Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Daily Lesson for January 31, 2017

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 62 verse 9:

9 Those of low estate are but a breath;
those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
they are together lighter than a breath.

The rule of the mighty and the rich and the privileged and the powerful of this world is but a fleeting moment and they too shall be gathered with their ancestors and left to the judgment of the God of history. They too wrinkle and wither and wear out. It is the same for the bold and beautiful as it is for the meek and the mild.

John Donne gave a vivid image in a sermon on mortality:

"When a whirlewind hath blown the dust of a churchyard into the Church, and the man sweeps out the dust of the Church into the Churchyard, who will undertake to sift those dusts again and to pronounce, This is the patrician, this is the noble flowre , and this the yeomanly, this the Plebeian bran? "

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust; in the end there shall be no blue-blooded dust.  All go the same way. All will stand before the same judge. And as Bishop Massilon said after snuffing out the candle at the funeral of "the Great" King Louis XIV, "only God is great."

No comments:

Post a Comment