Dear God, before I get into today’s passages from Sacred Invitation: Lenten Devotions Inspired by the Book of Common Prayer, I want to look at something the priest read yesterday when I attended a “Stations of the Cross” service at our local Catholic church. This is an excerpt from the 12th Station:
My people, what have I done to you?
Or in what have I offended you?
Answer me.
What more should I have done and did not do?
I led you out of the land of Egypt, and you prepared a cross for me.
I opened the Red Sea before you, and you opened my side with a lance.
I gave you a royal scepter, and you give given me a crown of thorns.
With great power I lifted you up, and you have hung me upon a cross.
My people, what have I done to you, or in what have I offended you?
Answer me.
(from the Reproaches of Good Friday)
There are shades of your speech to Job in this, but it’s very convicting for me because I know that if your time on earth had come now and not 2,000 years ago, I would be as guilty as any. I wouldn’t have gone to see you, so my attitude would have been more apathy that hatred, but I certainly would not have worshipped you or even defended you.
But there is a question that is asked here that people today could stand to answer: “What more should I have done and did not do? There are some example of human suffering I hate such as sex trafficking and war, but even those are manmade. What do I expect you to do to stop them? How do I expect you to intervene in our lives to smite the bad people and build up the good? Who is to say which side of the cutline from good and bad I would be on? You, of course. But my point is whenever I have stopped to think about how things should be different–how the Bible could be better or more clear and concise, how you should approach evil in the world, etc.–I have no idea. We are who we are as humans. Maybe I could take issue with how you created us in the first place, free will and all, but I cannot take issue with who you are and how you love us. What more should you do that you have not done?
Here are today’s passages. It’s interesting that there is no Gospel reading. Jesus is apart from us for the time being. Part of our God has died, sacrificed for me. Amazing
- AM Psalms: 88, 95
- PM Psalm: 27
- Job 19:21-27a
- Romans 8:1-11
- Hebrews 4:1-16
Psalms 88, 95 – Once again, they are pairing the worship of Psalm 95 with a lament psalm. In this case, it is Psalm 88. My wife mentioned yesterday a sermon she heard saying that Jesus might have had Psalm 88 in mind as he walked his path yesterday. I would love to be able to see into Jesus’s mind that morning as he walked a brutal and terrible road.
Psalm 27 – “Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.” That’s what we are doing now as we wait for Jesus’s resurrection. It’s also kind of the word I was getting from you way back at the beginning of Lent: Patience. Wait. I will wait patiently, Father. I will not force my own timing or agenda. I will wait.
Job 19:21-27a – I almost wish they had left our verses 21-24 because those are words of Job I think you would take issue with. But the faith beyond his ignorance in verses 25-27 is beautiful: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes – I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” Yes! Yes!
Romans 8:1-11 – “But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Sprit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” Oh, Father, bring my spirit your life through your Spirit. Live in me! Forgive me of my sin. Forgive the mess of my bodily temple. Thank you, Jesus, for making it possible for me to have the Holy Spirit in me.
Hebrews 4:1-16 – Lord, teach me what I am supposed to carry with me past this Lenten season. What should my time in scripture look like? Prayer? Service? Loving my family? Impact on my sphere of influence? In the case of this passage, Sabbath? Show me what to do. Reveal your truth to me.
Oh, Father, I offer this prayer to you in the name of Jesus, your son, and with your Holy Spirit,
Amen
Emails to God 