Blessed be the God .. of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing
in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before
the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before
him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through
Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the
praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the
Beloved.
Ephesians 1 [ the Epistle
for Sunday, July 15, Year B, RCL ]
[ The full text of the Readings for today can be found at:
The
Gospel reading for today is the story of the beheading of John the Baptist. I
don’t have much to say. So I leave you with the thoughts of my beloved friend
Bob Anderson: there are always the
tyrants who live in fear and who create fear to hold onto their position and
power … but there is always Hope, seen in Jesus as He confronts King Herod’s
beheading of John by healing and curing. I guess I’d like to think that tyrants
can be defeated by Hope …. So I will! See what you think as you hear and ponder this story
today.
What
I’ll be concentrating on today at worship are Paul’s words to the Ephesians,
which I’ve quoted. I’ll be allowing myself to hear the word reminding me that I
and we all are “holy and blameless
before {God} in love … by {God’s} glorious grace … freely bestowed”.
I’ve
read this passage every day this week …. and every day I’ve felt my spirit rise
and my heart open, and been drawn away from the ways of fear and to the way of
trust and hope.
I hope
that you experience the same as you hear these grounding words this morning.
Blessings!
Brian+
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