Wednesday, March 21, 2007
From AscensionNYC
Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Lent
Psalm 145:8-19
Isaiah 49:8-15
John 5:19-29
The reading from Isaiah reminds us that life is a journey. Now that we have forgotten all or most of our New Year resolutions, all those healthy new habits we were going to start (after all it is March), what do we do now? We are given a promise that in both good times and bad, God will keep his covenant with us, a covenant which expresses his love for us. All we need to do is to "come out of our prisons," things which separate us from God and from one another. We know our prisons: fear, resentment, pride. Christians are always given another chance to change, and that doesn't just mean our weight or hair color.
During Lent, we are given time to think and meditate about what keeps us from God, what keeps us from journeying more fully in our community's life. However, it is likely that for many of us, we have asked these questions before, and yet we still haven't succeeded as much as we would have liked. How can we make these resolutions of the soul any more effective than our New Year resolutions? The readings give us some clues.
In Isaiah, we are given the sense that it is God who will guide us if we only let him into our life. In the psalm, it is God who lifts up all who are falling.
In the gospel, Jesus says, "the Son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing." This Lent, we should one again try to see which habits hurt us or others, and with God's help, we can try to change. We need time to reflect on our relationship with God, and how we can better let God into our life in a way that affects change in both our thoughts and habits. We should try to make this Lent a kind of vacation spent with God, a trip to a spa for the soul. As the psalmist says, "the Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth."
Isaiah 49:8-15
John 5:19-29
The reading from Isaiah reminds us that life is a journey. Now that we have forgotten all or most of our New Year resolutions, all those healthy new habits we were going to start (after all it is March), what do we do now? We are given a promise that in both good times and bad, God will keep his covenant with us, a covenant which expresses his love for us. All we need to do is to "come out of our prisons," things which separate us from God and from one another. We know our prisons: fear, resentment, pride. Christians are always given another chance to change, and that doesn't just mean our weight or hair color.
During Lent, we are given time to think and meditate about what keeps us from God, what keeps us from journeying more fully in our community's life. However, it is likely that for many of us, we have asked these questions before, and yet we still haven't succeeded as much as we would have liked. How can we make these resolutions of the soul any more effective than our New Year resolutions? The readings give us some clues.
In Isaiah, we are given the sense that it is God who will guide us if we only let him into our life. In the psalm, it is God who lifts up all who are falling.
In the gospel, Jesus says, "the Son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing." This Lent, we should one again try to see which habits hurt us or others, and with God's help, we can try to change. We need time to reflect on our relationship with God, and how we can better let God into our life in a way that affects change in both our thoughts and habits. We should try to make this Lent a kind of vacation spent with God, a trip to a spa for the soul. As the psalmist says, "the Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth."
Jeff Truglia
