Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 18 verses 3 through 17:
3 I will call upon the Lord,
and so shall I be saved from my enemies.
Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 18 verses 3 through 17:
4 The breakers of death rolled over me,
3 I will call upon the Lord,
and so shall I be saved from my enemies.
and the torrents of oblivion made me afraid.
5 The cords of hell entangled me,
and the snares of death were set for me.
6 I called upon the Lord in my distress
and cried out to my God for help.
7 He heard my voice from his heavenly dwelling;
my cry of anguish came to his ears.
8 The earth reeled and rocked;
the roots of the mountains shook;
they reeled because of his anger.
9 Smoke rose from his nostrils
and a consuming fire out of his mouth;
hot burning coals blazed forth from him.
10 He parted the heavens and came down
with a storm cloud under his feet.
11 He mounted on cherubim and flew;
he swooped on the wings of the wind.
12 He wrapped darkness about him;
he made dark waters and thick clouds his pavilion.
13 From the brightness of his presence, through the clouds,
burst hailstones and coals of fire.
14 The Lord thundered out of heaven;
the Most High uttered his voice.
15 He loosed his arrows and scattered them;
he hurled thunderbolts and routed them.
16 The beds of the seas were uncovered,
and the foundations of the world laid bare,
at your battle cry, O Lord,
at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.
17 He reached down from on high and grasped me;
he drew me out of great waters.
We are delivered, as out of great waters, again and again. From birth to baptism, which is a figurative death, we discover again and again that God rescues us from the confines of where we are, piercing the womb of all that we have yet to experience and know, and delivering us from a place of darkness into a new place of light and sound. This is life — birth and rebirth. For a man must be born. And he must be born again.
And birth is hard. Labor is arduous, grueling even. Before the birth takes place a death first occurs. It is the death of who we are. Who we are is dying. We have grown too small for the womb, what had been the cord of life until now becomes an instrument of death. It entangled, strangles, and finally suffocates. We must leave where we are. We must leave who we are. The womb must be breached. The waters must be torn open. We must be born. And we must be born again.
It is a leaving home. It is a parting of the Red Sea. There is slavery on one side; freedom on the other. There is salvation on the other side of the water. We must cross. We must be born. And we must be born again.
Born of water and blood, the dying and the birthing never cease. We were born yesterday. We are born today. We shall be born again tomorrow. Mother earth shall push us out once more. Light shall kidnap us from darkness. New occasions shall teach new duties. New experiences shall make old opinions obsolete — cruel and confining, even. The Truth shall overtake truths. The death-entombing Letter shall be pierced by the sword of the life-giving Spirit. We shall breathe. On our own, we shall breathe. We must be born. And we must be born again.
We must be born again, and again, and again.
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