🦁 Lent 2-5
Readings: Psalm 105:1-11, 37-45; Genesis 21:1-7; Hebrews 1:8-12.
Reflection
Good morning. This is Tim Jewell broadcasting from Sacramento, California. Today's readings come to us from Psalm 105, verses 1 to 11. The book of Genesis, Chapter 21, verses 1 to 7, and the Book of Hebrews Chapter one verses 8 to 12 and Psalm 105 is titled Tell of All His Wondrous Works. And this is a psalm. It runs through and is followed by all the things that God has done for the people of Israel, starting with Abraham and His covenant with Abraham and bringing about Israel and feeding them and giving them water and guiding them by cloud, by fire, and giving them the lands of the nations, the possession of the fruits of people's told to them they keep his statues and observe his laws.
So in Genesis, we continue the story summer where we left off last time. So we had Hagar had given birth to Ishmael.
Sarah had finally laid with Abraham. Abraham and now we have Wentworth. Now she's called Sarah because now we have the covenant with Abraham and Sarah. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham, a son in his old age, and here says he was 100 years old and you can have a teenager. Then she says that God has made laughter for me. She feels God's made her a laughing stock because these elders, elderly couple, have a child.
And there is this whole over arc about trusting God. And the story when the angel on the Angels talked to Abraham and said that he was going to have a child and Sarah was over there and she's, you know, and then she denied laughing about it. And here they are. God made it happen. That's what he does. So now we have the beginning of the nation of Israel. Abraham has had his first child. And remember, they said they would love that his offspring would be numbered, would be numerous, more numerous than the stars and the heaven.
And then we have our reading from Hebrews today. So Hebrews is a book that was written to the Jews. Hebrew were Jews, had the Hebrew Faith Judaism. All right. And this is a rereading in here in chapter and verse eight. But we have a eight. Nine is the quotation from Psalm 45, 6 to 7, and then ten and 12 are quotation from Psalm 102 25 to 27. So the author is believed to be Paul and they're trying. This is the reminding people where they came from and telling them, again, remember, this is in our writing. So they're setting them up for them to understand that this is the this news, the way is part of the continuation of the covenant. This is the New Covenant. And this is this is the final sacrifice, the perfect sacrifice. And now we all live under God's grace and for those of us who have not lived stellar lives, and that's everybody that none of us are as good as we like to think we are. We are now able to move on and understand this. We live our lives. We're going to make mistakes. We ask for forgiveness. We don't have to dwell in those dark places that unforgivable. You know, God will never forgive me. The people who don't forgive are we. We don't forgive ourselves. And other people don't like to forgive each other. We as people, we don't like to forgive each other. That's the problem. But it also is, you know, God forgives everyone for everything.
And here we are in this time in the Lenten season. And this is the time for reflection. This is a time where we can experience God's grace firsthand because we can say, you know, I didn't do this right. I didn't I made this mistake here. I didn't you know, whatever it may be in your life. And you can take that and you can give it to God and say, I did this.
Forgive me. Help me to not do it again. And he will.
And that is a very, very powerful feeling to be able to step away from and get out from under that darkness that we live in where we feel that we're no good. We're not this. We're not that we're not living up to the standard and all of this negative ness that we have in life and understand that, no, we are not perfect beings. We are going to make mistakes. I'm going to make mistakes every single day. Every day. I am no better than anyone else, but I have a God who forgives me, a God who loves me and a God who watches out for me and will take care of me when I ask him to. Amen.
