Worship: Noon
Eucharist, soup meal follows; 7 pm
Vespers, soup meal at 6 pm.
Deut. 26:1-11; Ps. 91:1-2, 9-16; Rom.10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13
Luke 4:1 "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned
from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty
days he was tempted by the devil."
In the
Saint John's Bible illumination for Mark's account of the baptism
of Jesus, John stands in the foreground, and Jesus is a distant gold figure
with indistinct features. Golden angels and birds of deep blue fill the sky
above the Christ.
But above him, to the
left, red eyes peer out into the scene, along with a dark nebulous shape and
two black spiders - a presaging of the coming temptation in the wilderness. The
ancient hymnwriter Prudentius, as well as John Milton, conjectured that Satan
(named only by Mark) had watched the baptism and came to the wilderness to test
Jesus to discover if he was the Son of God, the seed that was to bruise Satan's
head (Gen. 3:14-15): "Who this is we must learn, for Man he seems/In all
lineaments, though in his face/The glimpses of his Father's glory shine."
(
Paradise Regained, Book I
) In the
Saint John's Bible illuminations, wherever there is gold, there is
the presence of God. Though darkness and evil may be on the path, God is ever
near.
O God of the desert, you have promised to send your angels
to guard us in all our ways. May we always trust your promises, so that we may
walk fearlessly through all the wilderness times of our lives. Amen
·
Put something at your place of prayer that will
remind you of the presence of god: an
icon, a candle, something gold…
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