Sunday 15th November 2020
Psalm 89:19-37
Then you spoke in a vision to your faithful one, and said:
“I have set the crown on one who is mighty,
I have exalted one chosen from the people.
I have found my servant David;
with my holy oil I have anointed him;
my hand shall always remain with him;
my arm also shall strengthen him.
The enemy shall not outwit him,
the wicked shall not humble him.
I will crush his foes before him
and strike down those who hate him.
My faithfulness and steadfast love shall be with him;
and in my name his horn shall be exalted.
I will set his hand on the sea
and his right hand on the rivers.
He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father,
my God, and the Rock of my salvation!’
I will make him the firstborn,
the highest of the kings of the earth.
Forever I will keep my steadfast love for him,
and my covenant with him will stand firm.
I will establish his line forever,
and his throne as long as the heavens endure.
If his children forsake my law
and do not walk according to my ordinances,
if they violate my statutes
and do not keep my commandments,
then I will punish their transgression with the rod
and their iniquity with scourges;
but I will not remove from him my steadfast love,
or be false to my faithfulness.
I will not violate my covenant,
or alter the word that went forth from my lips.
Once and for all I have sworn by my holiness;
I will not lie to David.
His line shall continue forever,
and his throne endure before me like the sun.
It shall be established forever like the moon,
an enduring witness in the skies.”
1 Kings 1:15-40
So Bathsheba went to the king in his room. The king was very old; Abishag the
Shunammite was attending the king. Bathsheba bowed and did obeisance to the king,
and the king said, “What do you wish?” She said to him, “My lord, you swore to your
servant by the Lord your God, saying: Your son Solomon shall succeed me as king,
and he shall sit on my throne. But now suddenly Adonijah has become king, though
you, my lord the king, do not know it. He has sacrificed oxen, fatted cattle, and sheep
in abundance, and has invited all the children of the king, the priest Abiathar, and
Joab the commander of the army; but your servant Solomon he has not invited. But
you, my lord the king—the eyes of all Israel are on you to tell them who shall sit on
the throne of my lord the king after him. Otherwise it will come to pass, when my
lord the king sleeps with his ancestors, that my son Solomon and I will be counted
offenders.”
While she was still speaking with the king, the prophet Nathan came in. The king was
told, “Here is the prophet Nathan.” When he came in before the king, he did
obeisance to the king, with his face to the ground. Nathan said, “My lord the king,
have you said, ‘Adonijah shall succeed me as king, and he shall sit on my
throne’? For today he has gone down and has sacrificed oxen, fatted cattle, and sheep
in abundance, and has invited all the king’s children, Joab the commander of the
army, and the priest Abiathar, who are now eating and drinking before him, and
saying, ‘Long live King Adonijah!’ But he did not invite me, your servant, and the
priest Zadok, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and your servant Solomon. Has this thing
been brought about by my lord the king and you have not let your servants know who
should sit on the throne of my lord the king after him?”
King David answered, “Summon Bathsheba to me.” So she came into the king’s
presence, and stood before the king. The king swore, saying, “As the Lord lives, who
has saved my life from every adversity, as I swore to you by the Lord, the God of
Israel, ‘Your son Solomon shall succeed me as king, and he shall sit on my throne in
my place,’ so will I do this day.” Then Bathsheba bowed with her face to the ground,
and did obeisance to the king, and said, “May my lord King David live forever!”
King David said, “Summon to me the priest Zadok, the prophet Nathan, and Benaiah
son of Jehoiada.” When they came before the king, the king said to them, “Take with
you the servants of your lord, and have my son Solomon ride on my own mule, and
bring him down to Gihon. There let the priest Zadok and the prophet Nathan anoint
him king over Israel; then blow the trumpet, and say, ‘Long live King Solomon!’ You
shall go up following him. Let him enter and sit on my throne; he shall be king in my
place; for I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and over Judah.” Benaiah son
of Jehoiada answered the king, “Amen! May the Lord, the God of my lord the king,
so ordain. As the Lord has been with my lord the king, so may he be with Solomon,
and make his throne greater than the throne of my lord King David.”
So the priest Zadok, the prophet Nathan, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and the
Cherethites and the Pelethites, went down and had Solomon ride on King David’s
mule, and led him to Gihon. There the priest Zadok took the horn of oil from the tent
and anointed Solomon. Then they blew the trumpet, and all the people said, “Long
live King Solomon!” And all the people went up following him, playing on pipes and
rejoicing with great joy, so that the earth quaked at their noise.
Revelation 1:4-18
John to the seven churches that are in Asia:
Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from
the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful
witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a
kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever
and ever. Amen.
Look! He is coming with the clouds;
every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him;
and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.
So it is to be. Amen.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is
to come, the Almighty.
I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom
and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of
God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard
behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write in a book what you see and send
it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis,
to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”
Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven
golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man,
clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. His head and his
hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, his
feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the
sound of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came
a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me,
saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead,
and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.
Meditation for Evening Prayer
I always hesitate to take up the Book of Revelation; I always feel not quite up to the
task of dealing with it. It is so full of the utter majesty and glory of God, so wreathed
in obscure symbols and mystical images—-how is one to distil a message for our day
from the ancientness and otherness of this Book?
But I would like to try, tonight, try to penetrate the veil, to begin to interpret in some
way that might be of value, the enduring truth of this Book that has remained an
inseparable part of the Canon of Holy Scripture, for ages past.
It is a glorious vision!
As God declares in Psalm 89:
Once and for all I have sworn by my holiness;
I will not lie to David.
His line shall continue forever,
and his throne endure before me like the sun.
It shall be established forever like the moon,
an enduring witness in the skies.
This is the same throne that Bathsheba confirms shall be for her son Solomon, to
continue the line of David her husband, the greatest of the human kings of Israel.
This throne of kingship is now the throne of the highest of the high, the mightiest of
the mighty, the most glorious of all kings, human and divine. It is now the throne of
Jesus, the Christ. This is the culmination of God’s intention for the line of David, that
it shall be filled with God’s own glory in the person of His Son, the Christ.
But among the clouds of incense, the flame of fire flashing from his eyes, the whitest
of white, the purest of gold, the burnished bronze, the sound of many waters, the
stars, the sun shining with full force, comes a two-edged sword from the mouth of
this visionary figure, one like the Son of Man. Surely this is a terrible portent.
When John sees this vision, no wonder he falls down as if dead. But what is the
message that comes from the lips of this vision?
Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and see, I
am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.
These are the same words that Jesus said when he appears after his crucifixion to his
disciples, saddened and bewildered and defeated, in a room in a house with a door
locked out of fear of those who might next come for them.
His greeting, then, to them, for them, is Peace be with you.
After he shows them the identifying marks of the cross in his hands and his side, he
repeats this direct address to them—-these same words: peace be with you.
Do not be dismayed: it is I. And just as the Book of Revelation opens with this
inherited greeting that we now use in the peace of Christ in our eucharist that we give
to one another, so the disciple of John who wrote this book says: Grace to you and
peace from him who is and who was and who is to come.
So the message from the mouth of the glorious One who sits on the glorious throne in
the vision of Revelation, the message is: do not be afraid, because I give you my
peace.
Be awe-struck at the beauty, the majesty, the glory of God’s anointed One, but then
receive this message of peace. And I think that the majesty of the words of the Book
of Common Prayer, recited in this holy place in the candlelit darkness of this winter
hour, properly establish our relationship to this God of glory, who sent His Son to
illuminate our darkness of hesitation, sadness, and fear. It is for us first to fall back,
awe-struck and astounded, at the vision, acknowledging God’s greatness, and then to
gladly accept his blessing of faith, hope, love, and peace.
It is a fearful and uncertain time. We cannot even come together in our worship this
evening to share together in the receiving of this blessing. But intrinsic to this vision
is the mystical number three that testifies to the three-fold nature of this Christ that is
proclaimed in verse 5: the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of the
kings of the earth. These three titles of Christ correspond to the threefold nature of
God and the threefold Divine name for God—the One who is and who was and who
is to come.
The faithful witness—-the witness Christ bore to the reality of God’s kingdom,
leading to his execution;
The firstborn of the dead, marking Christ’s victory—-his Resurrection;
The ruler of the kings of the earth—-the title of the One who will come again to
reign, gloriously, over all the earth.
So this remarkable vision—-this is just the beginning of it!—-is for our comfort. It is
to say to us, here, now, that God is. God reigns. God glory cannot be contained, even
in the most glorious vision. The message of the vision for us is that we belong to
God, and God will never leave us. Created in the very image of God, God intends for
us all to show his own reflected glory in the midst of this sullied, messy, broken,
desperate world that human beings have used so badly.
Christ has redeemed all that brokenness and has himself broken through it in a burst
of light.
We are now freed to live as creatures of light.
May we claim that freedom, and, inspired by the vision, go out to shine with God’s
own light.
In the words of the vision: To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his
blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be
glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
The Rev’d Dana English
The Church of St. John the Baptist Holland Road
London
November 15, 2020