Introduction to the Word for Worship
Jesus said: “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
-Luke 21:34-36
The call of Jesus’s closing words, therefore, is to be watchful and prayerful, ready at any time for his return to his temple. On that day the Holy of Holies, the place where God and man meet face to face, will no longer be a dark room in an ancient building in an eastern city; it will have expanded to the limits of the whole human world. On that day all religions, and all substitutes for religion, will pass under the critical eye of Christ. All our beliefs and ideas about God and the world and life and ourselves—he will see whether they are worthy of the temple. Will they ‘stand before the Son of man’ (21:36), or will they be swept away?
-Michael Wilcock
The Collect of the Day
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
The Word:
(Click on the links below to read Sunday's passages)
First Reading: Zechariah 14:1-9
Psalm 50:1-6 (follows the playlist below)
Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Gospel Reading: Luke 21:25-33
(click below on the Spotify Playlist to listen)
Psalm 50:1-6
1 The Lord, even the most mighty God, has spoken *
and called the world, from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof.
2 Out of Zion, perfect in her beauty, *
has God shone forth in glory.
3 Our God shall come and shall not keep silence; *
there shall go before him a consuming fire,
and a mighty tempest shall be stirred up round about him.
4 He shall call to the heavens above, *
and to the earth beneath, that he may judge his people:
5 “Gather my faithful together unto me, *
those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.”
6 And the heavens shall declare his righteousness, *
for God himself is Judge.
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