Monday • 9/30/2024 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89:1-18; Hosea 2:14-23; Acts 20:18-38; Luke 5:1-11

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2-6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)

Brief observations today from each of the readings: in Hosea 2, Acts 20, and Luke 5.

Hosea. The Northern Kingdom of Israel has been enjoying decades of peace and prosperity. Unfortunately, these have also been decades of idolatry, immorality, and injustice. The prophet Hosea’s mission is to warn Israel that the days of “good times” are coming to an end, that the nation will be consigned to a horrible exile—but that the Lord will never stop loving his wayward people, and that in the end he will woo and win them back to himself.

Hosea’s mission is to embody the Lord’s message by imitating the relationship between God and his people. In these first two chapters of his book, Hosea is told to marry a prostitute, Gomer, and then to name her children “Scattered,” “Not Pitied,” and “Not My People” (Hosea 1:6-8). Once she—as she inevitably will—leaves him, Hosea is to go after her, and to redeem her out of the new, bad marriage into which she will have given herself. Then he is to rename her children “God sows,” “Pitied,” and “My People” (Hosea 2:22-23).

The Lord presents the restoration of the marriage of Hosea and Gomer as a parable of the way that he will re-establish his covenant with Israel on the far side of his judgment and Israel’s exile to, and enslavement in, Assyria. That day will be so wonderful it will be like a second exodus: “She shall respond as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt” (Hosea 2:15). She will no longer be married to the false gods (“Baal” means master-husband). Instead, she will be married once again to Yahweh: “I will take you for my wife in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord” (Hosea 2:20). Let it be noted, by the way, that this “knowing” is one of intimate amore. And it will take place on an earth that will have been “re-Edenized.” His people will be a new “Eve” on a “new earth” where harmony will have been restored between humans and the animal kingdom; where “the bow, the sword, and war” will have been abolished from the land; and where the earth will “answer the grain, the wine, and the oil” (Hosea 2:18,22).

With the coming of Christ, whom the apostle Paul calls the “Second Adam,” the human story has taken a giant step towards that re-Edenized creation. The Groom has come for his Bride; he has paid the price to win her from her bad marriage to the law, sin, and death (Romans 7:1-6). The Groom has done so in order that he may, even in the now, be wed to his Bride the Church, and “that we may bear fruit to God” (Romans 7:4). Think about that! And he will come once again for final consummation, to bring her to the banqueting table, the Marriage Feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:6-10).

In the meantime, our reading in Acts gives indications of what the fruitfulness of our present wedding to our Groom looks like.

Acts. Paul’s speech to the Ephesian elders shows the humility, emotional investment, and loving endurance that Christ’s love prompts: “You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia. I served the Lord with great humility and with tears and in the midst of severe testing by the plots of my Jewish opponents” (Acts 20:19-20). Paul’s speech bespeaks the determination to see through to a good end one’s life calling: “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace” (v. 24). His speech demonstrates a loving regard for the well-being of those under his care: “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood...In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” (v. 29, 36). More than anything else, perhaps, Paul’s speech puts on display the deep-seated love that the Groom plants in the hearts of those who know what it is to be loved deeply and intimately by him: “There was much weeping among them all [at Paul’s departure]; they embraced Paul and kissed him….” (v. 37).

Luke. Peter’s experience of nets bursting with fish provides incentive to be attentive for, and ready to respond to, the Master’s voice. And it means, perhaps, being ready to respond even when it doesn’t seem to make sense. You get the feeling that Peter almost did an eye-roll when Jesus told him to put out his nets: “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing” (v.6). He adds (I paraphrase), “…but if you insist….” Peter is very surprised by the result of listening to Jesus and following his instructions. This incident can be instructive for us. When we hear his call, we might want to trust him and follow.

You never know when he’s going to say, “Let down your nets for a catch.”

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+