Seek the LORD and his strength;
seek his presence continually!—Psalm 105:4
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SONG: “The Seeker” by Dolly Parton | Performed by the Lower Lights, on Old Time Religion (2016)
This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.
To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for Proper 20, cycle A, click here.
Exodus 14:19–31:
Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. And in the morning watch the LORD in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the LORD fights for them against the Egyptians.”
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.” So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the LORD threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained. But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
Thus the LORD saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses.
(Related post: “‘Oh Mary, Don’t You Weep’: Death, Resurrection, and the New Exodus”)
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The Crossing of the Red Sea is read by Christians as a picture of our passing safely through the waters of judgment led by Christ, the New Moses. The traditional English carol below, “Carol of the Exodus,” is arranged by Charles Wood.
Moses, sing unto Christ thy King, who hath won the victory
And hath laid low haughty Pharaoh underneath the deep Red Sea.
Yea, merry, merry, merry, merry, merry may we be,
As bird upon the berry of the may or cherry tree,
While as we stand with harp in hand
On the shore of the Red, Red Sea.
God perforce overthrew the horse, rider, car, and axletree.
They sank as lead, and their men lie dead, dead as stone, so mote* it be!
His right hand and his wonderwand did divide at his decree
The surging wave, and thereby did save us and ours from slavery.
Thou didst blow and entomb our foe in the bottom of the sea.
And if dry-shod we went o’er, O God, be ascribed the praise to thee!
* That is, must (obsolete).
This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.
To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for Proper 19, cycle A, click here.
On September 14 the Orthodox Church celebrates the Elevation of the Holy Cross, one of the Twelve Great Feasts of its liturgical year, and Protestants who follow the Revised Common Lectionary will be reading from scripture the episode of the bronze serpent being lifted up in the wilderness, a prefiguration of Christ’s being raised on the cross. This passage plus a few other related ones are given below. (To view all five Holy Cross readings from the Revised Common Lectionary, click here.)
Numbers 21:4–9: From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.
Isaiah 52:13:
[For thus says the LORD God:]
“Behold, my servant shall act wisely;
he shall be high and lifted up,
and shall be exalted.”John 3:14–15 (The Message): “In the same way that Moses lifted the serpent in the desert so people could have something to see and then believe, it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up—and everyone who looks up to him, trusting and expectant, will gain a real, eternal life.”
John 12:32: [Jesus answered,] “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
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SONG: “Lift Him Up (How to Reach the Masses)” | Words by Johnson Oatman Jr. (1856–1922) | Music by Benjamin Burke (B. B.) Beall (1874–1945) | African American Heritage Hymnal #547
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Life is wasted if we do not grasp the glory of the cross, cherish it for the treasure that it is, and cleave to it as the highest price of every pleasure and the deepest comfort in every pain. What was once foolishness to us—a crucified God—must become our wisdom and our power and our only boast in this world.
—John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (2003)
This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.
To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for the Feast of the Cross, cycle A, click here.
Turn my eyes from looking at vanities;
give me life in your ways.—Psalm 119:37
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SONG: “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” by Helen H. Lemmel (1922) | Performed by the Banner Days, on Hand Me a Hymnal (2015)
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O Lord, I have heard a good word inviting me to look away to Thee and be satisfied. My heart longs to respond, but sin has clouded my vision till I see Thee but dimly. Be pleased to cleanse me in Thine own precious blood, and make me inwardly pure, so that I may with unveiled eyes gaze upon Thee all the days of my earthly pilgrimage. Then shall I be prepared to behold Thee in full splendor in that day when Thou shalt appear to be glorified in Thy saints and admired in all them that believe. Amen.
—A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God
This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.
To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for Proper 18, cycle A, click here.
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21)
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SONG: “We Are Not Overcome” by Isaac Wardell and Robert Heiskell of Bifrost Arts, on He Will Not Cry Out (2013)
This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.
To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for Proper 17, cycle A, click here.
Isaiah 51:3:
For the Lord will comfort Zion;
he will comfort all her waste places,
and will make her wilderness like Eden,
her desert like the garden of the LORD;
joy and gladness will be found in her,
thanksgiving and the voice of song.
“The Comforter” by Thomas Moore (1779–1852):
Oh! thou who dry’st the mourner’s tear,
How dark this world would be,
If, when deceived and wounded here,
We could not fly to thee!The friends who in our sunshine live,
When winter comes are flown;
And he who has but tears to give,
Must weep those tears alone;But thou wilt heal that broken heart,
Which, like the plants that throw
Their fragrance from the wounded part,
Breathes sweetness out of woe.When joy no longer soothes or cheers,
And even the hope that threw
A moment’s sparkle o’er our tears,
Is dimm’d and vanish’d too;Oh who would bear life’s stormy doom,
Did not thy wing of love
Come brightly wafting through the gloom,
Our peace-branch from above.Then sorrow, touch’d by thee, grows bright
With more than rapture’s ray;
As darkness shows us worlds of light
We never saw by day.
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SONG: “The Sun Will Rise” by the Brilliance, on The Brilliance (2010)
This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.
To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for Proper 16, cycle A, click here.
Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brothers dwell in unity!It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down on the collar of his robes!It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,
life forevermore.—Psalm 133
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SONG: “Together (Psalm 133)” by James Zeller | Performed by David Potter, on The Good Life by the Psalter Project (2017)
For more info on Walker’s mural, see my review of Painting the Gospel.
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This weekend we witnessed how bad and destructive it is when brothers dwell in disunity. For congregations seeking resources for responding prayerfully to the racist attack carried out in Charlottesville, Virginia, Rich Villodas has written a litany:
Leader: Lord Jesus, your Kingdom is good news for a world caught in racial hostility. We ask that you would give us grace for the deep challenges facing our country.
Congregation: O Lord, only you can make all things new.
Leader: Lord, we confess our anger, our deep sadness, and our collective sense of weakness to see this world healed through our own strength.
Congregation: O Lord, only you can make all things new.
Leader: Lord, we honestly confess that our country has a long history of racial oppression, that racism has been a strategy of evil powers and principalities.
Congregation: O Lord, only you can make all things new.
Leader: Lord, we confess that the gospel is good news for the oppressed and the oppressor. Both are raised up. Both are liberated, but in different ways. The oppressed are raised up from the harsh burden of inferiority. The oppressor from the destructive illusion of superiority.
Congregation: O Lord, only you can make all things new.
Leader: Lord, we confess that the gospel is your power to form a new people not identified by dominance and superiority, but by unity in the Spirit.
Congregation: O Lord, only you can make all things new.
Leader: Lord, we ask that you would help us name our part in this country’s story of racial oppression and hostility. Whether we have sinned against others by seeing them as inferior, or whether we have been silent in the face of evil. Forgive us of our sin.
Congregation: O Lord, only you can make all things new.
Leader: Lord, we pray for our enemies. For those who have allowed Satanic powers to work through them. Grant them deliverance through your mighty power.
Congregation: O Lord, only you can make all things new.
Leader: Lord, we ask that you would form us to be us peacemakers. May we be people who speak the truth in love as we work for a reconciled world.
Congregation: O Lord, only you can make all things new.
Leader: Lord, we commit our lives to you, believing that you are working in the world in spite of destructive powers and principalities. Bring healing to those who are hurt, peace to those who are anxious, and love to those who are fearful. We wait for you, O Lord. Make haste to help us.
Congregation: O Lord, only you can make all things new.
This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.
To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for Proper 15, cycle A, click here.
(Update: I found out from the artist that she intended this image to represent not the sinking of Peter but the redemption of Judas, who, like Peter, had a slip of faith, so to speak. Very unique!)
Matthew 14:29b–33 (The Voice):
Peter stepped out of the boat onto the water and began walking toward Jesus. But when he remembered how strong the wind was, his courage caught in his throat and he began to sink.
Peter: Master, save me!
Immediately Jesus reached for Peter and caught him.
Jesus: O you of little faith. Why did you doubt and dance back and forth between following Me and heeding fear?
Then Jesus and Peter climbed in the boat together, and the wind became still. And the disciples worshiped Him.
Poem by Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861):
It fortifies my soul to know
That, though I perish, Truth is so:
That, howsoe’er I stray and range,
Whate’er I do, Thou dost not change.
I steadier step when I recall
That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall.
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SONG: “Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand” | Words by Jennie Wilson (1857–1913) | Music by Franklin Lycurgus Eiland (1860–1909) | Performed by Angela Primm, on A Little Bit of Heaven (2007)
This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.
To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for Proper 14, cycle A, click here.
Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.—Isaiah 55:1–2
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SONG: “Christ My Treasure” by Castle Island Hymns, on Castle Island Hymns (2013)
This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.
To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for Proper 13, cycle A, click here.
He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
—Matthew 13:31–32
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SONG: “Seeds” by the Collection, on The Collection (2011)
This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.
To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for Proper 12, cycle A, click here.
Art & Theology 