We Sat Down and Wept: Lent Daybook 39
Take a few deep breaths, settle your body, mind, and heart into a quiet space, and let’s begin with prayer.
Opening prayer: Heavenly Father, make me more like Jesus and more like the true self you’ve created as I savor your loving presence today. Please guide my thoughts and impressions by your Holy Spirit. Amen.
Look: An den Wassern Babylons (By the Rivers of Babylon), Gebhard Fugel - Source
Listen: By the Waters of Babylon (Psalm 137) (Traditional Kievan Chant), St. Symeon Orthodox Church Choir - Spotify | YouTube
Read: Psalm 137:1-9, 144; Psalm 42-43; Jeremiah 31:27-34; Romans 11:25-36; John 12:37-50
Excerpts:
By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down, and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.
Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem’s fall, how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down! Down to its foundations!” O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!
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O Lord, what are humans that you regard them, or mortals that you think of them? They are like a breath; their days are like a passing shadow.
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As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”
These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my help.
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O send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God.
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The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.
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I want you to understand this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not claim to be wiser than you are: a hardening has come upon part of Israel until the full number of the gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,
“Out of Zion will come the Deliverer; he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.”
“And this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins.”
As regards the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but as regards election they are beloved for the sake of their ancestors, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so also they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they also may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.
O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.
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Although he had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him. …
Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue, for they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God.
Then Jesus cried aloud: “Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness. I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge, for I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me.”
—Psalm 137; Psalm 144:3-4; Psalm 42:1-5; Psalm 43:3-4; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Romans 11:25-36; John 12:37, 42-50
Pray & Do: On Saturdays during Lent, we’ll spend about 15 minutes practicing a devotional exercise known as an examen. This is a spiritual discipline of prayer first modeled by St. Ignatius of Loyola. The prayer practice has remained a dynamic, deeply-meaningful way to develop our capacity to hear God and our own hearts as well.
Start with silence. Take some time to be silent, without any noise or distraction, to pause and calmly think about the first few days of Lent. I’ve come to call this time a selah pause.
The Hebrew word selah (see-lah) is repeated throughout the Psalms. The definition of this word is probably a musical reference, calling for a break in the singing of the Psalm. The Amplified Bible (AMP) adds the explanatory phrase "pause, and calmly think of that!" each time the word selah shows up in the Psalms.
There’s no need to strive for a profound insight during this time. Just be still.
If you begin to sense thoughts or feelings bubbling up in the quiet, notice them without trying to analyze them. You might breathe a simple prayer each time you're tempted to become distracted. For example, when you feel distracted or anxious, breathe in “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God” and exhale “Have mercy on me, the sinner.” Another option is to echo the psalmist: "Selah, pause, and calmly think of that.”
After about 5 minutes of silence, pray through the questions listed here:
Ask God for light. I want to look at my week with God’s eyes, not merely my own.
Give thanks. The week I’ve just lived is a gift from God. I give thanks.
Notice places you felt connected to the love of God, others, and yourself. I calmly think back on the week just completed, trusting the Holy Spirit to help me recall whatever’s helpful. I notice the places I felt most connected to the love of God and others.
Notice places you distanced yourself from the love of God, others, and yourself. I acknowledge what I’ve done or left undone that made it difficult for me to connect with the love of God and others.
Look forward to the week to come. I ask God where I need help and a greater connection with love for the coming week.
Trust God as your Heavenly Father to be present with you through Christ and by his Spirit. End your time with a simple prayer or chorus.
Go about your day and into the weekend with peace.
You might also enjoy: Examen For The End of the Week via Pray-As-You-Go
*Sunday Scripture readings are taken from Year A of the Book of Common Prayer 2019 (Anglican Church of North America). Daily Scripture readings are taken from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and include both Morning and Evening Psalms (Year 1)