We are in the final two weeks of the Pentecost season, and this is what the Revised Common Lectionary has for us this week:

Daniel 12:1-3
 Psalm 16
 Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25
 Mark 13:1-8

I’m going to have to do something I don’t typically do in these first-blush looks at the Scripture, I’m going to have to do some quick study of context.  I could easily dash off some provocative thoughts, but we need to be careful so that we understand and speak about Scripture properly…ironic of me to say in a segment that is typically random unstudied thoughts.  It appears Daniel is foretelling about the rule of Antiochus Epiphanes, someone The Biblical Archaeological Society calls the “Bible’s most notoriously forgotten villain.”  If you’re willing to look into the Apocryphal book of Maccabee’s, you’ll find out why he’s so bad.  Albert Barnes says people will be delivered as Daniel prophesies here by the “wit and valor of the Maccabee’s.”  I would caution how far we go with that, simply because the Maccabee’s went from righteous to self-righteous over a period of time.  The amount of bloodshed in the account of their existence is hard for anyone, let alone a Brethren, to read about.

Psalm 16 could easily be connected with the OT lesson in that the Jews certainly needed protection, there would come a time they were situation between a pair of countries at war and then they themselves would become the target.  Verse 3 talks about other gods, well in addition to being a Hellenist, the aforementioned Antiochus Epiphanes also fancied himself god incarnate, specifically Zeus.  We move from refusal to worship false gods to talking about how faithful and wonderful our God is.  Our spirit rejoices and we rest in hope.  We know that God will not abandon us, even in death.  God’s presence is eternal!

You know my love for sliced and diced Scripture, but that’s what we have here in the reading from Hebrews.   I mentioned on my personal Facebook page last week that I felt we could sing “Great is Thy Faithfulness” every week and it would lend itself to the Scripture and the message.  We can easily see in this Scripture that it is mentioned, “for he who has promised is faithful.”  Another reminder that we live in covenant with God, one that he took seriously enough to send Jesus and sacrifice him to forgive our sins once and for all.  At the very end of this you’ll see the text used most often by those who call for regular church attendance.  Do not neglect to meet together.  That’s charge number one, but we must also consider that the time we spend meeting be fruitful.  We will likely be talking in the weeks ahead about how that fruit can be used to help others.  We must not forget that back half of that final verse, to encourage one another.  For each hand we have reaching for the next rung on the ladder above us, we should have another reaching back to pull our brother or sister along to our height.

We continue in the Gospel of Mark, and we move right along with the verses directly following our reading from this past Sunday.  Tell me we aren’t right along with Peter, James, John and Andrew?  Don’t we want to know a timeline?  Wouldn’t we like to know what’s happening or better yet why?   We are also reminded that the world and our lives will not be trouble-free moving forward.  There’s a sad truth spoken in these verses as well, that even after Jesus gives his life for us, it will be human nature for wars to occur, like the poor as he says elsewhere in Scripture, they will always be with us it seems.  It should provide us with some solace that even when we look around and say that the world has gone to heck in a handbasket, there is a promise we can cling to.   There is an ending, as the birthpangs Jesus speaks of in our Scripture are a beginning.  In the end, Pater, James, John and Andrew simply wanted to know when we’d be grown.

These are my initial thoughts on the four Scripture readings from this week's lectionary.  Join me in the coming days and spend time with each, studying and learning more about the Word of God.