St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh
Midweek Devotion 19th January 2023
Led by Rev Professor Kenneth Boyd
Welcome to online devotion with St Giles’ Cathedral, today, Thursday the 19th of January 2023.
Scripture Reading
Our reading today is from the 3rd chapter of the Gospel of St Mark, verses 7 to 12
Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; 8 hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. 9 He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him, 10 for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. 11 Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, “You are the Son of God!” 12 But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.
Amen.
Reflection
Why did Jesus order the unclean spirits not to make him known as the Son of God? Jesus had been attracting great popular attention by performing healing miracles: but in the ancient world of Jesus’ time, so were many others: miracle-working and magic were not seen as all that unusual. In the ancient world moreover, the title ‘Son of God’ could be applied to angels or mythical supernatural beings (Genesis 6), or to Israel itself (Exodus 4.22), or to a human being raised to a special status with God, like King David (Psalm 2) or the Roman Emperor. According to the same pre-scientific way of thinking, shared by the gospel writer Mark, unclean spirits or demons were supernatural beings with superior knowledge to that of humans. Having this superior knowledge, they guessed that Jesus was infinitely more than some ordinary miracle-working magician, and so ‘fell down before him and worshipped him and shouted, “You are the Son of God!”’: but being demons and not angels, of course, they did not really understand what they were talking about, and deeply misunderstood what Jesus was doing, which is why he silenced them.
Although this story of demons is very foreign to our modern way of thinking, it expresses something still of central importance for Christian faith today. The temptation presented to Jesus by the worship of the demons is not unlike that presented by those in contemporary society and the media who puff up often gifted people into celebrities. If Jesus had let himself be proclaimed as the Son of God, in the sense understood by the demons, he could have become the ultimate celebrity of his day – and as such, ‘famous for 24 hours’ and soon forgotten. But if the whole purpose of the Incarnation (however we understand that mystery) was that ‘he became as we are so that we might become as he is’, it was essential for Jesus to be ordinary, and to share all the limitations and hopes that flesh is heir to. That he was and did this, and yet through his complete dependence on God, fulfilled the highest potential of our common humanity – what we all were created to become – is why across the centuries his assurance of forgiveness and hope has been able to help countless ordinary people.
Jesus was extraordinary, but his extraordinariness consisted in what has been described as his ‘patience of resting in the ordinary’; and it is in the ordinary, the ups and downs of everyday life, that patience can teach us, in Schweitzer’s memorable words, that: ‘to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.’
Amen
In peace let us pray to the Lord.
Psalm 131:3
I have calmed and quieted my soul. Like a child quieted at its mother’s breast: like a child that is quieted is my soul.
Two Gaelic Prayers
As the hand is made for holding and the eye for seeing, thou hast fashioned me for joy. Share with me the vision that shall find it everywhere: in the wild violet’s beauty; in the lark’s melody; in the face of a steadfast man; in a child’s smile; in a mother’s love; in the patience of Jesus.
I am serene because I know thou lovest me.
Because thou lovest me, naught can move me from my peace.
Because thou lovest me. I am as one to whom all good has come.
A prayer for world peace
Lord, we pray for the power to be gentle; the strength to be forgiving; the patience to be understanding.
May we put our trust in the power of good to overcome evil and the power of love to overcome hatred. We pray for the vision to see and the faith to believe in a world emancipated from violence, a new world where fear shall no longer lead men to commit injustice, nor selfishness make them bring suffering to others.
Help us to devote our whole life and thought and energy to the task of making peace, beginning in our own home and community, praying always for the inspiration and the power to fulfil the destiny for which we and all people were created.
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
J.S.Bach Wir glauben all an einen Gott BWV 1098