All Creation Groans: Lent Daybook 30

Look: Hands for Bread, Safet Zec - Source | HT

Listen: In Labor All Creation Groans, The Porter’s Gate - Lyrics | Spotify | YouTube

Read: Psalm 69:1-38; Psalm 73; Jeremiah 22:13-23; Romans 8:12-27; John 6:41-51

Excerpts:

“Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good; according to your abundant mercy, turn to me. Hide not your face from your servant, for I am in distress; make haste to answer me. Draw near to my soul, redeem me; ransom me because of my enemies!

You know my reproach, and my shame and my dishonor; my foes are all known to you. Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.

Let their own table before them become a snare; and when they are at peace, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see, and make their loins tremble continually. Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them. May their camp be a desolation; let no one dwell in their tents. For they persecute him whom you have struck down, and they recount the pain of those you have wounded. Add to them punishment upon punishment; may they have no acquittal from you. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; let them not be enrolled among the righteous.

But I am afflicted and in pain; let your salvation, O God, set me on high!”

*

“When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.

Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.”

*

“People of Jerusalem, climb a Lebanon peak and weep, climb a Bashan mountain and wail, Climb the Abarim ridge and cry— you’ve made a total mess of your life. I spoke to you when everything was going your way. You said, ‘I’m not interested.’ You’ve been that way as long as I’ve known you, never listened to a thing I said. All your leaders will be blown away, all your friends end up in exile, And you’ll find yourself in the gutter, disgraced by your evil life. You big-city people thought you were so important, thought you were ‘king of the mountain’! You’re soon going to be doubled up in pain,
pain worse than the pangs of childbirth.”

*

“So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike ‘What’s next, Papa?’ God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within.”

*

“‘I’m telling you the most solemn and sober truth now: Whoever believes in me has real life, eternal life. I am the Bread of Life. Your ancestors ate the manna bread in the desert and died. But now here is Bread that truly comes down out of heaven. Anyone eating this Bread will not die, ever. I am the Bread—living Bread!—who came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this Bread will live—and forever! The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self.’”

-Psalm 69:16-29 * Psalm 73:21-217 (ESV) * Jeremiah 22:20-23 * Romans 8:22-28 * John 6:47-51 (MSG)

Pray: Today, read out loud Malcolm Guite’s sonnet in response to Psalm 69 as a prayer. Add your own words of thanksgiving for ways Christ’s suffering has brought healing for our own.

LXIX Salvum me fac

His day is coming, it will not be long!
But first he came to suffer with us here.
That sorrow might yet tremble into song,

The psalmist here foresees and counts each tear
Our saviour weeps, sees how he was accused
So falsely, sees the spite, the shame, the fear

Surrounding him, the way he was abused
By those he came to save, the way his zeal
Was mocked and taunted, mercy was refused.

And all this was for me, that he might seal
Me in the book of life, not raze me out.
They cried for vengeance, but he came to heal.

Christ takes this psalm and turns it inside out
He does not pour out indignation, but
Instead pours out the life-blood of his heart.

Do: Write your own psalm of lament based on Psalm 89 - especially verses 38-52. 

Pay attention to the psalmist’s litany of questions in verse 46. Using the questions you collected earlier this week - your own and the ones shared by your friends - craft questions within your psalm of lament.

When you’ve completed writing your psalm, read it out loud to God. If you’re able, share what you’ve written with your trusted friends or a spiritual director. 

For additional suggestions on how to write your own psalm: Writing A Psalm of Lament: An Exercise by W. David O. Taylor