Monday, December 22, 2008

The Fourth Week of Advent: Monday

Today's reading comes from Psalm 22:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.
Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In you our ancestors trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
To you they cried, and were saved;
in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.
But I am a worm, and not human;
scorned by others, and despised by the people.
All who see me mock at me;
they make mouths at me, they shake their heads;
"Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—
let him rescue the one in whom he delights!’
Yet it was you who took me from the womb;
you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.
On you I was cast from my birth,
and since my mother bore me you have been my God.
Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near
and there is no one to help."
Once more, our reading takes us from the cradle to the cross. The Christ who came at Christmas was born to die. First, Bethlehem had no room for him. Finally, people had no use for him. Born an outcast in a manger, he died a criminal's death.

Yet, through it all, he trusted in God. And he who became sin for us, rejected of men, and forsaken by his own Father, was made the righteousness of God for all who believe.

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