Lent Daybook, 6: The love of God
A Lent daybook for these 40 days of prayer. Join me, won't you? (see previous Lent daybook 2018 posts here)
Is this your first time to practice Lent? Here's a simple introduction: How we prepare for Lent.
*Note: If you're reading this in email, the formatting usually looks much better at the website. Just click the post title to get there.*
Christ Driving the Moneychangers from the Temple, Rembrandt van Rijn (source)
“Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you. When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. And the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. And at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them; they have made themselves a metal image.’”
*
”God has gone up with a shout,
the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.
Sing praises to God, sing praises!
Sing praises to our King, sing praises!
For God is the King of all the earth;
sing praises with a psalm!”
*
”Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness,
where your fathers put me to the test
and saw my works for forty years.
Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;
they have not known my ways.’
As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest.’”
*
”The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
* Monday - Saturday Scripture readings are taken from the Book of Common Prayer (Year 2). On Fridays I'll post the Scripture readings for the upcoming Sunday which are taken from the Revised Common Lectionary (Year B).
prayer for today: The Jesus Prayer
“The Jesus Prayer is one of the best known traditions within Orthodoxy. Its words say simply:
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ,
Υἱὲ Θεοῦ,
ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλό
Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of God,
have mercy on me the sinner.
The Jesus Prayer is a short, simple prayer that has been widely used, taught and discussed throughout the history of Eastern Christianity.
In order to enter more deeply into the life of prayer and to come to grips with the Scriptural challenge to pray unceasingly, the Orthodox tradition offers the Jesus Prayer – which is called the “Prayer of the Heart” (Καρδιακή Προσευχή) by some Church Fathers – as a means of concentration and as a focal point for our inner life.
The exact words of the prayer have varied from the most simple possible involving the name “Jesus,” or “Lord have mercy,” to the more common extended form: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.””
Spiritual practice for today:
Today, fast from television (or another form of entertainment).
Read some good poems instead. (Here's my 5 favorite poems for Lent.)
Pray for God to gift you with a rested mind and an enlarged imagination for His good gifts in the world.
(see all Lent daybook posts from 2017 here)