🦁 Christmas 1-👑
Sunday Readings: Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Psalm 148; Galatians 4:4; Luke 2:22-40.
From the TRNG Room:
Reflection
Hello and welcome to first forward advance reflection for anyone doing ministry with soldiers and veterans who follows a common revised common lectionary. anD this morning is both the seventh day of Christmas, as well as the feast of the circumcision of the Lord also known as the first Sunday after.
Christmas the readings for this morning include Isaiah 61, Psalm 148, Galatians 4, and Luke 2, especially verses 22 through 40, and those who followed them. The episode last week for the Sunday readings will know that I posted a lot about Jesus and Mary's inaugural and how Isaiah 61 is kind of the follow up to Isaiah 59 in which we have the armor of God and the divine warrior going to battle and Isaiah 61, those who return.
The Aikmalotos, which is literally prisoner of war. Desmos is another word for imprisonment, and Aikmalotos is derived from the word Aikme, meaning spear, which is a weapon of war. You don't use those in close quarters and policing duties. So Isaiah 61, which Mary quotes, Kind of sort of and Jesus quotes kind of sort of are drawing our attention back to the armor of God and Their purpose is to remind us that the work of God is To do battle against the spiritual forces of evil in the world that Jesus is You know coming advent is about anticipating God's victory over sin and Corruption etc and so in Isaiah 61, it cannot be clearer in the opening verses.
We have the robe of righteousness and the mention of jewelry, even at the end, the last verse, a crown of beauty and a royal diadem. Both of these are mentioned explicitly in the priestly vestments in Exodus 38, no, I'm sorry, 28 and 39. I may have to double check that, but The priestly vestments are the armor of God.
thE high priest, when they get dressed, they are the commanding general symbolically. But this is the way that God does war against the real problem, which is the corruption of, of, Human hearts to evil and you know, there's many ways in which that's fleshed out, but God is going for the jugular, the source where it's all coming from.
anD so the, the armor of God is and are the priestly vestments. You can see it aligned very closely here in Isaiah 61. Galatians is a really you know, interesting text because it God sent his son and born of a woman, which is almost this. Parallel slash reversal of son of man, right? You don't, I mean, you, you, when you say born of woman, you're drawing attention to the fact that God has become incarnate.
And you're, you know, it's about childbirth. It's not inheritance. You know, you know, I am my father's son or Isaiah, Ben, Judah. That's how you talk about lineage. inheritance. But when you say born of a woman, you're drawing attention to childbirth. And Christmastide the church used to give gifts during the season of Christmas, the 12 days following Christmas, as the Magi did.
As they brought gifts to Jesus, which would have happened in, you know, the first, there's debate. It probably wasn't in Bethlehem right as he was born, but there's probably some time within, anywhere between a few days, like a circumcision, or a couple of years that maybe they visited him when he was any time less than two.
Because remember the Massacre of the Innocents, the cutoff age was two years old. And that's how we know. And so you have this familial language. And then the last verse, so you're no longer a slave, but a child. And if a child, then also an heir through God. All of this is about the importance of family to God and to the structure of humanity.
It's not, you know, rulers and principalities, it's mothers, fathers, and children. And then finally in Luke 2 It's just this very, I love this story because it's these two old people who just really want to see this, you know, little kid. And there's two and they don't seem to be, it doesn't seem to kind of evoke necessarily the Old Testament or any specific story from the Old Testament.
It seems as though this really happened and people remembered it and Luke is You know, his interest in the young age of Jesus, or at least the youthful years. He's like, oh yeah, remember that Simeon guy. Remember that, the prophet Anna. And so the, you know, it doesn't really make much sense. But when Simeon speaks is one of the things that I want to look at.
I haven't yet, but if you're preaching to soldiers or veterans, if you are one and you're thinking about it in a loop to 29 master sergeant sir now you are dismissing your servant in peace according to your word. You know, it's his close of business formation and safety brief, right? thE dismissal feels here more formal than I'm just a, a crazy old coot who prays at the temple, like he has done this diligently.
It's not something he's doing because, you know, he ran out of money and he needs to beg for food. It's like he had a mission and now his mission has been accomplished in the scene of Jesus at the, at the temple when he comes for a circumcision. And then lastly in Luke the, the last verse in Luke Luke 2.
There's a couple of places this pops up, and I had to double check, and I didn't want to do all my homework, but I, I, I double checked a couple of things. It made me think there's this line, the, the boy continued to grow in stature and favor with the Lord and with the people. Now that is a rough, you know, paraphrase of 1st Samuel 2.
26, but that's not what 2. 40 is. So when I read 2. 40, I thought of a later, Verse in Luke two, Luke 2 52, which we don't read, but 52 reads. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in the favor of God and man. And in one Samuel 2 26, it reads Now the boy Samuel continued to grow in both stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people.
And so it's not in this reading, it comes later but it, it brings up this parallel between Jesus and the prophet Samuel, who was also the last judge of Israel before they went from Judges to Kings. So remember. Kings are a foreign concept to Israel. Jesus is not a king. Jesus is a judge. He doesn't need worldly adornments the way we think of them.
The political theology or the political structure that God places is a judge, not a king. And Jesus is not a king. He's being drawn back to Samuel. He is the next successor after Samuel. However, the verse that we do read the last verse of our reading this morning, and the young man or the boy continued to grow and increase in strength, filled with wisdom, and the charis here it reads the favor, but it can also mean grace, the charis of God was upon him.
And that does sound similar, but it's very, very subtle and like, I don't think there's necessarily anything there, but it did. I did find what I was looking for and that's Judges 13 in reference to Samson. And the woman bore a son and called his name Samson. And the young man or the boy grew, and the favor of God was upon him.
Both favor and God are different here. Luke uses the charis of theos, charis kai theos. And the language of the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, was, is kyrios eulogeo, and so that's different. But the things that were the same, or the young man grew, paideion auxano, and paidei, paideion auxano. And so just the, the child grew is the only similarity, but it did make me think of Samson.
And there's other things that a line Samson with Jesus, especially in his name and why he came from an unnamed village that only seemed to have a name as early as when Mark named it when he was writing in the seventies. So when Jesus was living and all this stuff was happening, we don't know what the name of his village was until later.
Mark does it and it's the same word and conjugation as Nazarite. But anyway, So that is it for 1st forward this morning, and the, I'm sorry, the 8th day of Christmas. I earlier said the 7th, but it should be the 8th, but more importantly the feast of the circumcision of the Lord.
