He produced epic films in Hollywood for almost five decades and started Paramount Pictures. His name was Cecil B. DeMille and he died this day, January 21, 1959. His best-known films include: Samson and Delilah, The Ten Commandments and The Greatest Show on Earth, for which he won an Academy Award. At the opening of The Ten Commandments, Cecil B. DeMille stated: “Man has made 32 million laws since the Commandments were handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai… but he has never improved on God’s law…. They are the charter… of human liberty, for there can be no liberty without the law.”

William J. Federer. American Minute

Those who never rebelled against God
or at some point in their lives
shaken their fists in the face of heaven,
have never encountered God at all.
--- Catherine Marshall, Christy, 1967


A deleted Bible results in a diluted gospel.
Protestantism, as it loses faith in the Bible,
is losing its religion.
We can decaffeinate coffee,
de-nicotine tobacco,
but we can’t de-Christianize Christianity.
--- Clarence Edward Noble Macartney, one of the greatest Presbyterian leaders of the twentieth century.

... from here, there and everywhere

20     My son, pay attention to what I am saying;
incline your ear to my words.
21     Don’t let them out of your sight,
keep them deep in your heart;
22     for they are life to those who find them
and health to their whole being.

Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible-OE
: An English version of the Tanakh (OT) and
B'rit Hadashah (NT) (1st ed.). Clarksville, Md.: Jewish
New Testament Publications.

                Recall what God remembers

     I remember … the kindness of thy youth. --- Jeremiah 2:2.

     Am I as spontaneously kind to God as I used to be, or am I only expecting God to be kind to me? Am I full of the little things that cheer His heart over me, or am I whimpering because things are going hardly with me? There is no joy in the soul that has forgotten what God prizes. It is a great thing to think that Jesus Christ has need of me—“Give Me to drink.” How much kindness have I shown Him this past week? Have I been kind to His reputation in my life?

     God is saying to His people—‘You are not in love with Me now, but I remember the time when you were.’ “I remember … the love of thine espousals.” Am I as full of the extravagance of love to Jesus Christ as I was in the beginning, when I went out of my way to prove my devotion to Him? Does He find me recalling the time when I did not care for anything but Himself? Am I there now, or have I become wise over loving Him? Am I so in love with Him that I take no account of where I go? or am I watching for the respect due to me, weighing how much service I ought to give?

     If, as I recall what God remembers about me, I find He is not what He used to be to me, let it produce shame and humiliation, because that shame will bring the godly sorrow that works repentance.

Chambers, O. (1993). My Utmost for His Highest

So God is born
     from our loss of nerve?
He is the tree that looms up
in our darkness, at whose feet
we must fall to be set again
on its branches on some April day
of the heart.
     He needs us
as a conductor his choir
for the performance of an unending
music.
     What we may not
do is to have our horizon bare,
     is to make our way
on through a desert white with the bones
of our dead faiths. It is why,
some say, if there were no tree,
we would have to set one up
     for us to linger under,
its drops falling on us as though to confirm
he has blood like ourselves.
We have set one up, but
of steel and so leafless that
     he has taken himself
off out of the reach
of our transmitted prayers.
     Nightly
we explore the universe
on our wave-lengths, picking up nothing
     but those acoustic ghosts
that could as well be mineral
     signalling mineral
as immortal mind communicating with itself.

The Poems of R.S. Thomas , (Fayettesville: University of Arkansas Press), 1985

     Christology, the doctrine concerning God’s revelation in Christ and the salvation wrought through Christ, constitutes the core of Christian theology and belongs to the centre of the church’s proclamation. This significance is already evident in the writings of the first ‘theologian’ Paul, who says of himself that on the way to Damascus he received the gospel ‘through a revelation of Jesus Christ’ (Gal. 1:12) when ‘God chose … to reveal his Son in me’ (Gal. 1:16). When the apostle Paul refers in his letters to ‘the gospel of God’ or, more frequently, to ‘the gospel of Christ’, the basic notion of God’s self-revelation is being cast in terms of the inseparable ‘solidarity’ of the Father and Son, an idea which later would come to characterize the trinitarian understanding of God in Christianity. In Paul both the Father and Son can be addressed and invoked as ‘Kyrios’, and sometimes it is unclear (perhaps intentionally so) just which one is intended. Further, to a certain extent both are similarly addressed as the coming judge and can be credited with the ...creation itself. The Father has sent his Son into the world, and the Son is reconciling the present fallen world to the Father through his death on the cross. In restoring the world to the Father, the Son assumes the Father’s glory, though, to be sure, this all happens εἰς δόξαν τοῦ θεοῦ πατρός (Glory to God in the highest) (Phil. 2:11). We may be reasonably certain, then, that this first Christian author and theologian, whose unique—because apostolic—authority spans into the present, tells in his writing of an event between God and humanity, between heaven and earth; it is an event of incomparable drama with a programmatic comprehensiveness which supersedes anything else known from religious writers of the ancient world. On the basis of the Christ-event Paul formulated at once both a ‘theology’ and ‘anthropology’ and thus was well on the way to the later confession of the triune God, a way which would reach its first climax in the Johannine corpus. Paul and John are both witnesses, each in his own way, to the conviction that Christology lies at the heart of theology.The triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—is revealed in the world as the one God. Today, as many are questioning this central Christian doctrine of God—allegedly because of the growing dialogue with other ‘monotheistic religions’—we do well to devote our attention to the dynamic within New Testament Christology as it evolved out of its earliest beginnings into a full-blown belief in the triune God. In my opinion, this is a matter which determines the extent to which, if at all, we can remain really Christian theologians.

     Here we are confronted by an (as yet) unresolved theological problem which already surfaces in Paul’s theology: how is God’s activity manifest through the Son and how can the Son’s activity be identified with that of the Father? In Paul’s writings, our earliest Christian source, we are already invited to think of God in a way which is open to trinitarian terms.

     But this development in the understanding of God and Christ did not originate with Paul. It is ultimately rooted in Jesus’ own self-understanding, his ‘Persongeheimnis’. Of course, what Jesus thought about himself is inaccessible to our historical and pyschological curiosity. We can say, however, that Jesus’ own proclamation contained quite a new form of ‘messianic’ claim which became visible and audible through his activity. Moreover, Jesus’ closest followers, the disciples, and thereafter the evangelists who were either directly or indirectly dependent on them, unanimously preserved the thrust of this claim despite the sometimes great theological differences among them. For the disciples, there was no doubt that their master taught, ‘not as the scribes’, but rather proclaimed ‘a new teaching in fullness of power’ (Mark 1:22, 27). They were also convinced that in the parables ‘the mystery of God’s reign’, previously only known by Jesus, had now been disclosed to them (Mark 4:11, 33–34). And further, they knew that Jesus’ healings and exorcisms not only fulfilled the eschatological promises of the Old Testament prophets, but also demonstrated that God’s heavenly and transcendent rule had now been made tangible. Yes, in the prerogative of divine power Jesus even dared to offer forgiveness of sins, that is—as Ernst Fuchs has said—‘to act in place of God’. It is no wonder that in all four gospels, from Mark to John, those who observe and hear Jesus are repeatedly made to ask a question which serves as a point of departure for Christology: ‘Who is this one?’ (Mark 4:41). This question, which has constantly been the subject of dispute, continues as a vital issue into the present day.

     The high Christology of the Fourth Gospel is already, at least partially, foreshadowed in a number of synoptic passages. These include the saying about authority in the relationship between the Father and Son,5 the temptation stories—both from ‘Q’—the parable of the wicked tenants, the question concerning the sonship of David and lordship of the Messiah on the basis of Psalm 110, and Jesus’ answer to the high priest’s question in Mark. These are all passages whose historical origins have been debated by modern exegetes. The rise of ‘historical-critical’ analysis has not, however, been able to curb the prejudicial biases of scholars with respect to the historical figure of Jesus and his divine mission, and thus historical-critics cannot lay claim to an objectivity any more than those who, in the ‘hey-day’ of Protestant orthodoxy, held that the written text itself possesses final authority. In the end, the old ‘orthodox’ rationalism, which betrays an ahistorical and fundamentalistic longing for security, and modern forms of rationalism, which seek to domesticate Jesus in accordance with selfish interests and ideologies, are after all in their roots not very different from one another. By way of contrast, we should first attempt to comprehend this Jesus and the disciples’ message about him in all their strangeness and unfamiliarity! The σκάνδαλον τοῦ σταυροῦ (offense of the cross) of the crucified Messiah is less understood today than in the time of Paul.

Studies in Early Christology (Academic Paperback)

     In A.D. 28 one of the Old Testament prophets returned. It had been nearly 400 years, and God had been silent. Malachi, the last of those Old Testament greats, closed his book with a promise—and a warning. “Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful Day of the Lord. And He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Mal. 4:5–6, KJV).

     Thus, the Jews had been guided to turn their eyes ahead, and look for the day of Messiah’s coming. They were promised a forerunner, someone to warn them and turn their hearts back to God’s ways. Implicit in Malachi’s words was a choice. Unless the hearts of God’s people were turned, the Messiah’s coming would not bring Israel the expected blessing, but would bring a curse.

     Later Jesus would tell crowds that John, then executed by Herod (a son of Herod the great), was the greatest of all the prophets and was, in fact, a messenger sent to prepare Messiah’s way. And Jesus added these words: “If you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come” (Matt. 11:14). Israel did not accept John’s Elijah - ministry. Their hearts would not turn. The golden opportunity slipped by. The Messiah’s body came to fit a wooden cross rather than an ivory throne, and Israel was destined to know another 2,000 years of scattering, of ghettos, of pogroms, of unrealized hopes. History would now pivot to focus on the second coming of Messiah. The fulfillment of Malachi’s words would await another Elijah.

Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 5, Numbers (budd), 446pp

     In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you.
--- John 14:2.

     Our Lord has taught us to connect heaven with the thought of himself—“my” Father’s house. (Classic Sermons on Heaven and Hell (Kregel Classic Sermons) Heaven is the house of Christ’s Father. It is as when an arch is built and last the keystone is put in that binds it all into one, or as when a palace has been raised with all its rooms and their furniture complete, but it is dark or dimly seen by lights carried from place to place. The sun arises, and by the central dome the light is poured into all the corridors and chambers. The Lord Jesus Christ is the sun of this house. If we think of its rooms and wonder where the final resting place will be, it is where Christ takes up his dwelling. His person is the place of heaven. If we think of its extent and variety, our imaginations might be bewildered and our souls chilled by boundless fields of knowledge, which stir the intellect and famish the heart. But where he is, knowledge becomes the wisdom of love—the daylight softened—and a heart beats in the universe, which throbs to its remotest and minutest fiber, for “in him was life, and that life was the light of men.”

     If we think of heaven in its unity of communion, it is in him that it is maintained and felt—at his throne, through his love—according to his prayer. And if we think of a Father in heaven, it is Christ who has revealed him. “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known” (John 1:18). Even in heaven, God cannot be seen by created eye; the pure in heart see him, but with the heart. For the human eye, it is Jesus Christ, the glorified God-man, who says in heaven as on earth, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” He who gave us a corporeal nature and surrounded us with a material world has put into us the craving wish to approach him with our entire beings, soul, body, and spirit, and he has met the wish in the Son of God. In his person are enshrined the infinite attributes of God, so that finite creatures can look on them and comprehend them and see the Father in the Son. Thus God becomes open to human vision and accessible to human affection.
--- John Ker.

Wallis, D. (2001). Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church's Great Preachers

     Would you stand barefoot in the snow for three days to receive forgiveness of sin?

     One man did. In the eleventh century the church fell into widespread corruption, and a dwarf-size reformer named Hildebrand became Pope Gregory VII. Gregory immediately instituted change, insisting that he—not secular kings—had the prerogative of appointing church leaders in the various nations of Europe.

     Germany’s emperor Henry IV resisted and tried to replace Gregory. The pope excommunicated Henry, dispatching an edict that the emperor’s subjects should no longer obey him. Henry flew into a rage, storming around for months as his subjects rebelled. He finally realized the only way to save his crown was by seeking Gregory’s forgiveness.

     The winter of 1077 was among the coldest in memory. Even so, a few days before Christmas Henry left Germany with his wife and infant son, crossing the Alps as a penitent seeking absolution. The queen and child were lifted and lowered across the icy slopes in rough sledges of oxhide. Horses were killed for warmth and food. The little entourage arrived at the palace housing the pope in Canossa, Italy, on January 21, 1077, when the cold was severest. For three days Henry stood in the snow, a penitent with bare head and feet, in a coarse woolen shirt, shivering, and knocking for entrance. “The stern old pope, as hard as a rock and as cold as the snow, refused till he was satisfied that the cup of humiliation was drained to the dregs.”*

     Henry was finally allowed into the presence of the pint-size pope, throwing himself at his feet and bursting into tears, saying, “Spare me, holy father, spare me!”

     Gregory forgave him.

     We don’t have to stand barefoot in the cold, for Christ hung on Calvary that our sins, though scarlet, should be as white as snow.

     I, the Lord, invite you to come and talk it over. Your sins are scarlet red, but they will be whiter than snow or wool.
--- Isaiah 1:18.

Morgan, R. J. On This Day 365 Amazing And Inspiring Stories About Saints, Martyrs And Heroes

SATURDAY OF THE SECOND WEEK AFTER EPIPHANY
YEAR 2

Psalms (Morning) Psalm 30, 32
Psalms (Evening) Psalm 42, 43
Old Testament Genesis 12:9–13:1
New Testament Hebrews 7:18–28
Gospel John 4:27–42

Index of Readings

PSALMS (MORNING)
Psalm 30, 32

A Psalm. A Song at the dedication of the temple. Of David.

1 I will extol you, O LORD, for you have drawn me up,
and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
2 O LORD my God, I cried to you for help,
and you have healed me.
3 O LORD, you brought up my soul from Sheol,
restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.

4 Sing praises to the LORD, O you his faithful ones,
and give thanks to his holy name.
5 For his anger is but for a moment;
his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.

6 As for me, I said in my prosperity,
“I shall never be moved.”
7 By your favor, O LORD,
you had established me as a strong mountain;
you hid your face;
I was dismayed.

8 To you, O LORD, I cried,
and to the LORD I made supplication:
9 “What profit is there in my death,
if I go down to the Pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it tell of your faithfulness?
10 Hear, O LORD, and be gracious to me!
O LORD, be my helper!”

11 You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth
and clothed me with joy,
12 so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

Of David. A Maskil.

1 Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
2 Happy are those to whom the LORD imputes no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

3 While I kept silence, my body wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,”
and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah

6 Therefore let all who are faithful
offer prayer to you;
at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters
shall not reach them.
7 You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah

8 I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
9 Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle,
else it will not stay near you.

10 Many are the torments of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the LORD.
11 Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, O righteous,
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

PSALMS (EVENING)
Psalm 42, 43

To the leader. A Maskil of the Korahites.

1 As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
the face of God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me continually,
“Where is your God?”

4 These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,
and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help 6 and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows
have gone over me.
8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.

9 I say to God, my rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully
because the enemy oppresses me?”
10 As with a deadly wound in my body,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually,
“Where is your God?”

11 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.

1 Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause
against an ungodly people;
from those who are deceitful and unjust
deliver me!
2 For you are the God in whom I take refuge;
why have you cast me off?
Why must I walk about mournfully
because of the oppression of the enemy?

3 O send out your light and your truth;
let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
and to your dwelling.
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God my exceeding joy;
and I will praise you with the harp,
O God, my God.

5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.

OLD TESTAMENT
Genesis 12:9–13:1

9 And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.

10 Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to reside there as an alien, for the famine was severe in the land. 11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know well that you are a woman beautiful in appearance; 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’; then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared on your account.” 14 When Abram entered Egypt the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 When the officials of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. 16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female slaves, female donkeys, and camels.

17 But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 18 So Pharaoh called Abram, and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her, and be gone.” 20 And Pharaoh gave his men orders concerning him; and they set him on the way, with his wife and all that he had.

13 So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb.

NEW TESTAMENT
Hebrews 7:18–28

18 There is, on the one hand, the abrogation of an earlier commandment because it was weak and ineffectual 19 (for the law made nothing perfect); there is, on the other hand, the introduction of a better hope, through which we approach God.

20 This was confirmed with an oath; for others who became priests took their office without an oath, 21 but this one became a priest with an oath, because of the one who said to him,

“The Lord has sworn
and will not change his mind,
‘You are a priest forever’ ”—

22 accordingly Jesus has also become the guarantee of a better covenant.

23 Furthermore, the former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office; 24 but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. 25 Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

26 For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. 27 Unlike the other high priests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for those of the people; this he did once for all when he offered himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests those who are subject to weakness, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.

GOSPEL
John 4:27–42

27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” 28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” 30 They left the city and were on their way to him.

31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

The Episcopal Church. Book of Common Prayer Lectionary