By Melanie Rigney
Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God. Speak
tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her
guilt is expiated; indeed, she has received from the hand of the Lord double
for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:1-2)
Sing
to the Lord; bless his name; announce his salvation, day after day. (Psalms
96:2)
Jesus said to his
disciples: “What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them
goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of
the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it
than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not
the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.” (Matthew 18:12-14)
Piety
Lord,
help me to give comfort and speak tenderly in Your name to all I encounter
today.
Study
There’s
always a thread among the Daily Readings, honest. It’s just that some days,
it’s harder to find that thread than others. Further, as you likely know from
having heard some long, convoluted homilies or sermons in your life, it’s
sometimes folly to try to link up all the readings into one message.
Conventional wisdom is to focus on the relevance of a single reading to the
audience’s lives.
This is one
of those other days, those joyous days when the harmony of the readings is so
apparent one can’t help but talk about them all.
The God of
Isaiah 40 is not an angry, vindictive God. He is a loving, tender God who loves
His people and who asks us to do the same, to let the people know they are
saved and to comfort them.
The God Jesus
speaks of in Matthew 18 is much the same, a God who loves his flock and who
goes in search of those who go astray (that would be all of us) and rejoices at
our return, whether we were away from His grace for three seconds, three days,
three months, three years, or three decades.
That is our
God. We are His people. How blessed are we indeed? Why should anything keep us
from singing His praise and sharing his Good News non-stop, as the psalmist
advises?
Now, stop
reading and meditating, and go into the world and do it.
Action
Spend some
time today with another lost sheep. Give comfort.
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