our need for God, Thursday

Thursday, March 6

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:  Gracious God, today begins a period of inner reflection and examination. The days stretch before me and invite me inward to that silent, holy space that holds your Spirit. This special time beckons me to see my life through Christ's eyes and the truth and reality of your love incarnate. Give me the grace to enter the space of these days with anticipation of our meeting. And, when I open my soul to your presence, let your loving kindness flow over me and seep into the pockets of my heart. I ask this for the sake of your love.

Scripture Reading for the Day: Luke 7:36-50

Reading for Reflection:

     Lent is traditionally associated with penitence, fasting, almsgiving, and prayer.  It is time for “giving things up” balanced by “giving to” those in need.  Yet whatever else it may be, Lent should never be morose—an annual ordeal during which we begrudgingly forgo a handful of pleasures.  Instead, we ought to approach Lent as an opportunity, not a requirement.  After all, it is meant to be the church’s springtime, a time when, out of the darkness of sin’s winter, a repentant, empowered people emerges.  No wonder one liturgy refers to it as “this joyful season.”

     Put another way, Lent is the season in which we ought to be surprised by joy.  Our self-sacrifices serve no purpose unless, by laying aside this or that desire, we are able to focus on our heart’s deepest longing: unity with Christ.  In him—in his suffering and death, his resurrection and triumph—we find our truest joy.

     Such joy is costly, however.  It arises from the horror of our sin, which crucified Christ.  This is why Meister Eckhart points out that those who have the hardest time with Lent are the “god people.”  Most of us are willing to give up a thing or two; we may also admit our need for renewal.  But to die with Christ?

     Spiritual masters often refer to a kind of “dread,” the nagging sense that we have missed something important and have been somehow untrue—to ourselves, to others, to God.  Lent is a good time to confront the source of that feeling.  It is a time to let go of excuses for failings and shortcomings; a time to stop hanging on to whatever shreds of goodness we perceive in ourselves; a time to ask God to show us what we really look like.  Finally, it is a time to face up to the personal role each of us plays in prolonging Christ’s agony at Golgotha.  As Richard John Neuhaus (paraphrasing John Donne) advises, “Send not to know by whom the nails were driven; they were driven by you, by me.”

     And yet our need for repentance cannot erase the good news that Christ overcame all sin.  His resurrection frees us from ourselves.  His empty tomb turns our attention away from all that is wrong with us and with the world, and spurs us on to experience the abundant life he promises. (Bread and Wine; Readings for Lent and Easter, The Plow Publishing house)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself 

Closing Prayer: O God of peace, who has taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and in trust shall be our strength: by the power of your Spirit lift us, we pray, to your presence, where we may be still and know that you are God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer)