14C19.   Isaiah 66:10-14c.  Isaiah was calling the Hebrew people to rejoice despite the fact that they were living in troubled times.  “For thus says the Lord: Lo, I will spread prosperity over Jerusalem like a river.”  “Exult, exult with Jerusalem all you who were mourning over her!” “The Lord’s power shall be known to his servants.”

Psalm 66.  “Shout joyfully to God, all the earth.”  Say to God, “How tremendous are your deeds!” “Therefore let us rejoice in him.’”  “He rules by his might forever.”

Luke 10:1-12, 17-20.  Jesus sent out seventy-two disciples in pairs “to every town and place he intended to visit.” He told them to pray for more laborers for the harvest of souls because the laborers are few.  He warns them that they will face troubles, saying, “Behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.”  He sends them out without any physical resources, only spiritual resources to cure the sick and drive out demons.  When they enter a house, they are to “first say, ‘Peace to this household.’  If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you. Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you, for the laborer deserves his payment.”  In John 20:19, Jesus said to his disciples, “Peace be with you,” because they had the doors locked “for fear of the Jews.”  God is almighty wishing to use his might to care for us and protect us.  If we live without God, we have good reason to fear, to be without peace, since there are many who are stronger than we and may wish to prey upon us.  When the disciples wish the resident peace, they are calling upon them to be at one with God.  If a peaceful person lives there, is to say that that person has already been at one with God, even before the disciples came.  If the person who lives there is not at peace or one with God, they will be without the resources to defend or sustain themselves and so they will perish terribly.  The seventy-two rejoiced in the power that was at their disposal.  Jesus responds, “Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because you names are written in heaven.”  We must keep our priorities in the right order.  We must think as God thinks and not as human beings do.  However, only if live at peace or at one with God, can we accomplish that.

Galatians 6:14-18.  “Brother and sisters: May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”  In Galatians 2:19b-20, Paul also wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.”  Paul is saying that Jesus is now his life, no longer he himself but rather Paul’s dominion over himself  had died, been crucified, so that Jesus is his Lord and his life.  Paul was so united to Jesus in his crucifixion that Paul has been given the stigmata, i.e. the marks of nails in his hands and feet and the marks of the spear in his side. Exult because God is our savior.  His victory over sin and death is now our victory!  “Therefore let us rejoice in him!”