The daily reading plan now moves from Micah to 2 Chronicles, beginning just after the death of King David in 1 Chronicles 29:26-30. The first act recorded, then, is Solomon’s gathering of all Israel, all commanders, judges, rulers and heads of houses. King Solomon gathered them at the “high place” that was at Gibeon, where the Tent of Meeting was, the ark of God and the bronze altar. And Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings upon it. His first act was to gather the Lord God’s people for worship and to make an acceptable gift to the Lord.

The Gospel reading for the First Sunday in Lent is always one of the Gospel accounts of the temptation of Jesus. Our Sunday lectionary readings are in Matthew this year, and you would have heard Matthew’s account in worship on March 1. Our daily readings bring us to the account in Luke, and in the season of Lent, you can’t hear this too often.

Well, today I have chosen as our devotional reading the passage from Luke, which is probably skimmed over by most readers. It is one of two genealogies in the Gospels, one here in Luke, the other in Matthew. I have heard preachers dismiss the genealogies as unimportant, and in some ways, that’s true. In other ways, the two genealogies serve a very particular purpose, in accordance with the intention of the author.

It was a few short weeks ago when we observed the festival of the Baptism of our Lord. It is always a temptation to want to focus on and bring to mind our own Baptisms — and even better if there is a Baptism in our congregation that day. But preachers will do well to point out that it is the festival of the Baptism of our Lord! We hear about the Baptism of Jesus in the midst of the season of Epiphany, which means “manifestation.” Each Sunday during this season manifests, reveals something to us about who this Jesus is who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And what is revealed in the passage above in Luke’s Gospel?

Those of us who follow the liturgical calendar in worship are used to hearing this passage about John the Baptizer in Advent. Usually, two Sundays in Advent are dedicated to hearing about John and his call to “Prepare the way of the Lord…” It fits well in our time of preparation for Christmas and our annual celebration of Christ’s birth.

Because we heard the account of Jesus, twelve years old in the temple, just a few weeks ago in Sunday worship, we have not included that passage here. Rather, we are focusing today on Jesus and Simeon in the temple.

We return to the words of the prophet Micah today, as we hear his message foretelling hope and restoration. In the verse just before (3:12), Micah had warned that Zion would be “plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.” This is the law and judgement which would come upon Israel and Judah.

It is unfortunate that most translations rightly introduce passages such as this with “Zechariah prophesied, saying…” while many scholars and historic tradition understands this as being something of a poetic verse chanted or sung by Zechariah. This is true also of Mary’s song, the Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55. Singing and chanting was common in Israel as they were a musical people.