Not Condemned: Lent Daybook 9
Look: Moses Receiving the Tables of the Law, Tintoretto - Source
Listen*: God of Mercy and Compassion, Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles - Lyrics | Spotify | YouTube
Read: Psalm 50; Psalm 59-60; Deuteronomy 9:23-10:5; Hebrews 4:1-10; John 3:16-21
Excerpts:
“The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.
Our God comes; he does not keep silence; before him is a devouring fire, around him a mighty tempest. He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people: ‘Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!’ The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge! Selah
‘Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God.’ “
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“The most recent was when God sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, ordering you: ‘Go. Possess the land that I’m giving you.’ And what did you do? You rebelled. Rebelled against the clear orders of God, your God. Refused to trust him. Wouldn’t obey him. You’ve been rebels against God from the first day I knew you.
When I was on my face, stretched out before God those forty days and nights after God said he would destroy you, I prayed to God for you, ‘My Master, God, don’t destroy your people, your inheritance whom, in your immense generosity, you redeemed, using your enormous strength to get them out of Egypt.’
‘Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; don’t make too much of the stubbornness of this people, their evil and their sin, lest the Egyptians from whom you rescued them say, ‘God couldn’t do it; he got tired and wasn’t able to take them to the land he promised them. He ended up hating them and dumped them in the wilderness to die.’
‘They are your people still, your inheritance whom you powerfully and sovereignly rescued.’
God responded. He said, ‘Shape two slabs of stone similar to the first ones. Climb the mountain and meet me. Also make yourself a wooden chest. I will engrave the stone slabs with the words that were on the first ones, the ones you smashed. Then you will put them in the Chest.’ “
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“But I will sing of your strength; I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress. O my Strength, I will sing praises to you, for you, O God, are my fortress, the God who shows me steadfast love.”
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“O God, you have rejected us, broken our defenses; you have been angry; oh, restore us. You have made the land to quake; you have torn it open; repair its breaches, for it totters. You have made your people see hard things; you have given us wine to drink that made us stagger.
You have set up a banner for those who fear you, that they may flee to it from the bow. Selah
That your beloved ones may be delivered, give salvation by your right hand and answer us!”
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“For as long, then, as that promise of resting in him pulls us on to God’s goal for us, we need to be careful that we’re not disqualified. We received the same promises as those people in the wilderness, but the promises didn’t do them a bit of good because they didn’t receive the promises with faith. If we believe, though, we’ll experience that state of resting. But not if we don’t have faith. Remember that God said,
Exasperated, I vowed, ‘They’ll never get where they’re going, never be able to sit down and rest.’
God made that vow, even though he’d finished his part before the foundation of the world.
The promise of “arrival” and “rest” is still there for God’s people. God himself is at rest. And at the end of the journey we’ll surely rest with God. So let’s keep at it and eventually arrive at the place of rest, not drop out through some sort of disobedience.”
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“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.
This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness.”
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“But to the wicked God says: ‘What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you, If you see a thief, you are pleased with him, and you keep company with adulterers.’
‘You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son. These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.
‘Mark this, then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver! The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!’ “
- Psalm 50:1-7 (ESV) Deuteronomy 9:23-10:2 (MSG) * Psalm 59:16-17 * Psalm 60:1-5 (ESV) * Hebrews 4:1-3, 9-11 * John 3:16-17, 19 (MSG) * Psalm 50:16-23 (ESV)
Pray: Read out loud as a prayer Malcolm Guite’s sonnet in response to Psalm 60. (Or click the title link to hear the author read it himself.)
From my false self, O Lord, deliver me.
Where I am scattered gather me again,
Turn me to you once more, and turn to me,
For we have all been shaken. Soothe our pain
And heal the deep divisions, cruelly shown
By this sharp plague. All other help is vain,
So be our help. Our future’s all unknown
To us. We trust that you will meet us there,
Since all of time is in your hands, all known
And carried in your providence. Our prayer
Rises from every land, from Gillead
From Succoth, from New York, from places where
Your other names are spoken. All the sad
And sighing tribes of earth hold up their hands
Hear us, we cry, and once more, make us glad.
Do: Read the Ten Commandments through a couple of times slowly. Then talk to a trusted friend, pastor, or spiritual director about any way you’ve sinned against God and others. Receive the forgiveness of our Savior Jesus. Ask the person hearing your confession to speak the words of assurance that Jesus spoke to Nicodemus: "Whoever believes in him is not condemned."
Practicing regular confession of sin is one of the most life-giving ways we can live in honesty rather than denial. Thanks be to God for this gracious, life-giving invitation!
“As long as we ourselves are real, as long as we are truly ourselves, God can be present and can do something with us. But the moment we try to be what we are not, there is nothing left to say or have; we become a fictitious personality, an unreal presence, and this unreal presence cannot be approached by God.” ― Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray
