Saturday after Ash Wednesday
February 20
Romans 1:16
I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
It is always worth noting that the Greek word translated ‘Jew’ should be translated ‘Judean’. What the word ‘Jew’ means now is not what this Greek word meant in the first century. And “to the Judean first” is not ‘first’ in importance, only first in time – to Judeans first because Jesus came in fulfillment of the Hebrew scriptures and was crucified and raised outside Jerusalem. The drama is in those words “and also.” The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation for the whole world.
And the phrase “everyone who has faith” doesn’t mean “everyone who believes some set of ideas;” it means everyone who shows fidelity, everyone who shows allegiance, everyone who trusts and lives based on the message.
And the word ‘for’, “the power of God for salvation,” is the preposition ‘into’. The proclamation of Christ crucified and risen is a message that carries us into the realm of salvation, the realm of grace, the realm where God’s spirit governs.
Paul is not ashamed of this Gospel, though it has brought him no honor.
Five times I have received from the [Judeans] the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I am not indignant? (2 Corinthians 11:24-29)
But he is not ashamed. There is power here, power in this message that sin is crushed, that death is defeated, that the grave is empty, that sin cannot bind, that the Spirit is at hand, the new creation dawning.
There is power here, power unto life made whole, power unto humanity redeemed, power unto salvation.
O Font of Life and Way of Truth,
turn us ever to yourself
until every heart is healed
and every life made whole.
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Image:. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Josef_%C4%8Capek_-_Jabl%C3%AD%C4%8Dko_II_(1933-35).jpg
Josef Čapek (1887 – 1945), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
© David K Bonde, 2021, All rights reserved