseste; cf. the same assessment of the Apostle Paul in Acts 26:24 and 2 Corinthians 5:13).

In the present scene these relatives are endeavoring to reach Jesus, but the press of the crowd, as seems often to have been the case (cf. 2:2; 5:31), prevents their entrance into the house where He is teaching. They remain “outside” (3:32). Mark thus introduces the distinction between “outsiders” (hoi exso) and “insiders” (hoi esso), which will function in Jesus’ teaching in parables. The “outsiders” are those to whom it has not “been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God” (4:11). In the present scene the Lord’s own relatives, because they have not yet understood Him, fall into that category. Jesus’ real family, He says, is made up of those who do the will of God (3:35). Fortunately, as we know, even the Lord’s relatives will become “insiders” to the kingdom in due course (cf. Acts 1:14), but the principle remains that true kinship in Jesus is a matter of the Spirit and not of the flesh.

Acts 12:20—13:3: This scene of Herod meeting with the Phoenician delegation is also described by another writer contemporary to the event, Flavius Josephus, who includes a gripping depiction of Herod’s silver robe glistening in the sunlight. Like Luke, Josephus mentions their addressing him as a "god." The action of the angel who kills Herod Agrippa I in verse 23 stands in contrast to the angelic liberation of Peter, narrated earlier in this chapter. The description of Herod’s death is usefully compared to the death of the blaspheming Antiochus Epiphanes IV in 2 Maccabees 9:5-28.

Immediately after telling the story, Luke takes us forward again to A.D. 46. Barnabas and Saul, having delivered the collection for the famine to the church at Jerusalem (11:30), leave to return to Antioch, taking with them John Mark, a younger kinsman of Barnabas (12:25; cf. Colossians 4:10).

Then begins the story of Paul’s three missionary journeys, which will occupy the next several chapters. We observe that Antioch has now risen to the status of a missionary center (which it has remained unto this day). Indeed, the very severe political climate in Jerusalem in the late 60s, culminating in the destruction of that city by the Romans in the year 70, caused Antioch to surpass Jerusalem as a missionary center in the East. In the year 325, these three churches (Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch) were made the patriarchal churches, each having oversight of the other churches in those three continents that shape the Mediterranean Sea.

Thursday, June 24

Newborn John: In 1050 a monk named Guido died in his hometown of Arezzo in Italy. Few people nowadays have heard of him, but Guido d'Arezzo is one of the most important names in cultural history. Nearly anyone with even a nursery level education is in debt to Guido d’Arezzo. It was Guido that invented the system of staff notation used in music to the present day. He is also the inventor of solfeggio to designate the notes of the diatonic scale. His name, Guido, provides the first note used in solfeggio—the note “do.”

Now, just why are we talking about Guido d’Arezzo on the feast of St. John the Baptist? Well, three hundred years before Guido there lived another monk named Paul the Deacon. This monk is best known for his history of the Lombards, but he also composed liturgical hymns in his spare time. One of those hymns he wrote for today’s feast, the birth of St. John the Baptist. The first stanza of that hymn goes like this:

"Ut queant laxis" = "so that your servants"
"Resonare fibris" = "may sing with relaxed throats"
"Mira gestorum" = "of the marvels"
"Famuli tuorum" = "of your works,"
"Solve poluti" = "dissolve the stain"
"Labii reatum" = "from their lips,"
"Sancte Johannes" = "Holy John"

If you look closely at each of these seven lines, you find that the second to the seventh line read: “re-mi-fa-so-la-si.” Each of these syllables moves up one note each on the diatonic scale. When, three centuries later, Guido d’Arezzo worked out the details of his solfeggio, he took each note from the first syllables of Paul the Deacon’s hymn of the feast of John the Baptist.

Because of this very important point in the history of culture, perhaps we may begin our reflections on John the Baptist on this point.

First, John the Baptist was a distinctly cultured man. In fact, today’s Gospel says a great deal about the roots of culture. John was a Jewish priest by inheritance and blood. His mother was from the tribe of Levi, and of his father we read that he was a priest of “the division of Abijah.” He was the heir of a great spiritual legacy, and very early in life he began to assimilate that inheritance.

How early? According to today’s Gospel he was in his sixth month of gestation. Even at that age, however, he had already assimilated enough of his religious inheritance that he leaped in his mother’s womb at the sound of Mary’s voice and the approach of the Son of God that she carried.

That is to say, even three months before he was born, and without the slightest ability to reflect critically on his existence, he was already a believer. He already had faith, a faith proportionate to his age and condition. He was in possession of an infant’s faith, the only kind of faith of which he was capable. This is why, eight days after his birth, he was circumcised as a member of God’s people.

This infant faith has been essential to the history of the Christian Church, because it is a fact that the great majority of Christians did not come to the Christian faith as adults, but as infants and children. We baptize the infant members of the Church for exactly the same reason that John the Baptist was circumcised eight days after his birth. That is to say, such children are already believers, just as John the Baptist was a believer.

In the case of John the Baptist, moreover, this faith began before he was born. His ears could already hear the prayers of his mother and father. He could already listen to the hymns they sang at home and in the temple. The sounds of their voices were already giving shape to his soul. In proportion to his tiny abilities, his culture was already taking shape. He was already assuming his place in history.

This must be true of all the children that we raise in the Church of God. Through all five of their senses, we instruct them about who they are and what they believe. We give them their faith. Because they are already believers, we baptize them, we chrismate them, we place the Holy Communion in their little mouths. We hand these children their inherited culture. We insert them into salvation history.

Second, John the Baptist was a man of character. We observe that John was never shaky about who he was. The lines of his identity were firmly in place; he had what the Greeks called “character.” He was severely tried over the course of his life, but he seems never to have had an identity crisis. He appears in the Gospels as a man of unusual self-confidence—enough self-confidence to call his whole generation to repentance! He was not afraid of the religious authorities in Judaism, and he was not the least intimidated by the political authorities that would eventually take his life.

He held his identity as a matter of memory, memory earlier than his ability to recall critically. This memory, for John, was primitive, more aboriginal than mere recollection. The man that finally placed his neck on the block for his beheading is the same person as the child that was awakened by the voice of the Virgin Mary as he nestled in his mother’s womb. Through all the vicissitudes of his life, there was a personal continuity in John the Baptist.

Third, John the Baptist was a humble man. Knowing quite clearly who he was, he was equally clear about who he wasn’t. In fact, John was much queried on this point: “Now this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you, that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?” He said: ‘I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord.’”

Because he devoted his life to the service of God, it was obvious to John that he was not God. Knowing who he was, and being faithful to who he was, John did not try to be somebody else. Of his cousin, Jesus of Nazareth, John said, “He must increase, and I must decrease.”

Because he knew the identity of the Christ, and indeed identified Christ to his contemporaries, John did not think of himself as very important. That is to say, he was a humble man. And in John’s case we perceive that humility has nothing to do with self-doubt or a lack of self-assurance. His humility came from his relation to Christ; it was not some sort of psychological game that he played with himself.

For this reason, John continued to grow, as the Evangelist Luke wrote of him. He increased in character as he grew in humility.

Friday, June 25

Second Samuel 13: David, it seems, was not the ideal father, and this chapter presents us with first evidence that all was not going well on the home front. Incestuous rape and murder are not favorable signs. Indeed, the tragedies in the present chapter put the reader in mind of David’s own actions with respect to Bathsheba and Uriah, a sexual offense followed by a murder.

Ammon himself was the crown prince of the realm, David’s heir apparent, and the devout reader will discern the hand of God in his removal from the scene. A man that would rape his half-sister was no fit heir to the throne. Unlike his father, Ammon did not repent; indeed, he did not even perform the minimum obligations toward Tamar required in the Mosaic Law (Deuteronomy 22:28-29).

Arguably worse in the context, however, was the neglect of David himself, who refused to deal with the terrible situation. David became angry, but that was all (verse 21). This failure to deal discipline with his son puts the reader in mind of Eli at Shiloh, who also was indulgent toward his sinning offspring. David’s own moral failures had evidently deprived him of the moral authority to chastise his own children, and this failure eventually led to rebellion and civil war.

Having waited two years in vain for David to deal with the situation (verse 23), the frustrated Absalom, Tamar’s full-brother, decided at last to take charge of the matter himself. He was able to do this because he sensed a vacuum of authority in the realm, a vacuum that he tempt him, we know, even further in the near future. David’s kingdom will soon come unraveled.

Acts 13:4-12: Chapters 13-14 narrate Paul’s first missionary journey during the years 47-48, also mentioned in 2 Timothy 3:11. The apostles depart from the port of Seleucia, which, sitting sixteen miles west, served the city of Antioch. They first visited the homeland of Barnabas, the island of Cyprus, which had a good number of Jewish inhabitants (cf. 1 Maccabees 15:23). The ruins of the ancient city of Salamis, on the east coast of the island, can easily be reached by taxi from the nearby modern city of Famagusta, and, if the visitor is as fortunate as myself, the taxi driver will include a private tour and some local fresh oranges for a reasonable price.

It will be standard practice for the apostle Paul, when he comes to evangelize any new city, to pay his first visit to "the synagogue of the Jews" (13:5,14; 14:1; 16:13; 17:10,17; 18:4,19; 19:8; 28:17,23). (Indeed, this expression, "synagogue of the Jews," is preserved on a small marble plaque that once adorned the synagogue at Corinth; it may be seen today in the small museum in that city.)

Traversing the length of Cyprus, the apostles arrive at Paphos on the island’s southwest coast. Here they make the right impression on the local proconsul, Sergius Paulus, by putting a false prophet in his proper place. Sergius Paulus, of the illustrious Roman family Paula, was well known in his day and is mentioned by name in inscriptions from Cyprus, Antioch in Pisidia, and Rome. Easily ranking the Centurion Cornelius of Caesarea, Sergius Paulus becomes the most highly placed Roman official to join the Church.

Friday, June 11

Saint Barnabas: Although the history of icons may give us an idea of what some early saints looked like (the very primitive sketch of Peter and Paul in the excavation under the Vatican, for example), it is generally hard to gain knowledge of this sort from the New Testament. It is true that, unless the expression “of short stature” in Luke 19:3 refers to Jesus (which is grammatically possible), we know that Zacchaeus the tax collector was not tall, and we are probably justified in suspecting that Mary of Bethany was blest with ample tresses (cf. John 11:2; 12:3). On the whole, however, the New Testament is not a copious source for such information.

There is a major exception in the case of Barnabas. We really do have a good idea of what Barnabas looked like, because some ancient devotees of Zeus mistook him for the object of their devotion.

It happened in the city of Lystra, where Paul had just healed a life-long cripple. In immediate response to this marvel, the citizens of the city “raised their voices, saying in the Lycaonian language, ‘The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!’” After that, matters got very much out of hand. In the enthusiasm of the moment, “the priest of Zeus, whose temple was in front of their city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, intending to sacrifice with the multitudes.” Because of the language barrier, which apparently required them to speak through an interpreter, it took several minutes for the two apostles to put a stop to the business, but they eventually did so, proceeding then to preach one of the shortest sermons in history (three verses). Even then, says the text, “with these sayings they could scarcely restrain the multitudes from sacrificing to them” (Acts 14:8–18).

Now the curious point here is that the crowd, persuaded that the gods had just arrived in town, took Barnabas for Zeus. It was somewhat natural, given their premise, that they thought Paul to be Hermes, the messenger god, “because he was the chief speaker.” Indeed, it was Paul who had healed the lame man with a simple command. But why Barnabas as Zeus? It must have had something to do with his appearance. These folks would never have taken an average-looking guy to be Zeus.

Now it happens that we know exactly what sort of fellow those people thought Zeus, should he ever come to visit his temple, would look like, because Zeus is portrayed in dozens of extant old art works and described in scores of ancient texts. This “father of gods and men” was massive in height and powerfully muscular in bulk. His great brow extended broad and serene over clear, far-seeing eyes, and a full majestic beard lay upon his barrel chest. Brother to Poseidon, god of the sea,
Zeus, when he condescended to speak, spoke with the deep rumblings of oceanic authority. Now this . . . this is what the citizens of Lystra saw in Barnabas! No wonder they were impressed.

In fact, they never quite lost their awe in the presence of Barnabas. A few days later, when some Jews from Iconium arrived and stirred up the crowd against the two apostles, it was Paul that they stoned, nearly to death. Nobody dared throw a stone at Barnabas! (14:19–20)

The impressive appearance of Barnabas was matched by his generosity and nobility of soul. He made one of the first large financial donations to the Christian Church, and it was the trusted Barnabas who could introduce the recently converted Saul of Tarsus to the frightened Jerusalem church, oversee the new ministry at Antioch, lead the first mission to Cyprus and Pisidia, and later restore young John Mark to the mission field (4:36–37; 11:22–25; 13:2–14; 15:36–39). Reassured even to be in the presence of this huge, competent, and gentle human being, all Christians knew Barnabas as the “Son of Consolation.”

Saturday, June 12

First Samuel 31: A useful maxim of the life of grace may be this: “I am just as likely to offend God because of my virtues as I am because of my vices, and if ever I am completely undone, my fall will more probably involve my strengths than my weaknesses. Consequently, in the spiritual life it is highly deceptive and even perilous to ‘play to my strengths.’”

Each of us, when we place our lives under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit, brings along an assortment of personal traits, to be regarded as either strengths or weaknesses depending on their compatibility with that guidance. For example, some individuals are already possessed of a certain natural patience and a spontaneous sense of humble deference.

Perhaps they were raised that way in their youth. These qualities are strengths, of course, inasmuch as the Holy Spirit leads us to patience and personal humility. Such a person is less likely to sin by impatience and arrogance.

But suppose that same person, playing to his strengths, concentrates his mind’s attention mainly on patience and deference, which he may do simply because these virtues come more easily to him. Watch for such a one to offend God by failing to be properly impatient and appropriately intolerant in circumstances where impatience and intolerance are the only godly options. This seems to be the fault of which the Apostle Paul accuses Barnabas in Galatians 2:13.

Thus, too, a person naturally given to righteous zeal, when playing to this strength, may sin by making too abrupt a decision (David in 1 Samuel 25). Someone else, with a temperament disposed to gravity of soul, if he overly indulges this strength, may wax morbid in his heart and become despondent (Elijah in 1 Kings 19). Again, someone tolerant by native instinct may fail to impose discipline when it is morally necessary (Eli in 1 Samuel 2). Another, falling prey to a mix-up between divine grace and excessive adrenaline (a confusion common among those possessed of the latter), commits himself beyond his strength (Simon Peter in Matthew 26:33). In King Saul, it would seem, we find a man ultimately done in by that very quality that had initially made him so effective a servant of God. His executive impatience, the charismatic can-do that was his clear strength against the Ammonites in 1 Samuel 11, grew to monstrous proportions throughout the ensuing chapters, until King Saul, unto his own ruin, was completely dominated by it. Far from being improved by playing to his strength, Saul made it an instrument of his destruction.

Sunday, June 13

Acts 9:1-9: We are not free to choose the framework and shape of our repentance—surely this is one of the clearest teachings of the Bible. Jesus “poured water into a basin,” says the Sacred Text, “and began to wash the disciples’ feet” (John 13:5). The Lord determined the basin, the instrument that gave specific contour and dimensions to the shape of His cleansing water. He then came to each of the disciples, one by one, and they understood that they had to put their feet into that basin, so that
He could wash them.

In other words, the Lord Himself chooses the manner and pattern of our washing; how we are cleansed by Christ is not a decision for our personal choice. “Here is the bowl,” the Lord’s action affirms; “put your feet right in here, this specific basin, and I will wash you clean, for if I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”

This truth was among the most important that Saul of Tarsus had to learn, and God took special care that he learned it well. As he was ruefully to reflect so many times during his later life, Saul had been a persecutor of the Holy Church (1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:13,23; Philippians 3:6; 1 Timothy 1:13). “As for Saul,” we are told, “he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison” (Acts 8:3). So when the Lord converted Saul on the road to Damascus, He made an explicit point of obliging that persecutor to submit to the Church that he had afflicted.

Some modern Christians imagine that they can come to God by
“Christ alone and not by an organized religion,” but the Lord would suffer Saul to entertain no such illusion. On the contrary, in Saul’s conversion Jesus most explicitly identified Himself with the Church: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? . . . I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (9:4, 5). It was in this moment that Saul learned that Jesus and His Church are inseparable.

Thus, Saul would never be able to say that he came to God by “Christ alone and not by an organized religion.” Indeed, after Jesus identified Himself to Saul, He gave him not one word of further direct instruction. When Saul asked Him, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Jesus simply directed him to make that same inquiry of the Church: “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do” (9:6).

That is to say, not even the Apostle Paul, in the very hour of his conversion, was permitted to deal with Jesus “one on one.” The contour and shape of his repentance had to be determined by a specified “organized religion.” Paul would have no “personal relationship to Jesus as
Lord and Savior” except through obedience to the doctrine, discipline, sacramental worship, and corporate life of the Church; he could not have a “personal relationship to Christ” on his own terms. Apart from the Church, the saving knowledge of God in Christ was not available even to St. Paul. He was constrained, rather, humbly to submit his heart and conscience to the divinely commissioned authority of that same body of Christians that he had hitherto been persecuting.

Paul’s sins were not taken away simply by his “asking Jesus to enter his heart.” There is nothing in the biblical text to suggest that he did any such thing on the road to Damascus. On the contrary, Paul’s sins were taken away by his deliberate submission to the Church’s sacramental discipline: “Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16), because he “who believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16). Paul was obliged to adhere to the same procedure as every other believer, a prescription enunciated in the
Church’s very first sermon on Pentecost: “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins”
(Acts 2:38). Paul was forgiven his sins in exactly the same way required of everyone else—by joining the sole organization in this world that has the authority to forgive sins (cf. John 20:23).

Surely, then, it was in the experience of his conversion that the
Apostle Paul received the seed of all his later teaching about the Church, which he identified as “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). Paul knew nothing of any non-institutional Christianity. He was familiar with no Christ except the Christ of the Church—that constituted, organized communion of believers so intimately identified with Christ as to be called His “body” (Ephesians 1:22; 4:15–16; 5:23; Colossians 1:18, 24).

Monday, June 14

Mark 1:40-45: The leper’s hypothesis (“If you are willing . . .”) expresses, not a doubt about Jesus’ ability to cleanse him, but about His to do so. Ostracism and other social aspects of the man’s condition have evidently taken their toll, and the plight of this leper is pitiful indeed. The Lord’s response is to reassure the man’s wavering soul (“I am willing”), even as He reaches out to touch his afflicted skin.

The better and more likely manuscript reading of verse 41 ascribes anger to Jesus in this instance. This is not the response we would expect; in truth, if “moved with anger” were not in the original text, it is nearly impossible to imagine how that expression would ever have made its way into the manuscripts that have it. This most improbable response of anger on the part of Jesus is doubtless what caused later copyists to change the reading to “moved with compassion,” the more expected response.

What, then, causes Jesus to be angry here? Surely He is not angry with the poor leper who kneels before Him. More likely He is angry for what the man has suffered, the years of sustained humiliation that have so reduced the man’s spirit that he even doubts Jesus’ willingness to help him.

In reaching out to touch this leper, moreover, Jesus violates the letter of the Law, thereby assuring His own legal contamination. This is a gripping image of Jesus’ assumption of our fallen state. Jesus, in touching the leper, assumes that contamination. The final verse is this story is telling: “[the healed leper] went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the matter, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter the city, but was outside in deserted places.” This reversal is full of redemptive irony; when the story begins, Jesus can go wherever he wishes, but the leper must stay outside of the city limits. By the end the story, the leper can go wherever he wishes; it is Jesus who must stay outside the city.

Psalm 79: After the four horsemen had appeared, all carried on mounts distinctive in color, and the earth had been ravaged with their fourfold affliction, the Lamb of God reached forth to break the fifth seal of the great scroll. St. John tells us what he saw when that seal was opened: “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony (martyria) which they held” (Rev. 6:9).

These are the souls of the martyrs, which means “witness-bearers,” and they are said here to be “under the altar” because their blood, poured out as in sacrifice, lies uncovered at the base of the altar. In the Bible, that is to say, the “soul [or “life”] is in the blood” (cf. Lev. 17:11, 14; Deut. 12:23). Their holy blood, unjustly shed, cries out to God “with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’” (Rev. 6:10).

This “How long?” finds expression in Psalm 79 (Greek and Latin 78): “Help us, O God our Savior; for the sake of the glory of Your name, O Lord, deliver us, and forgive us our sins for the sake of Your name, lest the nations say: ‘Where is their God?’ Let the vengeance of the blood of Your servants, which was poured out, be known among the nations in our sight. Let the groaning of the prisoners come before You. With Your enormous arm take charge of the children of those who are slain. To our neighbors render sevenfold in their bosoms the contempt with which they have contemned You, O Lord.”

The Bible gives us no reason to believe that a prayer for the vindication of God’s judgment should be a particularly gentle prayer, for the judgment of God really is a judgment. It is not ambiguous or hazy. That is to say, it really does make decisions; it says, clearly and very emphatically, “this but not that.” God’s judgment really does know the difference between sheep and goats. There is no danger that God will mistake Abel for Cain.

Therefore, as our psalm surveys the ravages and wastes of our sinful history, with God’s house laid in ruins and the holy city “reduced to a fruit market,” with the corpses of God’s servants given as food to the fowl of the air and the beasts of the field, and “their blood poured out like water round about Jerusalem,” we join our voices with the martyrs who cry aloud “How long?” to the Lord holy and true.

Tuesday, June 15

Mark 2:1-12: There are three points for consideration in this story:

First, this is a parable about the Church, and, more specifically, about the faith of the Church. The story says specifically that Jesus looked upon the faith of those who lowered the paralytic man into His presence. He forgave and healed that paralytic because of the faith of those who presented him to receive mercy and healing from the Lord.

This man did not come to Jesus on his own. He was carried by a community of faith. The faith that He sees is not the faith of the paralytic. Not one word is said in the Gospel about the faith of the paralytic. Jesus sees the faith of those who are supporting the paralytic, and it is on the basis of their faith that He says to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven you.”

Faith in Jesus is not an individual enterprise. It is the participation in the assent of the Church. There is not such thing as faith in Jesus that does not bind us one to another. The only personal relationship we have to Jesus includes a sharing in the faith of the Church. The Church is not a secondary or unimportant consideration in the Christian life. There is no such thing as a Christian life apart from the Church.

Second, in bringing this man to Jesus, the Church resorts to violence. A family’s home is destroyed in this story. In removing the roof of this house, these men proclaimed that “family values” are not the final criterion of the Kingdom. What does Jesus say about “family values”? “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He who loves wife and children more than me is not worthy of me.” The destruction of that family’s roof illustrates the description of the Gospel enunciated by Christ our Lord: “The Kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent carry it away.”

Third, Jesus forgives this man’s sins, which is the basis for the charge of blasphemy brought against Him. The most significant thing about the paralytic is not his paralysis, but his “sins.” Consequently, this is what Jesus addresses first. The primary “healing” in this story is the healing from sin, because sin is the more radical problem.

Indeed, even when He heals the man’s paralysis, Jesus does so in order to demonstrate His authority over the man’s sins. In what He does in this scene, then, Jesus inserts Himself between God and the man, speaking to the man with God’s authority. It is not without significance that this story also includes the detail that Jesus could, like God, read His accusers’ inner thoughts.

This story demonstrates that the reason Jesus can forgive sins is that by His death on the Cross He really does take away sins. He can forgive sins because He pays the price for their remission. He forgives sins, because He washes them away in His blood. Jesus is the friend of sinners, not just in the sense that He is chummy with them; He is the friend of sinners in the sense that He alone is able to do something about their sins.

This is why, in our sins, we g
o to Jesus, the real Jesus that we find in the Gospels. We don’t take our sins to a judge but to a Savior, and a Savior is what the paralytic finds in this Gospel story.

Jesus reads thoughts of the human heart, both good thoughts and bad thoughts. His eyes penetrate into the hearts of those who lower the paralytic through the roof, and He sees their faith. Likewise, His eyes peer into the hearts of these critical scribes, and He perceives their animosity. Jesus reads all thoughts. The dispositions of each heart are open to His glance, and the secret thoughts of every mind are laid bare to His sight.

Jesus must know all sins, because He dies for all sins. His knowledge of hearts is commensurate with His love for them. Nothing is concealed from the sight of the Savior. Few men can read very deeply into their own hearts, and nothing is more common in this world than self-deception about our hearts. But the vision of Jesus the Savior goes deeper still. Even if our hearts condemn us, wrote St. John, He is greater than our hearts and knows all things.

Wednesday, June 16

2 Samuel 4: On two occasions, as we saw, David had refrained from taking the life of Saul, and on the second of these Saul himself was asleep (1 Samuel 24 & 6). In the mind of honorable David such an action was considered dishonorable beyond contemplation. We are not surprised in the present chapter at his reaction to the murder of the sleeping Ishbosheth (verses 9-12). Such an atrocity was repugnant to the classical chivalric spirit of the warrior David.

David’s reaction here is of a piece with his response to the murder of Abner in the previous chapter. David, throughout the difficult days during which he was a fugitive in the Judean desert, had placed his trust in the justice of God and refrained from taking matters into his own hands. The present act of treachery, the murder of Ishbosheth, was exactly what could be expected, David believed, if men placed political and military expediency above moral principle.

Prior to telling this story of the death of Ishbosheth, however, the author pauses to insert a single verse on Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan. This quiet insertion, without comment, prepares for the lengthier treatment of this important character in chapter 9. With the death of Ishbosheth, tShis poor cripple becomes the last heir of Saul’s house. This insertion, then, introduces a point of great historical irony.

Mark 2:13-17: Like the previous conflict story, this second one also portrays Jesus as teaching (2:2,13). It is significant that His teaching takes place at the waterside, and it is here that He summons Levi.

This new disciple, because he collects taxes on behalf of the hated Roman overlord, belonged to a class of citizens odious to most Jews (except the Herodians, who favored Roman rule), and especially to Israel’s rabbinical leaders, identified here as “the scribes and Pharisees.” Moreover, when Levi invites all his friends to a party, so that they may meet Jesus, Jesus shows no concern at all for the scruples of those who oppose such things. He comes to Levi’s house and enjoys what appears to have been a jolly good time. It was from this occasion, apparently, that Jesus’ enemies tagged Him as a partygoer (Matthew 11:18-19) and a friend of sinners. The Lord nowhere disowns this latter label. Indeed, He is certainly the friend of sinners.

After all, He has demonstrated that He knows exactly what to do with sins, and in the present scene He gathers the sinners unto Himself as special objects of His mission (verse 17). To the shock of the Pharisees, He insists on being the sinners’ friend who suffers and dies to redeem them, and one of the great ironies of the Markan gospel is that Jesus’ enemies are the very ones who make this redemption possible.

Thursday, June 17

2 Samuel 5: This is a very important chapter of political transition. Abner’s adherence to David, followed quickly by the death of Ishbosheth, prepares the way for David’s assumption of authority over all of Israel. His capital still at Hebron, David had reigned over Judah since the Battle of Gilboah in 1000 B.C. The present scene brings us to about 992, some seven and a half years later, when David assumed complete power over Israel and moved his capital to Jerusalem, a recently captured city, which, because it belonged to no particular tribe of Israelites, would less likely be subject to tribal rule and tribal rivalries. David’s reign at Jerusalem was to last until 961 (verse 5).

David, having great plans for Jerusalem, establishes diplomatic and commercial relations with the Phoenicians to Israel’s immediate north (verses 11-12). It is the Phoenicians that will provide the sundry materials for the construction of a new city on that site, including the Temple that David’s son would eventually construct.

A chief reason prompting the northern tribes to place themselves under David’s rule, surely, was the need for a common defense against the Philistines, who had so soundly defeated Saul’s army at Mount Gilboah. Consequently, dealing with those Philistines, now that he has a larger army, becomes David’s first order of business (verses 17-25).

Mark 2:18-22: Notice how these five conflict stories in Mark (2:1—3:6) are linked to one another. The first two (the paralytic and Levi’s friends) are joined by the theme of Jesus dealing with sin. Now the third of these stories is joined to the second by the theme of eating, which will also be the linking image between stories three and four. (Four and five, in turn, will be united by the theme of the Sabbath.)

Whereas the Lord’s enemies had earlier complained of His eating with sinners (2:16), in this third story they are bothered by the fact that His disciples are failing to keep the Jewish weekly fast days. We know from the Mishnah and the Talmud that devout Jews regularly fasted on Mondays and Thursdays, two days equally distant from the Sabbath, to commemorate the forty days fast of Moses on Mount Sinai (the first of those being a Thursday and the last a Monday). Indeed, the Pharisee in the parable boasted of observing that discipline (Luke 18:12).

In response to their query, Jesus does not denigrate the importance of fasting but directs the structure of the fasting observance to His own person, explaining that His presence with the disciples is sufficient warrant for their not observing the fast (verse 19). Then, aware what His enemies are even now plotting against Him, He foretells His coming death, “when the Bridegroom will be taken away.” Then, says Jesus, fasting will be appropriate. “They will fast on that day,” He declares, in our earliest reference to the traditional Friday fast that Christians maintain to give weekly honor to the Cross of their Lord. By the year 100, and perhaps decades earlier, the Christians added Wednesday as another weekly fast day (the day on which Judas sold Him — Mark 14:1,10), so as not to be fasting less than the Jews did (cf. Didache 8). To the present day the Christian churches of the East maintain this discipline of fasting on Wednesday and Friday each week.

Friday, June 18

Acts 10:34-48: Among the polarities employed in the Bible’s treatment of salvation, that of universality and holiness is perhaps the easiest to describe. Universality is wide, and holiness narrow. We are bidden by the former, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28), while the latter declares, “Unless you repent you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3, 5). The first is inclusive and brims with encouragement, whereas the second is restrictive and hurls out a challenge. Thus, when the principle of universality proclaims that
God “desires all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4), the principle of holiness answers that “narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:14).

The tension inherent in this polarity is first theological, to be sure, hinting at the mysterious confrontation of God’s freedom with man’s. But because salvation is worked out in history, we are not surprised to find the tension between universality and holiness taking shape in discrete contingent forms. For example, against the backdrop of the Roman Empire’s political universality, the Acts of the Apostles portrays the strain that the early Church felt between her universal call to mission within that world and the stern demand laid upon her to be a people set apart from it. That is to say, the theological tension assumes flesh as a tension of history, and then again, issuing from the pen of St. Luke, a tension of narrative.

Within Luke’s lengthy account of how that theological tension was maintained by the counterweights of history, the conversion of Cornelius and his friends is of central importance. So the story is worth revisiting under the aspect of that consideration.

Cornelius’s entrance into the Christian Church is especially significant, not only because he is a Gentile, but also because, in his military office, he represents the Roman Empire. In this representation Cornelius is prefigured by Luke’s earlier centurion at the foot of the Cross, who pronounced Rome’s final verdict, as it were, on Jesus of Nazareth: “Certainly this was a righteous man!” (Contrast Luke 23:47 with Matthew
27:54 and Mark 15:39.) In this adjudication the representative of a political universality receives the grace to discern, by the light of universal norms of righteousness, that Jesus at least meets the common standards of a moral claim. In this respect he takes Rome’s first step in favor
of Jesus and is, thereby, the forerunner of Cornelius. It is for this reason
that the Acts of the Apostles will end in Rome (28:13–16).

The story of Cornelius is told with great care. Indeed, it is told twice, once by Luke as narrator and once by Cornelius himself. (Peter’s part is also told twice, by the way—once by Luke and once by Peter.) As angelic announcements solemnly indicated the beginning of the Gospel (Luke 1:11, 26; 2:9), so this coming mission to the Roman Empire is announced by an angel (Acts 10:3). The calling of Cornelius is, for Luke, a decisive step in the universalizing of the Gospel, foreseen by the prophetic Simeon’s “light to bring revelation to the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32). It is Peter’s reception of this centurion into the Church that prepares the universal mission (and trip to Rome) of Paul, himself converted in the previous chapter.

In the tale of Cornelius, even the time frame is easy to find. Since we know that the angel instructed him on one of the weekly Jewish fast days (Monday or Thursday), and since we should presume that Peter would not have traveled from Joppa to Caesarea on a Sabbath, we may be quite sure that the “four days” of the story began on a Monday (Acts 10:9, 24, 30).

These references to fast days (and the maintenance of the “canonical hours” —10:3, 30) are also relevant to our theme, for they indicate the “holiness” pole in the tension of salvation. Cornelius represents, not only the universality of grace, but the restricting efforts of spiritual discipline. Luke describes him as “a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always” (10:2). Praying, fasting, and giving alms are not incidental to the story. Cornelius is told, on the contrary, “your prayer has been heard, and your alms are remembered in the sight of God” (10:31). Both universality and holiness pertain to the picture.

A. Friday, June 4

1 Samuel 23: Three episodes make up the narrative of this chapter: first, David at Keilah (verses 1-13); second, Jonathan and David together (verses 14-18); and third, Saul’s further pursuit (verses 19-28).

The complex episode at Keilah, in which David delivers the city from the enemies of Israel, may be contrasted with the story of Nob, in which there was no one to deliver the city from the King of Israel.

Faced with reports of the Philistine siege of Keilah, David is uncertain of his course: Does he dare take his modest guerilla band to fight the besiegers, even as Saul pursues him with a large army? David is no coward, but He also does not want to tempt the Lord by presumption.

Well, then, there is nothing for it but to consult the Lord, and recent events have made this recourse a bit easier. When Abiathar fled from Nob, he took with him the oracular ephod used by the priests to discern God’s will (verse 6). David, who appeals to this source several times in the present chapter, seeks guidance about what to do about Keilah. He consults the oracle once for himself, and then again to reassure his men. The answer, both times, is “Go for it!” He does, and a might victory ensues (verses 1-5).

Saul, who should have been the one to help Keilah, learns that David is now in the city, behind its walls. Aha, says he to himself, now we’re got him. Forthwith, the king proceeds to march toward Keilah.

David now confronts a new dilemma: Should he stay and take a stand in Keilah, to face Saul’s inevitable siege of the city, or does he flee before Saul arrives? There is a more direct way of posing the question: Will the citizens of Keilah protect David from Saul as he protected them from the Philistines?

On the face it, there is every reason to believe that the people in Keilah will be unwilling to put themselves at risk. They know what Saul just did to Nob, when he believed that city had aided David. David, again guided by oracular counsel, leads his men out of Keilah. It is a close call, nonetheless, and David is afraid (verses 14-15).

Jonathan, learning David’s whereabouts, leaves Saul’s force and comes to visit his friend in the Judean Desert (verses 16-18). On this, their final meeting, they renew their fraternal covenant.

One surmises that if Jonathan can ascertain the whereabouts of David, so can Saul, and he does. Just as he is about to move on David, however, a messenger arrives to report that the army is needed elsewhere, to counter another Philistine attack. David experiences, yet again, a providential mercy.

Before Jonathan departs from his friend, he professes certainty that David will inherit the throne. He adds that Saul, too, knows this. Thus, the reader is given an update on the state of Saul’s mind: He is aware of the hopelessness of his cause; he is conscious of resisting the inevitable.

This resistance, nonetheless, is still pretty strong. Relying on further reports of David’s whereabouts in the southern desert, Saul again advances and closes in on him. Just as the situation seems critical for David, word reaches Saul that he must break off the pursuit and journey back to deal with those pesky Philistines (verses 19-28). Divine Providence strikes again.

Saturday, June 5

1 Samuel 24: When Saul’s jealousy and dangerous behavior drove David from the royal court, he was obliged to wander, much like an outlaw, in the desert regions in the south of Judah. Harassed and pursued by the army of the increasingly deranged king, David was constantly on the move, he and his small band of friends, hiding here and there as chance provided, often hungry and always exposed to danger. Saul had put a price on David’s head, moreover, so there was the added peril of betrayal; the king’s spies might be anywhere.

David’s plight was dire indeed: “in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness,” “being destitute, afflicted, tormented,” while wandering “in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth” (2 Corinthians 11:27; Hebrews 11:37-38).

The present reading tells the story of David’s concealment in another cave, this one at Engeddi, just west of the Dead Sea, where Saul had led a military detachment to apprehend the young fugitive. The circumstances of this encounter draw attention to two features of the story, both of them typical of this whole period of David’s desert wandering:

First, there is the quiet, subtle working of Divine Providence, whereby the Lord protects David from capture and delivers his enemy into his power. This theme will be repeated in the next two chapters, the story of David and Nabal, and a second encounter with Saul.

Second, David shows mercy to Saul, whom he yet regards as Israel’s rightful king. This trait of mercy will also be manifest (and put to the test) in the two chapters that follow.

Throughout this period of great hardship and relentless persecution David learned by experience that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). God has “called” David to become the next and better king, and David must bide God’s time and pleasure to reveal that call.

Sunday, June 6

Acts 7:17-26: The stories we have been reading in the Book of Acts present something of a scandal or stumbling block to many of our contemporaries, people who presume that this universe is self-contained and self-explanatory. Although we think of this presumption as a modern objection to the Gospel, truly it is not. The claims of the Gospel—and in particular its message of the sovereignty of God—were just as objectionable in the first century as they are in the twenty-first.

The Gospel proclamation of the sovereignty of God was an inspiration to ridicule at the time of the Apostles, and their demonstration of that sovereignty through miracles and signs was an affront to their contemporaries dearly held persuasion that this universe is self-contained and self-explanatory. Those in the Sanhedrin spoke for opponents of the Gospel even today, whey they declared, “What shall we do to these men? For, indeed, that a notable miracle has been done through them is evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it” (Acts 4:16).

What are the presuppositions of those who believe that the universe is self-contained and self-explanatory? Why is the Gospel such an affront to those persuaded that the universe is a closed entity? We may summarize their objections, I believe, in what are known as the three laws of thermodynamics:

The first law of thermodynamics affirms the conservation of energy. This law presumes a closed universe in which energy can be neither created nor destroyed. According to this law, energy is a stored quantity, substantially identical to the matter of the universe itself.

But do we find in the Acts of the Apostles? We find the evidence of an entirely new source of energy, distinct from any force or matter in the universe itself. We read of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as an entirely new thermodynamic font.

For example, There is the character of Stephan, of whom we are told, “Stephen, full of grace and power [dynamis], did great wonders and signs among the people.” In Stephan we witness activity dependent on no energy source inherent in this world.

Imagine the frustration of those who encountered Stephen! It is no wonder the Bible says, “they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed their teeth at him” (7:54).

Modern men, like ancient men, have no objections to religion as such—–religion as responding to a human need, a need explainable within the universe itself. A Stephen, however, is simply intolerable. Stephen had no interest in satisfying what men thought to be their religious needs. Stephen bore witness to the sovereignty of God.

The second law of the
rmodynamics affirms, "in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state." This is usually called the law of entropy, the law of disorder and corruption.

But what do we find in the proclamation of the Gospel? The very first words of the Gospel affirm the most radical and complete reversal of the law of entropy—the resurrection of the dead!

And how does the world respond to this affirmation? Let us look at the response of the most liberal, freethinking, and open-minded of men: those gathered on the Acropolis at Athens. It is of these that the Bible says, “all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear something new” (17:21).

But when Paul announces something truly and completely new—the resurrection of the dead—what is their response? Luke tells us: “And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, ‘We will hear you again about this’” (17:32).

The “something new” of the Athenians did not include the sovereignty of God, especially over the forces inherent in the universe they thought to be closed.

The third law of thermodynamics affirms that as the temperature approaches absolute zero, all processes cease and the entropy of the system approaches a minimum value. That is to say, it does not reach absolute zero, because this would mean absolute destruction; the final entropy of a system is a defined constant.

But what do the Apostles proclaim? “You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth. ? And the heavens are the work of Your hands. ? They will perish, but You remain;? And they will all grow old like a garment;? Like a cloak You will fold them up,? And they will be changed.”

According to the Gospel, these heavens, which have remained the same for millions of years, will be rolled up like a scroll, and this solid earth will cease to be. Even the laws of physics will bow to the sovereignty of the God who made them.

The Gospel preached by the Apostles is a particular proclamation of the sovereignty of God—what He has done in this world and what He soon will do. God has visited this world with the transcendent energies of His Holy Spirit and has placed in the composition of human existence and human experience a new source of life and power. He has done this by raising His Son from the dead and thereby placing immortality into human biochemistry.

Monday, June 7

John 19:25-42: The description of the Lord's death in the Gospel of John shows every sign of conveying the word of an eyewitness. Indeed, the Sacred Text itself calls attention to the first-hand reliability of this testimony: "And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe" (John 19:35). Two details in John's testimony seem worthy of special examination.

First, in its description of the Lord's death, John's very suggestive wording is unique among the Four Evangelists: paredoken to pnevma(verse 30). Generally, alas, that uniqueness is obscured in the standard English translations. They usually run something like this: "And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit" (NKJV). I confess that I have not found an English translation that substantially differs from this.

Leaving aside the tender detail about the bowing of the Lord's head in death, nonetheless, such a translation is seriously inadequate. Paredoken to pnevma, wrote John. To translate this as "he gave up His spirit" deprives the sentence of more than half of its meaning. Taken literally (which is surely the proper way to take him), John affirms that He "handed over the Spirit."

That is to say, the very breath, pnevma, with which the Lord expired on the Cross becomes for John the symbol and transmission of the Holy Spirit that the Lord confers on His Church gathered beneath. Support for this interpretation is found in the risen Lord's action and words to the apostles in the upper room in John 20:22, "He breathed on them, and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit (labete pnevma hagion).'"

Consequently, John's description of the death of Jesus—"He handed over the Spirit"—portrays the Holy Spirit as being transmitted from the body of the Lord hanging in sacrifice on the altar of the Cross. It is John's way of affirming that the mission of the Holy Spirit is intimately and inseparably connected with the event the Cross.

This interpretation, besides being faithful to the verb's literal sense, is consonant with John's theology as a whole. It was the Cross and Resurrection of the Lord-what John calls His glorification-that permitted the Holy Spirit to be poured out on the Church. John told us earlier that "the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (7:39).

Second, John records another detail of the scene not mentioned by the other Evangelists: "But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out" (19:34 NKJV).

Taken together, then, John records three things as issuing forth from the immolated body of Jesus: the Spirit, the water, and the blood. These have to do with the gathering of the Church at the foot of the Cross, because this is the place where the Lord's identity is known: "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM" (8:28 my translation).

These components appear also in the covering letter for John's Gospel as the "three witnesses" of the Christian mystery: "And there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three are one" (1 John 5:8 my translation).

Speaking of the gathering of the Church, the Lord had declared, "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." John went on to comment, "He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die" (12:32-33 ESV). It is the gathered Church, then, that receives the witness of the Spirit, the water, and the blood at the foot of the Cross, thereby knowing the Son of Man's identity as "I AM". This is the revelation given in the testimony.

This threefold "witness" to Jesus has particular reference to the Sacraments of Initiation, those mystic rites by which believers are gathered into the Church: the water of Baptism, the Holy Spirit conferred in the seal of Chrismation, and the Blood consumed in the Holy Communion. These three things are theologically inseparable; that is to say, "these three are one."

In this threefold initiation into the mystery of the Cross believers are "once enlightened" in Baptism, become "partakers of the Holy Spirit" in Chrismation, and "taste the heavenly gift" in the Eucharist (Hebrews 6:4).

This threefold benediction is inseparable from its source, which is the Son of Man's body hanging in sacrifice. Each component of this grace derives from that same font.

Tuesday, June 8

An Outline of the Gospel according to St. Mark

Introduction (1:1-13): Jesus is introduced to the reader as God’s Son, especially in verses 1 & 11.

Part I. The mystery of Jesus as Messiah is progressively revealed to the others in the story, first the demons and then the disciples. In this section there are three parts, each beginning with a summary, containing a pericope about the disciples, and ending with some mention of unbelief, called blindness or hardness of heart. This first half of the Gospel of Mark closes with Peter’s Confession of Jesus as Messiah, which leads immediately into the second half of the Gospel.

Jesus with the crowd and the Jewish Leaders (1:14—
3:6)1.	Summary of the Gospel (1:14-15)2.	The Call of the First Disciples (1:16-20)3.	The Teaching of Jesus With Power and Miracles (1:21-45)4.	The First Disputes With the Enemies (2:1—3:5)a.	Forgiveness of the Paralytic (2:1-12)b.	The Tax Collectors (2:13-17)c.	The Question of Fasting (2:18-22)d.	Lord of the Sabbath (2:23-28)e.	The Man With the Withered hand (3:1-5)B.	The Unbelief of the Pharisees (3:6)

Jesus and the Disciples (3:7—6:6a)1.	Summary of Healings and Exorcisms (3:7-12)2.	The Choice of the Twelve (3:13-19)3.	Jesus Withdraws With His Disciples (3:20-35)4.	Jesus Teaches His Disciplesa.	By Four Parables (4:1-34)b.	By Four Miracles (4:35—5:43)  5.  The Unbelief of Jesus’ Compatriots (6:1-6a)

 C.  The Messiah is Revealed to His Disciples (6:6b—8:26)		  1.  Summary of Healings (6:6b)	      2.  The Mission of the Twelve (6:7-13)           3.  Jesus and John the Baptist (6:14-29)           4.  The Bread Cycles in Parallel              a. The First Cycle (6:30—7:37)The Multiplication of Loaves            (6:30-44)                       Boat Trip (6:45-56)                       Dispute With Pharisees (7:1-13)                       Discourse on Bread (7:14-30)                       Healing of Speech and Hearing                                       (7:31-37) b. The Second Cycle (8:1-30)           Multiplication of Loaves (8:1-9a)           Boat Trip (8:9b-10)            Dispute With Pharisees (8:11-13)            Discourse on Bread (8:14-21)            Healing of Sight (8:22-26)                         (cf. 10:46-52)

	The End of Part I: Jesus Confessed as Messiah (8:27-30)

Part II. The Sufferings of the Son of Man, and the Resurrection of the Lord

A. Three Prophecies of the Passion and Resurrection (8:27—10:52) The important word in this section is “way” (hodos), referring to the Way of the Cross. This word appears in 8:27; 9:33-34; 10:17,32,46,52. It indicates the theme. This section finishes with the second enlightenment of a blind man, who then “follows” Jesus on the “way.” 

	1. The First Prophecy   a. Passion and Resurrection Foretold (8:31)b. Disciples Fail to Understand the Cross (8:32-33)c. Jesus Instructs About the Cross (8:34—9:1)d. Transfiguration and Elijah (9:2-13)e. Healing of the Epileptic Child (9:14-29)		2. The Second Prophecy			    a. Passion and Resurrection Foretold (9:30-31)			    b. Disciples Fail to Understand the Cross (9:32-34)			    c. Jesus Instructs About the Cross (9:35-57)			    d. Marriage, Children, Economy (10:1-31)		3. The Third Prophecy			    a. Passion and Resurrection Foretold (10:33-34)			    b. Disciples Fail to Understand the Cross                                              (10:35-37)			     c.  Jesus Instructs About the Cross (10:38-45)B.				     d.  Healing of Sight (8:10:46-52) (cf. 8:22-26)

The Revelation in Jerusalem (11:1—12:37) 1. The Messianic Entry (11:1-11)		 2. The Fig Tree and the Temple (11:12-25)		 3. The Final Disputes With the Enemies (11:27-33)				a. The Priests and Others:                     The Authority of Jesus (11:13—12:12)b. The Herodians and Pharisees:   Tribute to Caesar (12:13-17)c. The Sadducees: The Resurrection (12:18-27)d. The Scribes:    The First Commandment (12:28-34)e. A Question About David (12:35-37)f. Jesus Denounces the Enemies (12:38-40)g. The Widow’s Mite:   Link With the Next Discourse (12:41-44)

The Eschatological Discourse (13:1-37)

D. The Death of the Son of Man (14:1—16:8)1. The Plot, Anointing, and Betrayal (14:1-11)    		2. The Last Supper (14:12-25)		3. The Agony in the Garden (14:26-52)		4. The Trial by the Sanhedrin (14:53-65)		5. The Denials of Peter (14:66-72)		6. The Trial by Pilate (15:1-15)		7. The Way of the Cross and the Death of Jesus (15:16-41)		8. The Burial of Jesus (15:42-47

	E. The Resurrection of the Lord (16:1-20		1. The Empty Tomb (16:1-8)		2. The Post Resurrection Appearances (16:9-20)

Wednesday, June 9

Acts 8:5-13: Chapter 8 will treat of the ministry of Philip, Steven’s companion (6:5), chiefly concentrating on his dealings with two types of people who were regarded as “outsiders” with respect to Israel: Samaritans and eunuchs. Through Philip’s preaching, both of these are now brought into the Church, illustrating a standard Lukan theme of the raising up of the downtrodden and the dispossessed.

Philip’s preaching in Samaria, like that of Stephen in Jerusalem, is accompanied by miracles, especially the expulsion of demons (verses 6-7). The most notable of his converts, Simon Magus, was also the most troublesome. Justin Martyr, himself a Samaritan, tells us that Simon came from the hamlet of Gitta in Samaria (First Apology 1.26,56; Dialogue with Trypho 120.6). In spite of having his own enthusiastic following, Simon, persuaded by the preaching and especially the miracles of Philip, was baptized.

The next scene, however, indicates that his conversion was still something short of complete. Simon’s endeavor to purchase spiritual authority by means of money has given us the word “simony.”

Psalm 72 (Greek and Latin 71: Two narrative sections of Holy Scripture readily come to mind in connection with the themes of Psalm 72. The first text is 2 Samuel 7, containing Nathan’s great prophecy about the royal house of David, which now became the beneficiary of a special covenant to guarantee that his descendants would reign forever over his kingdom. A number of lines of our psalm, especially those pertaining to the permanence and extension of David’s royal house, reflect that historical text.

The second pertinent passage is 1 Kings 3, which describes Solomon’s prayer for the “wise heart” that would enable him to govern God’s people justly. Repeatedly throughout this psalm mention is made of the justice and wisdom that would characterize God’s true anointed one.

Both aspects of Psalm 72, as well as the two narrative texts that it reflects, proved to be more than slightly problematic in Israel’s subsequent history. For example, Solomon’s vaunted wisdom as a ruler, that for which he had prayed at Gibeah, didn’t last even to the end of his own lifetime, and it was displayed among his posterity with (not to put too fine a point on it) a rather indifferent frequency. Similarly, what is to be said about the permanence of the reign of David’s household over God’s people? More than half of that kingdom broke away shortly after the death of David’s first successor; nor was any Davidic king ever again to reign on his throne after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. What, then, could be said for either the prophecy of Nathan or the prayer of Solomon? How were the promises in this psalm to be understood?

As Christians, of course, we believe that the inner substance of all these prefigurings finds its fulfillment in Jesus the Lord, the goal of biblical history and the defining object of all biblical prophecy.

The Archangel Gabriel announced the fulfillment of these ancient prophecies when he told the Mother of the Messiah that “the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32, 33). Yet other angels announced to the shepherds that “there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ [Messiah] the Lord” (2:11). He was to be at once David’s offspring and His Lord (cf. Mark 12:35–37).

As for Solomon, was he the wise king? Well, in measure, to be sure, but now behold, a greater than Solomon is here. If Solomon?
??s wish was to rule God’s people wisely and with righteousness (a word that comes repeatedly in our psalm), what shall we say of the One whom the New Testament calls our wisdom and our righteousness (1 Cor. 1:24, 30)?

Thursday, June 10

Psalm 74: Asaph the Seer, as he contemplates the works of Creation, perceives both conflict and covenant. In the poem that he devotes to this double consideration (Psalm 74 in Hebrew, 73 in Greek and Latin), he moves back and forth between these two themes, but my prose analysis of the poem is better served, I believe, by taking them in sequence. I propose to start where Asaph starts: with conflict.
The current state of Creation, Asaph perceives, is a constant fight against chaos. He begins his meditation, then, by wondering out loud whether God has cast off—in anger and forever—the sheep of His pasture. The poet returns to this theme repeatedly, distressed that those who hate God are glorified. He is bewildered that the sanctuary is destroyed, and he is scandalized that blasphemy walks the earth unchecked. Chaos prevails without reprieve, with neither sign nor prophet to contradict it. What can the just man do but lament and pray for deliverance?
As he laments, however, Asaph reflects that the very act of Creation was a deed of deliverance. Making things from nothing, the Lord did battle. Nothingness was not neutral. Existence is not natural to nothingness. God, therefore, conquered a force perverse to His purpose. Centuries before parting the Red Sea, He divided more ancient waters, cleaving the fountains and the flood, cracking open the multiple heads of the sea monster in order to feed, with their meat, the peoples of Ethiopia. Creation, that is to say, was the initial Exodus, a deliverance from bondage, a redemption from the deep dungeon of non-being. The Lord smote that more ancient Pharaoh and fed him to His hungry creatures.
Creation, then, was a both moral and metaphysical act. The Lord imposed a moral order in the very act of conferring a metaphysical form. When the Lord took hold on the tohu wabohu and invoked His light over the darkness of the abyss, He wrought salvation in the midst of the earth. He did this in the sense that in the very heart of Creation, its arche or principle, there is a deed of redemption, the world's deliverance from the oppression of primeval chaos.
Consequently, it is to that very ancient deliverance that Asaph appeals when He prays God to rise once more in vindication of His cause against the wicked and the daily blasphemer.
In making this prayer, the poet explicitly invokes a covenant inherent in the act of Creation. Respice in testamentum Tuum, he pleads, "Look upon Thy covenant." He means the covenant which man, when he entered the world on Creation's sixth day, found already in place. This covenant's preamble had been composed on the second day, when the Lord, with a firmament, divided the waters. The first article of the covenant was composed on the third day when the dry land appeared and began to grow food for those who were to live upon it.
This covenant of Creation, necessary for all the subsequent covenants of salvation history, was formulated for the sake of man. It gave initial shape to the congregation that God possessed from of old, the rod of the inheritance that He redeemed, even as He dried up the rivers of Ethan and destroyed the demon of the deep. By reason of this covenant, Asaph reflects, God is our king before the ages.
On the fourth day, the Lord inscribed into His covenant the possibility of history, by placing a chronometer into the composition of the universe: "Thine is the day, and Thine is the night. Thou hast crafted—Tu fabricatus es—the dawn and the sun." This chronological shape of existence, too, was intended for the sake of man, the only creature able to reflect on the measure and meaning of time.
In the covenant of Creation, then, God formed both space and time, consecrating the first by His sanctuary and the second by the liturgical calendar.
Of all the evils lamented by Asaph, therefore, the worst are the desecrations of sacred space and sacred time. God's enemies destroyed the first with ax and fire, the second by the suppression (quiescere faciamus) of feast days. Man becomes the Lord's enemy in the space dedicated for worship (inimicus in Sancto) and glorifies himself in the sacred time set aside to glorify God (in medio solemnitatis Tuae). Both space and time are thus defiled. Man, by this desecration of his life, returns Creation to the primeval chaos. Living outside the covenant inherent in structure of the world, he endeavors to undo what God has done.

Friday, June 11

Saint Barnabas: Although the history of icons may give us an idea of what some early saints looked like (the very primitive sketch of Peter and Paul in the excavation under the Vatican, for example), it is generally hard to gain knowledge of this sort from the New Testament. It is true that, unless the expression “of short stature” in Luke 19:3 refers to Jesus (which is grammatically possible), we know that Zacchaeus the tax collector was not tall; and we are probably justified in suspecting that Mary of Bethany was blest with ample tresses (cf. John 11:2; 12:3). On the whole, however, the New Testament is not a copious source for such information.

There is a major exception in the case of Barnabas. We really do have a good idea of what Barnabas looked like, because some ancient devotees of Zeus mistook him for the object of their devotion.

It happened in the city of Lystra, where Paul had just healed a life-long cripple. In immediate response to this marvel, the citizens of the city “raised their voices, saying in the Lycaonian language, ‘The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!’” After that, matters got very much out of hand. In the enthusiasm of the moment, “the priest of Zeus, whose temple was in front of their city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, intending to sacrifice with the multitudes.” Because of the language barrier, which apparently required them to speak through an interpreter, it took several minutes for the two apostles to put a stop to the business, but they eventually did so, proceeding then to preach one of the shortest sermons in history (three verses). Even then, says the text, “with these sayings they could scarcely restrain the multitudes from sacrificing to them” (Acts 14:8–18).

Now the curious point here is that the crowd, persuaded that the gods had just arrived in town, took Barnabas for Zeus. It was somewhat natural, given their premise, that they thought Paul to be Hermes, the messenger god, “because he was the chief speaker.” Indeed, it was Paul who had healed the lame man with a simple command. But why Barnabas as Zeus? It must have had something to do with his appearance. These folks would never have taken an average-looking guy to be Zeus.

Now it happens that we know exactly what sort of fellow those people thought Zeus, should he ever come to visit his temple, would look like, because Zeus is portrayed in dozens of extant old art works and described in scores of ancient texts. This “father of gods and men” was massive in height and powerfully muscular in bulk. His great brow extended broad and serene over clear, far-seeing eyes, and a full majestic beard lay upon his barrel chest. Brother to Poseidon, god of the sea,
Zeus, when he condescended to speak, spoke with the deep rumblings of oceanic authority. Now this . . . this is what the citizens of Lystra saw in Barnabas! No wonder they were impressed.

In fact, they never quite lost their awe in the presence of Barnabas. A few days later, when some Jews from Iconium arrived and stirred up the crowd against the two apostles, it was Paul that they stoned, nearly to death. Nobody dared throw a stone at Barnabas! (14:19–20)

The impressive appearance of Barnabas was matched by his generosity and nobility of soul. He made one of the first large financial donations to the Christian Church, and it was the trusted Barnabas who could introduce the recently converted Saul of Tarsus to the frightened Jerusalem church, oversee the new ministry at Antioch, lead the first mission to Cyprus and Pisidia, and later restore young John Mark to the mission field (4:36–37; 11:22–25; 13:2–14; 15:36–39). Reassured even to be in the presence of this huge, competent, and gentle human being, all Christians knew Barnabas as the “Son of Consolation.”