Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.”
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, January 7, 2025
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
This is Jesus. This is what we’ve been talking about daily for the past week or more—passages of Hebrew Bible scripture that point to Jesus’ redemptive action in his human sojourn with us. Jesus was the light to the nations, God’s servant who came to blow open the barriers between us and God (barriers which God did not create, by the way). But I will also declare that this passage is about us. If we are following in the way of Jesus, we, too, are to tear away the things that block us from God, and to facilitate Jesus’ reign of justice and peace breaking into our hurting world. God’s spirit is on us and it’s up to us to “bring forth justice to the nations.” Not by doing exactly what Jesus did. We can’t. But there are things we can be doing, beginning with ourselves. We can invite Jesus into our lives. We can study what it really means to follow him. We can commit to actions, however small, toward shaking off the world’s hold on us. And we can do loving service in our families, our communities, our nation, and the world. It’s easy to look at the enormity of the work to be done and conclude that anything we do is only a drop in the bucket, so why bother? That’s defeatist thinking, and honestly, it’s just an excuse so we don’t have to change ourselves. As Christians, we can be lovingly hard on ourselves. Unflinchingly honest. And know that God does not judge us—we are loved and saved as we are—but wants to encourage us to grow closer to her, so that we, too, can be the light to the nations.
What needs to change in me in order for me to grow closer to God?
