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Morning Devotion for the Season of Christmastide

January 2, 2023

Invitatory

Behold, the dwelling of God is with mankind. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them, and be their God. 

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.

Reading: Psalm 103:1,6-14

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

The Lord works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed.

He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel.

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

He will not always accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever.

He does not deal with us according to our sins

nor repay us according to our iniquities.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion for his children,

so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.

For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.

Meditation – Peter Vanderveen

It has come and gone, the one day each year when, collectively, we choose to set new directions and make resolutions. We will dust off the peloton and trim our waistlines, and we will become improved versions of ourselves. Out with the old; and in with some yet unrealized determination that, we expect, will be revitalizing. New Years is a day of great, willful enthusiasm – a clean slate.

The reality about most resolutions, however, is that, after a fairly short period of time, they are abandoned. The old has a way of resolutely hanging on to us. We can’t just shake it off. Consequently, the very resolutions we had hoped would buoy us often prove wearying; they serve more as reminders of how challenging it is to change something that has become ingrained.

Religion (and more specifically Christianity) is commonly regarded as our willful acquiescence to specific demands that require resolutions on our part. It informs us that we are supposed to be better than we are. We tell ourselves (because this is what God always, already says) that we should be more conscious of the needs of others and that we ought to be more sacrificial, seeking their welfare even at our own expense. We routinely do the wrong things and fail to do the right things (does this sound familiar?). So we resolve to change – some of us week by week, others when other commitments don’t get in the way, and for some others whenever there are religious holidays that, like New Years, are broadly observed. And yet, no matter how often we make and reiterate these resolutions, they are subject to the same fate as any others. Real change is difficult to achieve. The old remains.

So maybe it would serve us, in retrospect, to revisit a portion of the text that was appointed for yesterday, at the turning of the year.

Psalm 103 is an emphatic rejection of the deeply ingrained misunderstanding that Christianity demands resolutions on our part. Its perspective is clear. The only resolution that matters is not ours but God’s. God has resolved something. God has chosen the one, distinct action that will define his divinity. God’s resolution is to be forgiving. And God’s forgiveness has an infinite scope. This, and this alone, is what makes all things new. Nothing of the past is held against us. Nothing old is carried forward. None of us will be judged according to what we deserve. For love operates differently. It’s an amazing declaration, which, in the actual practice of life, we ferociously resist – because it’s plainly and grossly unfair.

For in our minds, “vindication and justice” can’t be accomplished apart from the laying down of some sentence of penalty and condemnation. Those who are worse than we, those who have caused harm, must be judged. We depend on this. We can’t imagine any other way to live. But this is also to concede that nothing truly new can shape our future. The old will and must impose itself… eternally! Right?

About this, the psalmist fervently disagrees. Look at the concentration of his rhetoric. Its whole focus is on the transformative effect of God’s love, which God gives, which we receive, which takes away all the power of the old. The resolution of God is that our vindication is God’s mercy and God’s justice is God’s grace. They are one and the same. God’s resolution is dramatically a re-solution, by which our future is fully defined by God’s compassion alone. Which makes faith, then, our willingness to let God be God in precisely this way – endlessly and inexhaustibly on our behalf. God has opened the new for us.

Nothing can be more revitalizing than this.



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,

     and the power, and the glory,

     for ever and ever. Amen.