Last Week's TDP

I'm a bit late writing about this, but two things in the readings from the Treasury of Daily Prayer last week struck me . . .

#1: The writing for Tuesday (p. 294-95) was taken from one of JS Bach's cantatas, about Jesus' Parable of the Dishonest Manager. It is quite a good sermon. It begins: "Make a reckoning! Thunderous word, which even rocky cliffs split open, word by which my blood grows frigid!" He then continues with the preaching of the Law, that we have not been faithful in our stewardship. Therefore, what shall we do when this thunderous word be spoken to us? Yikes!

Ah, but then the sweet Gospel! "But yet, O frightened heart, live and despair thou not! . . . Behold thy guarantor, He hath all debts for thee released! . . . The lamb's own blood, O love most mighty! Hath all thy debts now canceled and thee with God hath settled."

I hope I remember this is here when I next have opportunity to preach on this parable, and use this as a template for my own sermon!

#2: On Friday, the Old Testament reading from Number 12, in speaking of Aaron and Miriam's rebellion, said: "Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all the people who were on the face of the earth."

If anyone had reason not to be meek, it was Moses! The Burning Bush, leading the people out of Egypt, the signs and wonders done before Pharaoh, dividing the Red Sea, going up into Mt. Sinai - twice, speaking with God face-to-face in the Tent of Meeting. And yet Moses was the meekest man on earth! I think that is stunning. And yet, it makes sense. The closer one is to God, the more one knows his or her own sin, the meeker we must be. How could it be otherwise? Yet meekness is not weakness, but confidence - not in self, but in God. God who will protect, who will provide, who will save. Yet another way in which Moses is a type of Christ.