Commencing with Lent in March, 2011 we began using the gospel text for each week instead. Visitors will be helped by reading through the text as listed in each case before engaging the prayer. We hope in this way to both stimulate thought on textual themes and encourage devotional engagement week by week in each text's implications for life as we know it today.
A whole chapter, Lord, given over to an extraordinary event, set in the context of an even more extraordinary conflict. A blind man healed, largely unaware of who it was that healed him. “One thing I do know,” he later told his inquisitors, “that though I was blind, now I see.”
How striking it is to me that in your presence, Lord, the blind are made to see, while those who have always had the gift of sight are proven blind. All of us who follow after you this day on your Lenten journey are caught up short—both by the miracle cited and the skepticism of those surrounding who, out of hatred for you and pride in themselves, refused to accept and believe it.
Help us, Lord, looking on both to truly see the blind man delivered and be delivered ourselves from our skepticism and unbelief. Have I substituted my religious understanding for faith in you? Am I offended in my own life by where you go and what you do that does not seem to sync with what I have assumed is proper?
Soften my heart to your Son and his grace. And help me forsake whatever pride and prejudice prevents me from glorying in his power and submitting to his rule. Amen.
“The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” Martha said to Mary. “Ans when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him.”
A week ago we saw people who ought to have known better resisting Jesus. Here we see a woman of faith anxious to be with him, to sit quietly at his feet, as later evidenced.
Lord, make me more like Mary and less like the scribes and Pharisees, who ought to have seen and known better. Open my mind and heart to your presence and fill both with your grace, wisdom, and power.
Deliver me as you delivered Lazarus from death. lest I miss the opportunity of being with you and living in you. Raise my mind and spirit from every temptation to trust more in my wisdom than in yours. And lead me in the way everlasting. Amen.
April 17 (Palm/Passion) – Matthew 27:11-54
The silence of your Son, O God, in the midst of his accusers, is an awesome witness to the fact that they had no real authority over him. He knew and still knows that every attempt to control his destiny by anyone foolish enough to believe they have the power is destined to fail.
He was in your hands, Lord, who alone holds that power, and you had willed in love to allow him to suffer and die for our sakes that you might raise him again on the third day for our salvation.
He had no need to justify himself in any of the human tribunals to which he was sent back and forth. For he saw your will in the distance and was committed fully to obey it, that whoever later might come to believe in him could have eternal life.
Sadness prevailed for a time, as we see in this whole chapter, but joy and light were not far behind. What wondrous love is shown us here, and humility in the face of certain death! Amen.
April 23 (Easter) – John 20:1-18
How sovereign you are, O God, in power, grace and love. We see the power in your raising Jesus from the dead. We see the grace in his garden encounter (yes, garden encounter) with Mary. And we see the love in the cascading good news that spread quickly to all your people who had been drowning in despair.
And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, Martin Luther later proclaimed, we will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him. one little word shall fell him!
There is naught to do this day but rejoice, Lord, in who you are and all you have done for us. Our joy is unending, for you have willed to save us—even from ourselves. Let nothing hinder our praise this day. And let nothing tempt us to stray from the power, grace, and love it heralds forever. Amen
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