Ancient Anglican

As you receive the communion wafer, let it touch your lips, and at that moment, know that you are no longer a person of unclean lips. And as you allow the wafer to pass through your lips, experience the grace of God coming upon you – in all of its wonder and awe and its amazement and incomprehension.

In Luke 9, Jesus commissioned and trained the Twelve to carry on his work. Here, he expands his workforce by adding seventy additional apostles to proclaim the Kingdom of God.

In these readings we encounter Jesus’s disclosure to the Twelve as to the meaning of his identity as the Christ, and Jesus’s instructions to them as to what is required of his disciples.

Jesus is the founder of the Kingdom of Heaven, but for the business to succeed, he needs others to share in the planning and responsibility of the venture. These are the Twelve.

Jesus knows that metaphorical storms will come upon the apostles and the church, and he wants his disciples (including us) to have a faith that trusts God to achieve his purpose even through disorder and apparent destruction.

In the readings this week we meet the sinful woman who loved Jesus and the Three Woman who follow Jesus.

In healing the Centurion’s slave and raising the widow’s son, Jesus is fulfilling the stories of Elisha and Elijah that he quoted in Nazareth.

We must love our neighbors, even those who are our enemies, and we cannot judge others by pointing out their sins when we still have sins of own. Rather, to be a follower of Jesus, we must always have an attitude of spiritual impoverishment borne of humility and contrition.

We see Jesus’s increasing authority in his forgiving sins, his declaration that he is the Son of Man, and in his declaring himself Lord of the Sabbath.

Always remember who YOU ARE in your baptism. See the Spirit. Hear the Father. And never forget that you are a Child of the Most High.

The first story of Jesus’ ministry in each gospel sets the tone for that Gospel and answers the question of who the gospel writer sees Jesus as. For Luke, Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophets.

Each of the three temptations is a type of temptation that all sons of Adam confront. Just as Jesus defeats the devil with the Spirit and the Scriptures, so we are called to do as well.