Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America

Friday after the First Sunday after the Epiphany of our Lord

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Pastor Dulas under Devotions
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Scripture: St. John 10:31-38 (NKJV)
 
10:31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. 32 Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?”
 
33 The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.”
 
34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”’? 35 If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), 36 do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 37 If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; 38 but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.”
 
Devotion
 
If there is anything of importance in today’s reading it is that Jesus really can annoy sinners. So much so that they are ready to stone Him “again”. But ought we really be surprised? Stop and think of the times in your life when God’s Law came bearing down on you. At that moment a person can be really annoyed, really mad at God, because reality has struck a nerve: “I am a sinner.”
 
Time and time again, the Jews kept looking for something wrong with Jesus. Time and time again, they came up with nothing. But in today’s reading they think maybe they found it: blasphemy. Jesus, a real man, dares to call Himself God. Can’t have that, now can we?
 
But once again, Jesus quotes Scripture and turns the tables on the Jews by quoting how God referred to men as “gods”. Jesus basically says, “Look at Me and My works.” Jesus lays before the Jews His good works, works which only God can do.
 
One of the prayers of thanksgiving at the conclusion of the service of the Lord’s Supper begins, “God the Father, Fount and Source of all goodness…” (TLH, p.31). All goodness is tied inextricably to God, as Jesus told the rich young ruler, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God” (Matt. 19:17).
 
Prayer: O Lord, we beseech Thee mercifully to receive the prayers of Thy people who call upon Thee; and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord. Amen.
 
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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