{"id":15583,"date":"2020-12-07T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailchi.mp\/urc\/urc-daily-devotion-monday-7th-december-2020"},"modified":"2020-12-07T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T06:00:00","slug":"urc-daily-devotion-monday-7th-december-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/urc-daily-devotion-monday-7th-december-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"URC Daily Devotion Monday 7th December 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday 7th December This is the Record of John<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s reading is set as a canticle for morning prayer meaning Zechariah\u2019s prophecy over John the Baptist became known in the Church.  John the Baptist went ahead of Jesus to prepare the way, Orlando Gibbon\u2019s anthem shows John\u2019s conflict with the authorities.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

St Luke 8: 68-79<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,<\/span>
    for he has looked favourably on his people and redeemed them.<\/span>
He has raised up a mighty saviour for us<\/span>
    in the house of his servant David,<\/span>
as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,<\/span>
 that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.<\/span>
Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,<\/span>
    and has remembered his holy covenant,<\/span>
the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,<\/span>
    to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies,<\/span>
might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness<\/span>
    before him all our days.<\/span>
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;<\/span>
    for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,<\/span>
to give knowledge of salvation to his people<\/span>
    by the forgiveness of their sins.<\/span>
By the tender mercy of our God,<\/span>
    the dawn from on high will break upon us,<\/span>
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,<\/span>
    to guide our feet into the way of peace.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the Record of John<\/span><\/strong>
Orlando Gibbons<\/span><\/p>\n

You can hear This is the Record of John sung here<\/span>
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=a9pE5vrgBHQ<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

This is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not, and said plainly, I am not the Christ.<\/span><\/p>\n

And they asked him, What art thou then? Art thou Elias? And he said, I am not. Art thou that Prophet? And he answered, No.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then said they unto him, What art thou? that we may give an answer unto them that sent us. What say\u2019st thou of thyself? And he said, I am the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.  <\/span>John 1 vv. 19\u201323<\/em><\/p>\n

Reflection<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Making straight the way of the Lord\u2019 sounds good, good, but is actually difficult. I was first alerted to this in a sermon by Susan Durber, and the thoughts in this reflection are entirely hers.<\/span><\/p>\n

The metaphor of straight as good and crooked as bad is well grounded in our subconscious and our language. We talk of being straightforward and straight talking, and about crooks and bending the truth. It\u2019s little wonder that John the Baptist wanted to prepare a straight path for God. But did God really intended the fells of Cumbria, the Brecon Beacons, and the highlands of Scotland to become flat and uniform? Can it be that God actually wanted to destroy what God had created? Perhaps the straightest way isn\u2019t always the best. The hero in the story is always straight and square-shouldered, whereas the villain is a misshapen ogre. The dragon curls and writhes, while George stands straight and tall.<\/span><\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t true that people with twisted bodies are less good than those with more perfect bodies. Humans don\u2019t come in straight lines. We can\u2019t be pressed into shapes we don\u2019t have. Souls don\u2019t easily conform to set measurements. Teardrops can only be curved, and so can smiles.<\/span><\/p>\n

Life, if not always success, lies not in straight lines, but along a circuitous route. It is easy for us think that we have to perfect, to do everything right, well and on time. It feels like we\u2019ll never smooth out the bumps in life. It\u2019s true that we won\u2019t. We won\u2019t make the road of our life perfectly straight, but the good news is that we don\u2019t have to.  Because even though people weren\u2019t yet ready, even though the wilderness was as messy as ever, even though there was as much struggle, selfishness, fighting and hunger as there had ever been, God doesn\u2019t wait for everything to be ready before God can come – God comes anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prayer<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

God of the wilderness way,<\/span>
whose Word scours our evasions:<\/span>
take us on the narrow, winding, path<\/span>
to the centre of our world<\/span>
with a cry of invitation<\/span>
and the call of your sudden grace;<\/span>
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.<\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday 7th December This is the Record of John Today\u2019s reading is set as a canticle for morning prayer meaning Zechariah\u2019s prophecy over John the Baptist became known in the Church.  John the Baptist went ahead of Jesus to prepare the way, Orlando Gibbon\u2019s anthem shows John\u2019s conflict with the authorities. St Luke 8: 68-79 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “URC Daily Devotion Monday 7th December 2020”<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}