Forward Movement is an official, non-profit agency of the Episcopal Church whose mission is to create compelling content for Christian living. Since 1935 we have published the quarterly devotional Forward Day by Day, as well as pamphlets, booklets, and books that encourage and nourish people in their lives of prayer and faith.
TUESDAY, December 28 Saint John (tr)
Exodus 33:18-23. I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, “The Lord.”
The author of Exodus prefaces this speech by explaining “the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” Our lectionary sets John’s close relationship with Jesus in the context of Moses’ relationship to God. In the wilderness, when Moses is weary of the weight of leadership, God refreshes him with an intimate vision of God’s very self. Moses, not famous for his unquestioning obedience, needs the reminder of God’s goodness.
John inherits this pattern of relationship with the Lord. John brings all that he is, his whole person, to Jesus, and Jesus receives him. If the other disciples were disturbed by John’s “thunderous” personality, by his questions of Jesus, Jesus himself seems to have known what John needed. Clearly Jesus made his own goodness pass before John.
Like Moses and John, we are meant to bring all that we are to God and to talk face to face. Nothing less will satisfy. (1996)
PRAY for the Diocese of Kyoto (Japan)
Ps 92 or 92:1-4, 11-14; 1 John 1:1-9; John 21:19b-24
View the daily Lectionary Readings at Satucket.com.
Or view the Bible passages at Biblegateway.com.
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