My Last Chance: Lent Daybook 37

Look: The Prodigal Son, Wilson Ong - Source

Listen: Messed Up Everywhere Blues, Jason Harrod - Lyrics | Spotify | YouTube

Read: Psalm 131-133; Psalm 140, 142; Jeremiah 26:1-16; Romans 11:1-12; John 10:19-42

Excerpts:

“God gave David his word, he won’t back out on this promise: ‘One of your sons I will set on your throne; If your sons stay true to my Covenant and learn to live the way I teach them, Their sons will continue the line—always a son to sit on your throne. Yes—I, God, chose Zion, the place I wanted for my shrine; This will always be my home; this is what I want, and I’m here for good. I’ll shower blessings on the pilgrims who come here, and give supper to those who arrive hungry; I’ll dress my priests in salvation clothes; the holy people will sing their hearts out! Oh, I’ll make the place radiant for David! I’ll fill it with light for my anointed! I’ll dress his enemies in dirty rags, but I’ll make his crown sparkle with splendor.

How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along! It’s like costly anointing oil flowing down head and beard, Flowing down Aaron’s beard, flowing down the collar of his priestly robes. It’s like the dew on Mount Hermon flowing down the slopes of Zion. Yes, that’s where God commands the blessing, ordains eternal life.”

*

“I know that you, God, are on the side of victims, that you care for the rights of the poor. And I know that the righteous personally thank you, that good people are secure in your presence”

*

“I cry out loudly to God, loudly I plead with God for mercy. I spill out all my complaints before him, and spell out my troubles in detail:

As I sink in despair, my spirit ebbing away, you know how I’m feeling, Know the danger I’m in, the traps hidden in my path. Look right, look left— there’s not a soul who cares what happens! I’m up against the wall, with no exit— it’s just me, all alone. I cry out, God, call out: ‘You’re my last chance, my only hope for life!’ Oh listen, please listen; I’ve never been this low. Rescue me from those who are hunting me down; I’m no match for them. Get me out of this dungeon so I can thank you in public. Your people will form a circle around me and you’ll bring me showers of blessing!’”

*

“At the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this Message came from God to Jeremiah:

‘God’s Message: Stand in the court of God’s Temple and preach to the people who come from all over Judah to worship in God’s Temple. Say everything I tell you to say to them. Don’t hold anything back. Just maybe they’ll listen and turn back from their bad lives. Then I’ll reconsider the disaster that I’m planning to bring on them because of their evil behavior.’

Say to them, ‘This is God’s Message: If you refuse to listen to me and live by my teaching that I’ve revealed so plainly to you, and if you continue to refuse to listen to my servants the prophets that I tirelessly keep on sending to you—but you’ve never listened! Why would you start now?—then I’ll make this Temple a pile of ruins like Shiloh, and I’ll make this city nothing but a bad joke worldwide.’

Everybody there—priests, prophets, and people—heard Jeremiah preaching this Message in the Temple of God. When Jeremiah had finished his sermon, saying everything God had commanded him to say, the priests and prophets and people all grabbed him, yelling, “Death! You’re going to die for this! How dare you preach—and using God’s name!—saying that this Temple will become a heap of rubble like Shiloh and this city be wiped out without a soul left in it!’

All the people mobbed Jeremiah right in the Temple itself.”

*

“Does this mean, then, that God is so fed up with Israel that he’ll have nothing more to do with them? Hardly.

… The next question is, “Are they down for the count? Are they out of this for good?” And the answer is a clear-cut No. Ironically when they walked out, they left the door open and the outsiders walked in. But the next thing you know, the Jews were starting to wonder if perhaps they had walked out on a good thing. Now, if their leaving triggered this worldwide coming of non-Jewish outsiders to God’s kingdom, just imagine the effect of their coming back! What a homecoming!”

*

“They were celebrating Hanukkah just then in Jerusalem. It was winter. Jesus was strolling in the Temple across Solomon’s Porch. The Jews, circling him, said, ‘How long are you going to keep us guessing? If you’re the Messiah, tell us straight out.’

Jesus answered, ‘I told you, but you don’t believe. Everything I have done has been authorized by my Father, actions that speak louder than words. You don’t believe because you’re not my sheep. My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them real and eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand. The Father who put them under my care is so much greater than the Destroyer and Thief. No one could ever get them away from him. I and the Father are one heart and mind.’

Again the Jews picked up rocks to throw at him.”

- Psalm 132:11-133:3 * Psalm 140:12-13 * Psalm 142:Jeremiah 26:1-9 * Romans 11:1-2, 11-12* John 10:22-32 (MSG)

Pray: Read Psalm 131 out loud as a prayer today. Ask God to make you more and more like a child at rest in her mother’s lap.

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
    my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
    too great and too marvelous for me.
”But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
    like a weaned child with its mother;
    like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, O [insert your own name], hope in the Lord
    from this time forth and forevermore. Amen.

Do: Today, look back again at what you’ve journaled and shared so far in Lent. 

Consider what you know to be true about God, yourself, and others in the middle of all that’s still unresolved. Make a list of honest statements. 

Consider how you might respond to those truths. Can you sense thanksgiving? Praise?

Expect some surprises here. You might notice places you feel more assured that God loves you and will never leave you alone in your lament. It would be appropriate here to articulate a few statements of amazement if that feels fitting.

“I did not shy away from voicing my lament over his death. But I could not bring myself to try to figure out what God was up to in Eric’s death. I joined the psalmist in lamenting without explaining. Things have gone awry in God’s world. I do not understand why, nor do I understand why God puts up with it for so long. Rather than Eric’s death evoking in me an interest in theodicy, it had the effect of making God more mysterious. I live with the mystery.

If I cannot make sense of it, why not give up on God? I cannot. When I consider the stupendous immensity and astonishing intricacy of the cosmos, and the miracle of human consciousness and intelligence, I find that I cannot believe it all just happened. A being of incomprehensible wisdom, imagination, and power must have brought it about—or rather, is bringing it about. I have come to think of God as performing the cosmos. I look out the window of my study on this autumn day in western Michigan, at the deep blue sky and the gorgeous colors of the leaves. This is a brief but glorious passage in God’s performance of the cosmos.

The words wisdom, imagination, and power do not describe; they point. They’re the best we can do. Something like our wisdom, something like our imagination, something like our power—yet infinitely beyond. The God who became more mysterious to me has also become more awesome, awesome beyond comprehension.” (Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament For A Son)

Rewrite that last sentence in your own words: 

“The God who became more mysterious to me has also become more: _______________.”

Amen and come back soon, please, Jesus.