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 6, 2025
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
To “beget” is to become the father of. It’s the male part of making a child. This Psalm is quoted in Hebrews 5:5 and it is claimed that God said it to/of Jesus, making the point that Jesus was not created, as human beings were, but begotten—given birth to by God—thus placing him in a different class. Again, all these daily texts are moments—invitations—in which to look at the whole biblical narrative through a Christological lens, that is, to see Jesus alive and at work in the world long before he ever walked among us as a human being.
Sometimes I find this challenging. I get frustrated with what seem like flimsy arguments that Jesus was predicted by texts that had nothing to do with him at the time. It can be such a temptation to force scripture to fit into a box that supports our own narrative of what God is like or how God thinks (according to our wishes)—therefore creating God in our image rather than the other way around.
But on the other hand, if I set aside my own prejudices and judgments, and start from a place of accepting the idea of the Trinity (which states, at least in part, that Jesus was not just fully human but also fully divine, i.e. Jesus was/is God), which I do, by the way, then I can be open to the possibility that even if a particular text might not be specifically referencing Jesus, it could still be instructive in painting a picture of God’s Trinitarian action in the world. I guess what I’m struggling to say is that I don’t need to be convinced that Jesus can be found in the Hebrew Bible, but I’m happy to find evidence in the actions of God rather than the occasional one-off out-of-context verses of this or that prophet.
Where do I see Jesus at work in the Old Testament?
