Thursday after the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on September 26, 2024 by under
Scripture: Ezra 9:6-9 (NKJV)
9:6 And I said: “O my God, I am too ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, my God; for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has grown up to the heavens. 7 Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been very guilty, and for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and to humiliation, as it is this day. 8 And now for a little while grace has been shown from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a measure of revival in our bondage. 9 For we were slaves. Yet our God did not forsake us in our bondage; but He extended mercy to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to revive us, to repair the house of our God, to rebuild its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem.
Devotion
This pericope points to the grace of God demonstrated through the favorable disposition of the Persian kings toward Israel near the end of its Babylonian captivity. This favor ran through multiple generations of Persian kings for approximately 100 years and led to the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple. Ezra’s words clearly show that he felt both an inner shame before God and an outward humiliation before people for his own sins and the sins of his people who were conscious of their corporate solidarity with their sinful ancestors. Verse seven makes it clear that every individual and all aspects of Israelite society were guilty of a lack of faith and zeal for the God of Creation and the Exodus. It is also made clear that this sad situation has existed for some time and is responsible for the present slavery in Babylon.
In spite of this undeniable guilt, the Lord in verse eight is presented as delivering a tiny group (a remnant who will be faithful) from this grim reality, purely by grace and His merciful love for His chosen. Verse nine makes it clear that the favorable nature of the kings of Persia toward these enslaved Israelites is because of God’s action, stimulated by His deep love for those He has graciously chosen.
Collect: Lord, we beseech Thee, grant Thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow Thee, the only God; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
