Lent
“A journey, a pilgrimage! Yet, as we begin it, as we make the first step into the ‘bright sadness’ of Lent, we see - far, far away - the destination. It is the joy of Easter, it is the entrance into the glory of the Kingdom.”
- Alexander Schmemann.
The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are at the heart of the Christian gospel, and Good Friday and Easter are two of the most significant celebrations of the Christian year. Lent is a season of preparation and repentance during which we anticipate Good Friday and Easter. Just as we carefully prepare for big events in our personal lives... Lent invites us to make our hearts ready for remembering Jesus’ passion and celebrating Jesus’ resurrection (From The Worship Sourcebook).
- Calling -
O Lord, open our lips.
And our mouth shall proclaim Your praise.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever. Amen. Alleluia!
The Lord is full of compassion and mercy:
O come, let us adore him.
- Constitution -
Read/Listen, Meditate, Pray, and Contemplate on God’s Word, remembering that God is with you and ready to speak to you because he loves you.
Praying the Psalms
Psalm 73
A Psalm of Asaph.
[1] Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
[2] But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
[3] For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
[4] For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
[5] They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
[6] Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
[7] Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
[8] They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
[9] They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
[10] Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.
[11] And they say, “How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
[12] Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
[13] All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
[14] For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.
[15] If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
[16] But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
[17] until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.
[18] Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
[19] How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
[20] Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
[21] When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
[22] I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.
[23] Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
[24] You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
[25] Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
[26] My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
[27] For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
[28] But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.
Psalm 74
A Maskil of Asaph.
[1] O God, why do you cast us off forever?
Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?
[2] Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old,
which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage!
Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt.
[3] Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;
the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary!
[4] Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place;
they set up their own signs for signs.
[5] They were like those who swing axes
in a forest of trees.
[6] And all its carved wood
they broke down with hatchets and hammers.
[7] They set your sanctuary on fire;
they profaned the dwelling place of your name,
bringing it down to the ground.
[8] They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”;
they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.
[9] We do not see our signs;
there is no longer any prophet,
and there is none among us who knows how long.
[10] How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
[11] Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?
Take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them!
[12] Yet God my King is from of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth.
[13] You divided the sea by your might;
you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.
[14] You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
[15] You split open springs and brooks;
you dried up ever-flowing streams.
[16] Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
[17] You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth;
you have made summer and winter.
[18] Remember this, O LORD, how the enemy scoffs,
and a foolish people reviles your name.
[19] Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beasts;
do not forget the life of your poor forever.
[20] Have regard for the covenant,
for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.
[21] Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame;
let the poor and needy praise your name.
[22] Arise, O God, defend your cause;
remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day!
[23] Do not forget the clamor of your foes,
the uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually!
Old Testament Reading
Exodus 38
[1] He made the altar of burnt offering of acacia wood. Five cubits was its length, and five cubits its breadth. It was square, and three cubits was its height. [2] He made horns for it on its four corners. Its horns were of one piece with it, and he overlaid it with bronze. [3] And he made all the utensils of the altar, the pots, the shovels, the basins, the forks, and the fire pans. He made all its utensils of bronze. [4] And he made for the altar a grating, a network of bronze, under its ledge, extending halfway down. [5] He cast four rings on the four corners of the bronze grating as holders for the poles. [6] He made the poles of acacia wood and overlaid them with bronze. [7] And he put the poles through the rings on the sides of the altar to carry it with them. He made it hollow, with boards.
[8] He made the basin of bronze and its stand of bronze, from the mirrors of the ministering women who ministered in the entrance of the tent of meeting.
[9] And he made the court. For the south side the hangings of the court were of fine twined linen, a hundred cubits; [10] their twenty pillars and their twenty bases were of bronze, but the hooks of the pillars and their fillets were of silver. [11] And for the north side there were hangings of a hundred cubits; their twenty pillars and their twenty bases were of bronze, but the hooks of the pillars and their fillets were of silver. [12] And for the west side were hangings of fifty cubits, their ten pillars, and their ten bases; the hooks of the pillars and their fillets were of silver. [13] And for the front to the east, fifty cubits. [14] The hangings for one side of the gate were fifteen cubits, with their three pillars and three bases. [15] And so for the other side. On both sides of the gate of the court were hangings of fifteen cubits, with their three pillars and their three bases. [16] All the hangings around the court were of fine twined linen. [17] And the bases for the pillars were of bronze, but the hooks of the pillars and their fillets were of silver. The overlaying of their capitals was also of silver, and all the pillars of the court were filleted with silver. [18] And the screen for the gate of the court was embroidered with needlework in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen. It was twenty cubits long and five cubits high in its breadth, corresponding to the hangings of the court. [19] And their pillars were four in number. Their four bases were of bronze, their hooks of silver, and the overlaying of their capitals and their fillets of silver. [20] And all the pegs for the tabernacle and for the court all around were of bronze.
[21] These are the records of the tabernacle, the tabernacle of the testimony, as they were recorded at the commandment of Moses, the responsibility of the Levites under the direction of Ithamar the son of Aaron the priest. [22] Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made all that the LORD commanded Moses; [23] and with him was Oholiab the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver and designer and embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen.
[24] All the gold that was used for the work, in all the construction of the sanctuary, the gold from the offering, was twenty-nine talents and 730 shekels, by the shekel of the sanctuary. [25] The silver from those of the congregation who were recorded was a hundred talents and 1,775 shekels, by the shekel of the sanctuary: [26] a beka a head (that is, half a shekel, by the shekel of the sanctuary), for everyone who was listed in the records, from twenty years old and upward, for 603,550 men. [27] The hundred talents of silver were for casting the bases of the sanctuary and the bases of the veil; a hundred bases for the hundred talents, a talent a base. [28] And of the 1,775 shekels he made hooks for the pillars and overlaid their capitals and made fillets for them. [29] The bronze that was offered was seventy talents and 2,400 shekels; [30] with it he made the bases for the entrance of the tent of meeting, the bronze altar and the bronze grating for it and all the utensils of the altar, [31] the bases around the court, and the bases of the gate of the court, all the pegs of the tabernacle, and all the pegs around the court.
New Testament Reading
John 17
[1] When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, [2] since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. [3] And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. [4] I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. [5] And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
[6] “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. [7] Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. [8] For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. [9] I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. [10] All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. [11] And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. [12] While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. [13] But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. [14] I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. [15] I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. [16] They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. [17] Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. [18] As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. [19] And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
[20] “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, [21] that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. [22] The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, [23] I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. [24] Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. [25] O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. [26] I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
- Communion -
Pray for yourself, others, our church, our neighbors, and the world.
Pray the Lord’s Prayer & the collect of the week:
Our Father who art in heaven...
Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
- Commission -
The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.
(Numbers 6:24-26)
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord and our neighbors.