Thursday after Sexagesima Sunday
Posted on February 11, 2021 by under
Scripture: Hebrews 11:32-40 (NKJV)
11:32 And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: 33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35 Women received their dead raised to life again.
Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. 36 Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.
39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, 40 God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.
Devotion
This week’s Collect confesses that we do not trust in our works, but look to God’s mercy to defend us—both in the Judgment and in this world. A proper reading of the works of the saints and martyrs listed in Hebrews 11 teaches us that their confession was the same. Each one, serving in his own vocation through faith, was made to do what he could not on his own: they all “out of weakness were made strong.” Only by such confidence would one not accept deliverance from cruel death to give God more glory by having Him raise to perfection a body that had been sawn in two, beaten to death with rocks, mauled by lions, or burned at the stake.
The writer of Hebrews gives a shocking reminder of our great privilege: those saints did not live after the Messiah walked the earth. They had faith that was never based on seeing the Christ in this life. They knew the previous great works of God and trusted in His promised Savior because of them, so that we might be surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses. He reserved for our age, though, the incarnation of the Christ, Jesus’ perfect life in our place and substitutionary atonement in dying for the sins of all. The promise of His coming having been fulfilled makes it easier to trust that we are forgiven and adopted, as Jesus said, and that should result in even bolder works—even in a martyrdom that is not over in a moment, but endures suffering from this world for years.
Prayer: O God, who seest that we put not our trust in anything that we do, mercifully grant that by Thy power we may be defended against all adversity; 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.
