Wednesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time
January 27, 2021
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 110, but through the lens of our first reading from Hebrews.
We have prayed with this psalm a few times recently, exploring its links to priesthood, ministry, and good old Melchizedek. When I saw it again this morning, I was at little exhausted by it. Then I read Hebrews and got a new perspective on Psalm 110.
For by one offering Christ has made perfect forever
Hebrews 10:14-16
those who are being consecrated.
The Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying:
This is the covenant I will establish with them
after those days, says the Lord:
“I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them upon their minds,”
This passage from Hebrews is a testament to Jesus Christ, the ultimate High Priest, the Complete Melchizedek. That which Christ sanctifies or consecrates is us – his Body, the Church.
This consecration places in our hearts the covenant once spoken of by Jeremiah:
See, days are coming says the LORD—
Jeremiah 31:31-33
when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors
the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.
They broke my covenant, though I was their master.
But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days.
I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts;
I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Praying with Psalm 110 in this light, I give thanks for the Covenant expressed in my own life:
- for my Baptism into Christ,
- for the grace to witness to Christ’s law of love
- for my inclusion into Christ’s ongoing ministry through the Holy Spirit
Poetry: The Covenant Prayer of John Wesley (1703–1791)
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.
Music: A New and Living Way – Michael Card
Year after year there the priest would stand An offering of blood held out in in his hand Before the curtain there he would stand in fright It hung there to hold in the holy ~ to keep in the light A new and living way Through the curtain that was torn The climax of the cross The moment our hope was born By a new and living way And when time was full another Priest came to save He would offer forgiveness for He was the Offering He gave From the sacrifice ~ from that dark disgrace Came the power to make anywhere a Most Holy Place A new and living way Through the curtain that was torn The climax of the cross
Lavish Mercy 