Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him. For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.”
NL Daily Devotion for Monday, January 15, 2024
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
God loves us in our finitude. The human body is astonishing in its resilience, its inner workings, its ability to heal. When you look at the complexity of human life, it’s a wonder any of us is successfully born in the first place, much less survive the daily gauntlet of potential peril. And at the same time, our bodies frighteningly fragile and transient. The seemingly strongest person can be laid low by a sudden illness or a freak accident.
God, who created us from the earth—adamah—and breathed the Holy Spirit into our lungs, knows that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and that we are also precarious and finite. And God has compassion for us in all the challenges our physical complexity and its delicate balancing act can lead to. When we are faced with illness or the natural ravages of aging (I’m not fond of the arthritis in my thumbs or the nagging pain in my hip or my need for bifocals) God is right there with us, experiencing our illnesses and infirmities with us, and holding us in our discomfort and fear. God knows how we were made and remembers that we are dust. And God loves us so fiercely as to have taken on flesh in Christ Jesus and experienced even more directly what it means to be embodied. God still loves us that fiercely, and celebrates our embodiedness with us, whether we are in good health or poor.
Does it give me comfort to know that God has compassion for my bodily frailty?
