Day Two : 28th November

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord

(Isaiah 2:3)

Psalm 122

I was glad when they said unto me:
"Let us go to the house of the Lord."

And now our feet are standing:
within your gates, O Jerusalem;

Jerusalem which is built as a city:
where the pilgrims gather in unity.

There the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord:
as he commanded Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord.

There are set thrones of judgement:
the thrones of the house of David.

O pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
may those who love you prosper.

Peace be within your walls:
and prosperity in your palaces.

For the sake of my kindred and companions:
I will pray that peace be with you.

For the sake of the house of the Lord our God:
I will seek for your good.

and reflecting on yesterday's comments by the bishop of Liverpool, from Linda's sermon 21 December 2003.

…But still there is the time of waiting and the birth pangs.
[from Hebrews]
A body you have prepared for me….

A body

Of the earth; the soil…

We can focus on the stars even with our bodies, and know that the atoms that are in us and in everything around us were actually made in the stars… we are star stuff. (Fred Hoyle)

But also, we must not forget that we are also of the earth, the soil. We are made of this stuff of humus…. compost…

a body was prepared, and it was a human body, of the earth.

of this stuff… [a handful of compost???]

enfleshed… incarnate…….

the stuff of the earth and yet the hope of salvation…

the one Micah calls — "one of peace"

in Hebrews — "we have been sanctified through the body of Christ"