Morning Devotion for Eastertide
April 29, 2022
The Invitatory
Alleluia. The Lord is risen indeed: Come Let us adore him.
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.
Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ..
Reading: Exodus 16:22-30
On the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, two omers apiece. When all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, ‘This is what the Lord has commanded: “Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord; bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil, and all that is left over put aside to be kept until morning.” ’ So they put it aside until morning, as Moses commanded them; and it did not become foul, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, ‘Eat it today, for today is a sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. For six days you shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is a sabbath, there will be none.’
On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, and they found none. The Lord said to Moses, ‘How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and instructions? See! The Lord has given you the sabbath, therefore on the sixth day he gives you food for two days; each of you stay where you are; do not leave your place on the seventh day.’ So the people rested on the seventh day.
Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones
Easter is a season that challenges us on so many fronts, I have decided to offer yet another challenge, and, perhaps from an unexpected passage. For those who participated in the Lenten book study series on The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel this may seem somewhat familiar. What Easter does offer us in the resurrection is, in short, a call to attend to eternity. For Christ comes from the beginning of time to a certain time to return to time hereafter and forever.
In this passage from Exodus, God has begun to provide manna and quails in the wilderness for the children of Israel. On the sixth day for some unnamed reason the people gathered twice as much food. Moses answers the concerns of the leaders of the congregation by telling them that their doing so is what the Lord has commanded, the reason being that they might observe “a day of solemn rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord.”
One wonders if the people after all these years of toil, labor and oppression then experienced a sense of great relief, of an enduring care and love that engenders peace. More importantly what impressed them at this point about sabbath? Did it occur to them that sabbath had always been present and just now, when free to worship, they could yet discern this holy time, that had existed since the very beginning of time, was present to them? It had not been overcome by geography or their subjugation to another country, culture or religion. God acts here to reintroduce the importance of Sabbath and to place it squarely in front of the people.
Shortly after the deliverance of the Jews from Egypt, God calls the people into the greater freedom which he intends for them - a freedom from Egypt, the place/space of their slavery/tyranny so that they might become attuned to holiness in time. It is to reacquaint them with and invite them into sharing in what is eternal in time, to turn them to the mystery of creation and away from the results of creation.
Here we are now over twenty centuries since the resurrection and still wholly captivated by the results of creation. They crowd practically every moment of our days. How then might the truth of resurrection break through to us if we do not claim for ourselves a day of solemn rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord? All the things that have been created hide the Creator. What God gives to the children of Israel and to us is the time to meet God and become more acutely aware of every moment being one of creation. As Herschel writes, ‘…it is within time that we are able to sense the unity of all beings.” This resonates with a portion of Sunday’s Collect: Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation…” For the resurrection served to free us from the fear of death and judgment and to reconcile God to creation. We can join with the children of Israel in the early days of their deliverance from Egypt in observing a “holy sabbath” in Eastertide.
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.
