St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh
Midweek Devotion 1st December 2022
Led by Rev Professor Kenneth Boyd
Welcome to online devotion with St Giles’ Cathedral, today, Thursday the 1st of December 2022.
Scripture Reading
Our reading today is from the 24th chapter of the Gospel of St Matthew, verses 36 to 44
Jesus said to the disciples: ‘But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.’
Reflection
What did Jesus mean by ‘the Son of Man’, a title he or the Gospel writers sometimes applied to himself? Scholars differ, but in talking of ‘the Son of Man’, I think, Jesus was speaking not just of himself, but potentially of all of us, insofar as we may grow into what St Paul would later call ‘maturity… the measure of the full stature of Christ’ [Ephesians 4:13]; or again, of having ‘the mind of Christ’, ‘the same mindset’ or ‘the same attitude’ as Christ. [Philippians 2:5].
In his human lifetime, Jesus may have seen his good news of God’s kingdom as a way of preparing his hearers for the imminent end of the world expected by many of their Jewish contemporaries: but, he tells the disciples, ‘only the Father’, knows when that time will be. What is crucial, Jesus emphasises, is to keep awake now, to keep alive to the possibilities of the present moment.
‘The divine moment is the present moment’ These words have been attributed to more than one of the saints. They reflect their deep experience, experience of those moments, however fleeting, when we human beings become gratefully aware that, despite everything, all is well, and all shall be well. The divine moment is the present moment, known in those present moments when we keep awake to life’s possibilities: in those moments when we look up and see a patch of blue in a grey December sky, or when we see youth in an aged face, or ‘you’ in a stranger. The grace of God in the present moment may take these and many other forms, for all are part of God’s own longsuffering but loving education of the human race. Our education, sometimes painful, but sometimes and ultimately, joyful; our education into our destined ‘maturity’, to have the mind of Christ, to see reality as it really is, to see ourselves and one another as we really are, with the eyes of love.
In peace let us pray to the Lord.
A prayer by Dag Hammarskjöld (United Nations Secretary General; died 1961)
Thou who are over us,
Thou who art one of us,
Thou who art –
Also within us,
May all see Thee – in me also,
May I prepare the way for Thee,
May I thank Thee for all that shall fall to my lot,
May I also not forget the needs of others,
Keep me in Thy love
As Thou wouldest that all should be kept in mine.
May everything in this my being be directed to Thy glory
And may I never despair.
For I am under Thy hand,
And in Thee is all power and goodness.
Give me a pure heart – that I may see Thee,
A humble heart – that I may hear Thee
A heart of love – that I may serve Thee,
A heart of faith – that I may abide in Thee.
AMEN
An Advent Collect
Almighty God, give us grace
that we may cast away the works of darkness,
and put upon us the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life,
in which thy 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 quick and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who liveth and reigneth
with thee and the Holy Ghost,
now and ever.
AMEN
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom the power and the glory, for ever and ever. AMEN
Blessing
And now may the love of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
bless, preserve and keep us and all God’s children,
in the joy, simplicity, and compassion of the gospel. AMEN
Organ Music
Louis Vierne Légende