Lent Daybook, 32: Stupor
SIXTH THURSDAY IN LENT
Welcome to a Lent daybook for these 40 days of prayer. You can see all the previous Lent daybook 2019 posts here.
Is this your first time to practice Lent? Here's a simple introduction.
Look: The Waiting Room, George Tooker
Listen to my entire playlist on Spotify - Lent: Songs for Everybody 2019. Add it to your account by clicking ‘Follow.’
“Wait, Israel, for God. Wait with hope. Hope now; hope always!”
*
”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.”
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“What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written,
’God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see
and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.’
And David says,
’Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them; let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever.’”
*
”Jesus said, ‘I’m only quoting your inspired Scriptures, where God said, ‘I tell you — you are gods.’ If God called your ancestors ‘gods’—and Scripture doesn’t lie—why do you yell, ‘Blasphemer! Blasphemer!’ at the unique One the Father consecrated and sent into the world, just because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I don’t do the things my Father does, well and good; don’t believe me. But if I am doing them, put aside for a moment what you hear me say about myself and just take the evidence of the actions that are right before your eyes. Then perhaps things will come together for you, and you’ll see that not only are we doing the same thing, we are the same—Father and Son. He is in me; I am in him.’
They tried yet again to arrest him, but he slipped through their fingers.””
Sunday Scripture readings are taken from the Revised Common Lectionary (Year C). Daily Scripture readings are taken from the Book of Common Prayer (Year 1) with the Psalm for the Morning Office.
Pray:
“God of Light and Life, the eyes of our heart are weakened by the darkness all around us. We get tired of trying to see your goodness. Forgive us for turning our eyes toward dim replicas of you.
In Your everlasting mercy, would you push back the darkness with your Light, open the eyes of our hearts and the ears of our understanding. We want to live as if we believe You will keep Your Word. Make haste to rescue us from this stupor. We pray and we wait on You with hope. Amen.”
Do:
Fast from spending money.
Feast on giving alms.
This week, fast from spending money, and feast on giving alms instead. Let each necessary purchase remind you of the reality of our complete poverty and helplessness before God and without the work of Christ.
Instead of spending practice giving. Almsgiving is a traditional Lenten practice. This week pray that the Lord would show you his face in the most distressing of your neighbors, and lead you to ways that you can show compassionate mercy.