Friday, August 13
Mark 15.42-47: Old Testament Joseph was confident that his original burial in Genesis 50:26 was a temporary arrangement, for he knew that his body would eventually leave Egypt and go to the Promised Land. In holding such a confidence, he is well regarded as a symbol and type of the Christian hope.
Theologically speaking, after all, we Christians do not “own” our sepulchers; we borrow them from Christ, somewhat as he borrowed his from Joseph of Arimathea. Jesus holds the very mortgage on our tombs. Our sanctified bodies are not cast out from his presence; they are laid to rest in Hakel-dama, the burial ground of strangers, “the field of the Blood,” that sacred plot purchased at so high a price.
Contrary to the assertions of countless preachers, then, it is not the function of a Christian funeral to put someone in his “final resting place.” On the contrary, the very wording of a Christian funeral should go out of its way to emphasize that burial itself is a purely temporary housing arrangement.
This theology is reenforced by today’s reading about the man who loaned his grave to the Son of God. We do not know where Joseph of Arimathea lies buried, but we know that his body is not in the tomb that he had prepared for himself.
Acts 27.30-44: At midnight on the fourteenth day, still unable to see or navigate, they think they hear breakers pounding on a shore to the west and realize that they may be coming to land. This impression is confirmed when they take repeated soundings of their depth. Not knowing where they are but fearing that the ship may crash onto rocks that they cannot see, some panicking sailors rather imprudently plot to escape in the ship’s dinghy, which they lower off the bow. At Paul’s warning, however, the centurion orders the boat cut loose to float away into the night.
Meanwhile the crew, to prevent the ship’s continuing progress toward the unknown land, drop four poop anchors from the stern to hold it back. The situation during the rest of the night is tense, and no one has eaten very much during the past two weeks of storm. Finally it begins to grow light, and Paul suggests that breakfast would be a capital idea. Accordingly, he says grace. Everyone takes heart and begins to eat. Afterwards they throw the rest of the ship’s cargo overboard in order to make the ship ride higher in the waves as it approaches land. (That is to say, a lighter ship can be beached closer to the land.) They cut away the four anchors at the stern and endeavor, under foresail, to beach the ship on the shore of a bay. (This inlet, on the northeast coast of Malta, is still known locally as St. Paul’s Bay.) The ship, once its bow runs aground on a spar, begins to break up from the violence of the pooping waves. They all scramble for shore as best they can, and everyone arrives safely. It has been a very rough two weeks, and no one is sad that it is over.
Saturday, August 14
Psalms 107 (Greek & Latin 106): This psalm describes a series of adversities suffered by God’s servants, along with His continued intervention to deliver them from all such troubles. It is an historical meditation for attaining contemplative wisdom; its final line asks, “Who is wise and will guard these things, and will understand the mercies of the Lord?”
Among the distresses of God’s servants, as our psalm narrates them, we may identify two sections, one near the beginning and one close to the end, as dealing with the sufferings associated with the wandering of the people in the desert.
Between these two sections are three others that describe a situation of imprisonment or bondage, a sickness, and a storm at sea. All of these depictions are colorful and detailed. Two refrains bind all the parts together: “Then they cried to the Lord in their tribulation, and He delivered them from their every distress,” and “Let them confess the Lord for His mercies, and His wonders to the sons of men.” These various afflictions may be understood literally or by way of metaphor, or as combinations of these.
Thus, for instance, when two sections of our psalm speak of suffering in a waterless, trackless wasteland, this may be understood as referring to the return from the Babylonian Exile as well as to the earlier wandering of the Exodus generation. It may also include any experience of being lost and trying to find one’s way back home. Thus, it may describe the journey of a reckless son lost in a distant country and already given up for dead (Luke 15:13, 24). This son, in turn, may be Jacob exiled in Harran, where the drought consumed him by day, and the frost by night, and sleep departed from his eyes (cf. Gen. 31:40). And it may likewise be any one or all of us, exiled from the Garden and wandering away from the face of God. This part of the psalm, then, is a parable of ourselves “without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12).
Similarly, the psalm’s next part, dealing with bondage or imprisonment, may refer to Joseph sold into slavery, fettered in a foreign land and presumed already to have perished (Gen. 37). Or it may be descriptive of Micaiah (1 Kin. 22:26, 27), or Jeremiah (chapters 37—39), or John the Baptist (Matt. 11; 14), or the Apostle Paul (Acts 23—26). And it may refer to our spiritual captivity, of which Jesus said that He came to set the oppressed at liberty (Luke 4:18).
Then there is the section of the psalm describing conditions of sickness, which is potentially manifold in its applications. This could be a prayer during the deathly illness of King Hezekiah, for instance, or the affliction of the paralytics of Capernaum (Mark 2) and Bethesda (John 5), or the woman with chronic bleeding (Mark 5), or the lame man at the gate called Beautiful (Acts 3). To Jesus, after all, they brought “all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them” (Matt. 4:24). And the Lord’s healing especially concerns the forgiveness of sins (cf. Mark 2:5; John 5:14). This part of the psalm, then, is also a metaphor of our own various illnesses.
Likewise, when our psalm speaks of enduring a storm at sea, it may refer to the storm suffered by the shipmates of Jonah, or St. Paul, or the disciples on the Lake of Gennesaret, while Jesus yet slept in the stern of the boat. The fierce storm of this story may also indicate all of us as “children, tossed to fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting” (Eph. 4:14). Many and diverse are this world’s storms and hurricanes.
Our psalm is addressed to “those redeemed by the Lord.” Its historical meditation, that is to say, is directed to those who stand already “within” that history, the beneficiaries of its blessing. This is the Church, made up of “those whom He redeemed out of the hand of the enemy and assembled out of the lands.”
Sunday, August 15
John 2.1-12: The miracle in this story is not just the “first” of Jesus’ signs, it is the arche, the “principle,” the font from which the subsequent signs come forth. It is the transformational sign; it reveals the glory of Christ in such a way that his disciples, who have been with him only one week at this point, begin to believe in him.
The verb phaino is the root word for our English words “fantastic,” “fanatic,” and, simply “fan.” The disciples of Jesus start to become “fans,” fanatics, because they have perceived the transformation of the water into wine.
It was just inert water at one moment, but then suddenly it becomes alive. Wine is a living thing. (This is the reason wine, not grape juice, is required in Holy Communion.) The fermentation in the wine means that it is a living reality, and the transformation of water into wine signifies the mystery of the Resurrection.
This transition of the chemical to the biochemical is what catches the attention of the disciples. This is really a new thing, and they begin to believe in him.
The “Mother of Jesus”—for John never names her—is sensitive to the shortage of wine at the feast, a circumstance perhaps caused by the unexpected appearance of Jesus new disciples, disciples he acquired only within the previous week. The text says that the Mother of Jesus was “invited.” It does not say that Jesus and his disciples were invited. It simply says that they showed up. I have always suspected that their crashing the wedding feast may have been the reason the wine ran short.
It is the Mother of Jesus who first notices this, and she immediately assumes a mediating and intercessory on behalf of the newly-weds. First, she speaks to Jesus on their behalf. Second, she speaks to the waiters on Jesus’ behalf: “Do whatever he tells you.”
In John’s Gospel, the Mother of Jesus appears only here and at the foot of the Cross (19:26–27). Thus, John places Mary at both the beginning and the end of Jesus’ public ministry. Uniting John’s portrayal of Mary at the wedding at Cana (the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry) and at the foot of the cross (the end) is what we might call “the theme of the royal mother.” John stresses Mary’s maternal relationship to Jesus; his use of the term “mother of Jesus” seems to convey a certain reverence, much as it does in Luke’s portrayal of the nascent Church gathered in the upper room, waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Monday, August 16
Mark 16:9-20: Because these final verses of the canonical text of Mark are found neither in the more reliable manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) nor in other ancient versions (Armenian, Georgian, etc.), it is reasonably conjectured that we have received them from a hand later than Mark himself. It would appear that they were added by a copyist who felt that Mark 16:8 was too abrupt an ending, so he added these post-Resurrection appearances in order to make the ending of Mark more closely resemble the endings of the other gospels.
In fact, the components of this material is largely drawn from those sources: The story of Mary Magdalene (verses 9-11) is drawn from John and Luke; the account of the two journeying disciples (verses 12-13) is taken from Luke; the Great Commission (verses 14-18) is adapted from Matthew, Luke, and the Acts of the Apostles; and the Lord’s Ascension comes from Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.
These considerations, however, have to do solely with literary history, not theology. They impugn neither the divine inspiration nor the canonical authority of Mark 16:9-20, inasmuch as the Church has received this text as Holy Scripture.
Acts 28.11-16: When the time comes to depart, they once again sail an Alexandrian grain ship, which has wintered at Malta. Luke includes the detail that its prow is adorned with carved statues of Castor and Pollux, astral gods revered by the sailors who call upon them in times of storm. They sail to Syracuse, on the east coast of Sicily, where they remain three days while the crew unloads old cargo and takes on new.
They then cross over to a port on the Calabrian coast, Rhegium (modern Reggio), on the very toe of the Italian boot. Taking advantage of a southerly wind, they then sail up to Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli) on the Bay of Naples, where they find a congregation of Christians. Some of these Christians immediately rush north to Rome, 125 miles away, to inform the Christians in the capital that Paul is on the way. The apostle and his company, meanwhile, spend a whole week at Puteoli, before continuing their journey overland. Eighty miles later they come to Appian Forum, and, ten miles further, to Three Taverns; in both places they are met by Christians who had been forewarned of Paul’s coming by the Christians from Puteoli. They are all glad to see him, of course. They may be thinking of the letter that he wrote them three years earlier from Corinth.
Tuesday, August 17
Acts 28.17-31: Because he told them he was coming to see them (Romans 15:24), the Christians at Rome had had high hopes for his arrival. That was three years earlier, however, and those hopes had been lowered considerably by the rumor that Paul was languishing in prison in Caesarea (Acts 24:22).
Because the events at Caesarea the previous autumn, culminating in Paul’s appeal to a higher court at Rome, had transpired so late in the year–precariously close to the winter, when sea travel and communication were no longer undertaken–apparently no one in Rome had learned of those distant events. We do know that the Jews in Rome knew nothing about them (28:21), so they gain their first information on the matter three days after Paul’s arrival in the city.
He invites local Jewish leaders to meet at his lodging, where he is under house arrest (28:16-17). It is significant to Luke’s literary and theological purpose to record Paul’s last rejection by the Jews — the last of so many that he has recounted — in that very city which was the capital of the Gentile world, the city towards which the dynamism of this narrative has been directed. Paul is at last in the capital of the Roman Empire, the city so closely tied to his and Peter’s destinies. It is precisely here that Paul declares to the unbelieving Jews that “this salvation has been sent to the Gentiles” (28:18).
Joshua 8: If we knew only of Phineas’s decisive action at the time of the Moabite trouble, it might be easy to think of him solely as an energetic, resolute, executive sort of man, but this would be an incomplete perspective. Phineas was also a thoughtful person, able to consider a delicate question in its fully nuanced complexities.
This latter trait of his character was revealed in the crisis later created by the construction of an altar to the east of the Jordan River by the Israelites who lived in that region (Joshua 22:10). Regarded as a rival altar outside of the strict confines of the Holy Land, this construction proved so provocative to the rest of Israel that there arose the real danger of civil war (22:12). Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and the decision was made to establish an eleven-member committee of inquiry to investigate the matter. Phineas was the head of that committee (22:13-14).
Probing into the construction of that altar, Phineas’s committee concluded that it was not intended to be used as such but would serve merely as a monument to remind all the Israelites of their solidarity in the worship of their one God. Civil war was thus averted, and Phineas, once so swift unto bloodshed, was thus in large measure responsible for preventing it (22:21-34).
Wednesday, August 18
Amos 1.1-15: The first two chapters of this book contain the prophet’s condemnation of the nations in and immediately around the Holy Land. Each condemnation commences with the repetition, “for three offenses and for four.” In addition to its rhetorical flair, this device also indicates the number seven, the number of perfection and completion. The crimes of the nations, says Amos, are now complete; their guilt is fully ripe.
The condemnations begin with Syria, to the northeast of Israel, and its capital at Damascus (verses 3-5). This was the major military power in the region. By the time of Amos, Syria had waged numerous wars against Israel (1 Kings17—2 Kings 14), seizing territory and enslaving populations. Many of these battles had taken place in Gilead, the Transjordanian part of Israel, bordering Syria (verse 3). It had often been devastated (2 Kings 10:32-33).
Hazael (842-806), the founder of the current dynasty in Syria, had defeated the combined armies of Israel and Judah at the battle of Ramoth-gilead in 842 (1 Kings 22), annexing all of Transjordania. Benhadad III was his son.
The obscure mention of Kir (verse 5) apparently refers to the fall of Damascus to the Assyrians in 732, when this prophecy was fulfilled (2 Kings 16:9).
Amos now draws a line from Syria southwest to Philistia (verses 6-8), where four of its five ancient cities are still alive and engaged in evil. The prophet especially condemns its involvement in slave trade, a practice that was included in many ancient wars.
The mention of commerce in slavery then sends the mind of Amos up to the seagoing power of Phoenicia (verses 9-10). One recalls that it was largely Israel’s relations with Phoenicia, especially as enhanced by the marriage of Ahab to Jezebel (1 Kings 16:1) that had introduced so many moral defilements into the region.
Having previously traced a line southwest from Syria to Philistia, Amos now draws a line southeast from Phoenicia to Edom (verses 11-12), thus completing his “X that marks the spot.” Teman and Bozrah are two chief cities of the Edomites. This nation he condemns for betraying its ancient biological ties with Israel, inasmuch as the father of the Edomites was Esau, the twin brother of Jacob.
Having arrived in the south and just east of the Dead Sea, Amos next moves north along the east side of the Jordan to take account of Moab and Ammon. He begins with Ammon (verses 13-15). Its capital, Rabbah, is identical with the modern city of Amman, the capital of the nation of Jordan.
Thursday, August 19
Amos 2.1-16: Between Edom and Ammon sits the fertile plain of Moab. Its citizens, like those of Ammon, were descended from Lot, the offspring of his two daughters (Genesis 19:37-39). Hence they, like the Edomites, were related by blood to the children of Israel.
They, too, likewise fall under the censure of Amos (verses 1-3), specifically for the desecration of a tomb. Special mention is made of Kerioth, the cultic center of the Moabite god Chemosh.
Next comes the condemnation of Judah (verses 4-5), the nation of Amos himself (1:1). This condemnation differs from all the preceding in two ways. First, it does not single out any “social” sins, such as the slave trade (1:6,9), torture and slaughter (1:3), abortion (1:13), warfare (1:11), and tomb desecration (2:1). Second, offense of Judah is less specific. In the eyes of Amos, Judah has just lost its way in general.
At this point those listening to Amos may have breathed a sigh of relief. The prophet, having spoken against Judah, had reached the number seven (as we hope the attentive reader has noticed), the number of completion, so the listeners could be excused if they imagined him to be finished. So far, so good, they thought. Amos had done the complete number, but he had not mentioned them. In fact, they may have gone on to reflect, this Amos is making a lot of sense. He has identified all the bad guys, and it’s not us!
Imagine their shock, therefore, when Amos turned on them. He did so, moreover, for a full eleven verses, more than three times the length of any previous condemnation. No, said the prophet, Israel would not be spared. For its oppression of the poor (verse 6), its prostitution (verse 7), and its religious hypocrisy (verse 8), Israel deserved more punishment than those who had inhabited the Holy Land before them (verse 9).
No strength of their own would deliver Israel, he insisted. God is singularly unimpressed by the things that fallen man strives for, and He is not on the side of the strong (verses 13-16).
If the citizens of Israel felt, at this point, that Amos was laying it on a bit thick, they were not about to feel relieved. He still had seven more chapters to go.
Friday, August 20
Amos 3.1-22: This next section of Amos is made up of sermons that begin with “Hear!” (3:1—5:6) or “Woe!” (5:7—6:14). They are all directed against Israel, its capital Samaria sometimes serving as the equivalent.
The previous chapter had ended with a reminder of God’s redemptive favors toward His people (2:9-11). Israel is now chastised for failing to respond to the Lord’s generous call. They alone, of all the peoples of the earth had the Lord acknowledged as His own. Therefore, of them was more expected, and their punishment will be correspondingly more severe (verse 2).
We suspect that the people of Israel, at this point, challenged the credentials of Amos to address them in such terms, because we suddenly find him defending his mission to speak (verses 3-8). As we shall see, this was not the only occasion when Amos was thus challenged, and in this respect he puts the Christian reader in mind of the Apostle Paul who, beginning with the Epistle to the Galatians, seems always to have that preoccupation in at least the back of his mind. Prophets, apostles, pastors – they all have their credentials challenged from time to time.
In his own apologia Amos compares himself to a lion, which roars from instinct in certain situations. He can’t help it. When it is time to roar, the lion roars (cf. 1:2). It is the same with the prophet. When it is time to roar, he can’t help it. He roars, as though by instinct. And in the present time, Amos observes, there is plenty to roar about.
That point settled for the time being, the prophet returns to the attack, decrying the violence and oppression prevalent in Israel (verse 9), where a recent spate of prosperity has destroyed the people’s moral sense 9verrse 10).
From his experience as a shepherd (1:1), Amos knows about finding the body remnants of sheep devoured by wild beasts. This, he says, is an image of what will be left of Israel after the departure of the invader who is to come. His prophecy was fulfilled scarcely a generation later, when Israel fell to the Assyrian in 722.
Amos finishes this chapter with references to the luxurious lifestyle of Israelites that own more than one home, all extravagantly adorned (verse 15). His testimony on this point is amply illustrated and proved by the modern archeology on the sites of Israelite cities of the period.