Morning Devotion for Monday in Holy Week
April 11, 2022
The Invitatory
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Reading: 2 Corinthians 1:1-7
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To the church of God that is in Corinth, including all the saints throughout Achaia:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ. If we are being afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation; if we are being consoled, it is for your consolation, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are also suffering. Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our consolation.
Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones
We have just experienced the highs and lows - crowds cheering joyfully at Jesus’ triumphant entrance to Jerusalem to betrayal and desertion leading to Christ’s crucifixion - that engender a distinct, troubling emotional turmoil. We are surprised, yet we almost welcome the seeming providential selection of this portion of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians to assist us in regaining our emotional equilibrium on this Monday in Holy Week.
Initially, we might just hear the invocation of “grace” a little differently today. We, now, no doubt, have become accustomed to Paul’s usage of the word at the beginning of his letters. Today, let us cherish this invocation in light of where we are placed in Holy Week and, indeed, the world. We need to be reminded, encouraged and uplifted. ``Grace is the ongoing speaking of God through which something comes out of nothing.” And for us we then can live through these moments fraught with suffering and deep sadness in joyful anticipation. Grace is present to us even in this moment.
Instead of beginning the letter with a thanksgiving, which he does in other letters, Paul begins with a blessing that calls on God, “the Father of all mercies and the God of all consolation,” who consoles us in all our affliction so that we may be able to console others in any affliction with the same consolation. This blessing is reminiscent of a central theme in the Old Testament — that God saves and liberates us from whatever is oppressing us so that we can be of service to others. In this blessing, we find a practical understanding of God’s response to evil, sin, and suffering. And it gives us a description of what God’s salvation is all about: it is not just a “comfort” that now immunizes us from others’ suffering or worse becomes an ideology that we use to control or manipulate them. Rather, it creates a basis for a distinct kind of overflow of reciprocity. It calls up the partnership in suffering and comfort that characterize the life of the body of Christ and binds the apostles to the congregation.
At the center of all this are the sufferings and consolations of Christ, which overflow within and through us. Christ’s sufferings for all become both a means of abundant consolation and grace amid our own suffering, as well as, a means to unite us with Christ so that we too share in both his suffering for others and in the abundant overflow of his consolation that spills over through him and within us, and now on to others.
In Christ, we now have a different way interpreting all that happens to us: all our affliction now becomes the means for others’ consolation and affliction; and all the consolation we receive is such that it not only consoles us but others as well as they endure the same suffering.
Paul’s hope for the Corinthians remains unshaken; this overflow of Christ’s sufferings and consolation is the very basis for an authentic sharing or communion not only between him and them, but also among them — where they share in one another’s sufferings and joy.
The Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
