Readings & questions for December 10

Here are the scripture readings for this upcoming Sunday.

Suggestion: Print this and read a different passage each day and think about it
(some questions are offered to help stimulate your reflection).

You'll find your experience of worship on Sunday will be intensified.

If you would like to comment on these scriptures or have some on-line conversation about them, please go to sundayscriptures@blogspot.com and click the "comments" button at the bottom.

(St. Paul's uses the Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary readings which are a little different from the Prayer Book Lections. The recent General Convention authorized the RCL as our official lectionary.)

December 10, 2006
2nd Sunday of Advent, Year C
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

The Collect
Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to
preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation:
Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins,
that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our
Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.


The Scriptures
Baruch 5:1-9
Canticle 16: Luke 1:68-79
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6

Baruch 5:1-9
Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God. Put on the
robe of the righteousness that comes from God; put on your head
the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting; for God will show
your splendor everywhere under heaven. For God will give you
evermore the name, "Righteous Peace, Godly Glory."

Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height; look toward the east,
and see your children gathered from west and east at the word of
the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them. For they
went out from you on foot, led away by their enemies; but God
will bring them back to you, carried in glory, as on a royal throne.
For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting
hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground,
so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God. The woods and
every fragrant tree have shaded Israel at God's command. For God
will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy
and righteousness that come from him.
_________________

This passage is filled with visual imagery and great passion.
Try to read it again using your imagination to see and feel what the prophet evokes.
____________________________________________________

Canticle 16: Luke 1:68-79
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; *
he has come to his people and set them free.
He has raised up for us a mighty savior, *
born of the house of his servant David.
Through his holy prophets he promised of old,
that he would save us from our enemies, *
from the hands of all who hate us.
He promised to show mercy to our fathers *
and to remember his holy covenant.
This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham, *
to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
Free to worship him without fear, *
holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life.

You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, *
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
To give his people knowledge of salvation *
by the forgiveness of their sins.
In the tender compassion of our God *
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, *
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
____________

This is the Song of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist.
How is he in interpreting the remarkable event of his son's birth?
What does he look back to? What does he look forward to?
____________________________________________________

Philippians 1:3-11
I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with
joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your
sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am
confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you
will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. It is
right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold
me in your heart, for all of you share in God's grace with me,
both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of
the gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with
the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your
love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight
to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of
Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest
of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory
and praise of God.
________________

Paul writes this prayer to the congregation in Philippi.
Read it again as though it were prayer written to you and to your congregation.
____________________________________________________

Luke 3:1-6
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when
Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of
Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea
and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high
priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John
son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region
around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the
forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of
the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
____________________

This announcement of the ministry of John the Baptist has both a political agenda and a spiritual agenda. How would you describe each side of John's message?
___________________________________________________

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Lowell

The Rev. Lowell Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, AR