Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“I will tell of the decree of the Lord:
He said to me, ‘You are my son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.”
NL Daily Devotion for Monday, January 4, 2021
by Daniel D. Maurer, Clergy Stuff
As a father, I want to protect my two sons. I want to protect them, but I need also to acknowledge that they are both their own selves; they are who they are, despite their connection to me.
I have recently been doing research for a novel I’m writing. It’s science fiction, and deals with time travel. But in order to make a believable setting, I’ve had to do a ton of research into the time period I’m writing about, the 3rd century, BCE. You know what I’ve discovered? People at all times have loved their children, their sons and their daughters.
Today’s Psalm makes this point clear, but it’s only a snippet of the whole Psalm. The rest of it deals with the anger for those who do not follow the right king, for those who do not follow the Lord’s teachings.
As a believer, I’m not one to argue that this witness is also needed in the Bible. That is, that there are those who are following ways which don’t lift up what is good and right. There’s not enough time in a little devotion to deal with all this stuff fully, but I guess what I’m getting at is that I’m glad that we can infer that this Psalm is actually talking about Jesus, because without Jesus it seems like it’s just too harsh. I mean, didn’t all peoples—even the ones from whom this Psalm speaks out against—still love their sons and daughters just as much, too?
Jesus sets a new tone to reach out to all. Thank God for Jesus, because without him we’d just have more of the old, the attitude that we’re right and you’re wrong. I think all of us in 2021 need more time to reach out than to separate ourselves from each other. We need to see that, in Jesus, we’re all brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, worthy of love.
God, help me to see all your children as sons and daughters today. Amen.
