Lenten Valentine Prayer

O Lord, fountain of ineffable and inexhaustible lovingkindness,

Untiring and undeterred Lover of our souls,

We confess that we have squandered our strength, our moments, and our very selves,

Wearying souls and bodies in pursuit of what is not love and does not satisfy.

Our adulterous hearts were made to love and be loved by You, our heavenly Bridegroom,

Whose love alone does not fade or fail, falter or break faith.

Rescue us from our idols;

Prune away our worthless, barren loves;

Open more of our hearts to yourself, whose love is life;

Replace our stony sin-stained hearts with new hearts, tender towards you;

So awaken our souls to your love, that we cannot but wholly cleave to you;

Captivate our every affection with your loveliness;

Console the desolate hearts with your mercies;

Embrace the lonely hearts with your delight;

Soothe the fearful hearts with your peace;

Heal the broken hearts with your compassion;

Seek out the wandering hearts with the wooing of your Spirit.

O Lord, who loved us to and through the cross,

Expand and expurgate our hearts to better love You who loved us first,

Without whom we would not know love at all.

In the name of the fairest and loveliest Lord Jesus we pray. Amen.

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Ash Wednesday 2021 {A Poem}

Greetings, friends. By the grace of God (and I truly mean that), my family is all well and relatively unscathed by last week’s extreme weather here in Texas. There is no avoiding, however, the collective emotional trauma our state just experienced. Our hearts break with so many who have lost loved ones and property because of the blizzard. True to form, I endeavored to process the tangle of thoughts and emotions in poetry. Perhaps it is just for us here in my neck of the woods, or even for myself, as a memorial stone, but I offer it in hope and prayer that the Lord would use it to meet someone else in their ashes.

The storm was beautiful as well as terrible. If the Lord wills, I will share some photos soon in a separate post.

My current church does not observe Lent or Ash Wednesday, so I should also note that Ash Wednesday is the first day of a 40-day season of repentance in preparation for the joyous celebration of Easter. On Ash Wednesday, ashes are smeared on one’s forehead in the sign of a cross as a reminder of one’s mortality and sin. The ashes are traditionally made from the Palm Sunday palm branches of the previous year.

***********************

 

Winter Storm Uri 

No ashes mark our foreheads this Ash Wednesday.

Palm Sunday’s remnants rest inside their vault.

Pandemic touched our churches, touch restricted.

Emphatic blizzard shut us in. Our light,

Our heat, our water, and our very homes,

In which we hide ourselves for shelter from

The “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”—

All failed, or tottered; some hung by a thread.

The ashen cross smeared not on heads but hearts,

Homes, plans, peace, hopes, and all conceit of strength

Apart from grace, invincibility

Revealed as the mirage it always was.

Illusions of security dissolve

Like smoke from blown-out flame. This storm exposed

In whom, in what, how much we trust, and how

We tack onto our plans, “Lord willing,” as

A talisman against an overwrite,

But really, with a wink, expecting life’s

Predictability to bear us forth.

(Predicability? What’s that?) The twelve

Months past have shown the lie of that belief.

For we are dust; to dust we shall return.

Let this Ash Wednesday and the Lent to come

Well be our truest yet, beginning as

They have with such awful unmasking of

Our pride, our frailty, so much trust in self.

O Lord, we bring our sins, our weakness, and

Our troubles to Your throne. Have mercy, O

Our Savior and Redeemer. Hear our prayer.

 

2/19/21, first Friday of Lent 

Atonement, Testimony, and Communion

In this year's reading through Exodus, a triad of interwoven themes attracted my attention in a new way. In the instructions for building the tabernacle and its furniture, the ideas of atonement, testimony, and communion appear together in at least two places.

In Exodus 25:21-22, the Holy Spirit led Moses to record, "And you [Moses, Israel] shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I [YHWH] shall give you. There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel." The ark was a golden box or chest. The stone tablets with the law of God were to rest inside it, so it was sometimes called "the ark of the testimony." The mercy seat was the golden lid for the ark. On it 2 magnificent golden cherubim spread their wings, a visual symbol of the presence of God; on it the high priest, and only the high priest, poured out the blood of the substitutionary sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, obtaining one more year's forgiveness of sins. From that place, the holy and living God condescended to meet with his stumbling, stiff-necked, loved, and chosen people.

Atonement, testimony, and communion.

In Exodus 30:6, 10, God's command to Moses about the altar of incense states, "And you shall put it in front of the veil that is above the ark of the testimony, in front of the mercy seat that is above the testimony, where I will meet with you.... Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year. With the blood of the sin offering of atonement he shall make atonement for it once in the year throughout your generations. It is most holy to the LORD." Again, we see the triad of themes: atonement, testimony, and communion.

Having sat with those ideas for several days now, pondering why or how they are connected, I arrived at the following thoughts, which I encourage you to test against Scripture for yourselves.

Without atonement, testimony would be my guilty verdict and death sentence, and communion with the holy God would be beyond my reach.

Without testimony, atonement would be unknown to all but the eyewitnesses (and even they needed the risen Christ's explanation), and communion with God would be impossible, since I would still be His enemy without any knowledge of the remedy or access to the living God's living Word.

Without communion with God, atonement would deliver from hell without granting the delights of heaven, and the testimony of Scripture would be someone else's love letters.

All praise to the triune God that none of these are lacking. The combination of atonement, testimony, and communion in the tabernacle foreshadowed imperfectly the consummation of all three in the person of Christ, the Lamb of God, the Word of God, and the Son of God who reconciled believers to His Father by His death and made us sons and daughters of God with free access to Him through the Spirit. May we offer our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to Him for providing so great and complete a salvation. Amen.

Christ Crucified

Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:4-6

"Faith finds that Christ has made full payment to the justice of God having poured out his blood to death upon the cross. All of his previous acts of humiliation were but preparatory to this. He was born to die; he was sent into the world as a lamb bound with the bonds of an irreversible decree as a sacrifice. Without this, all he had done would have been labour undone. There is no redemption but by his blood. Christ did not redeem and save poor souls by sitting in majesty on his heavenly throne, but by hanging on the shameful cross, under the tormenting hand of man's fury and God's just wrath. And therefore, the poor soul that would have pardon of sin, is directed to place its faith not only on Christ, but on a bleeding Christ, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation* through faith in his blood (Rom. 3:23). Not everyone who assents to the truth of what the Scripture says about Christ truly believes. No, believing implies a union of the soul to Christ with full trust and reliance."

~William Gurnall, Works, 11:3-6



"...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Romans 3:23-26).

Come to Jesus, dear Crumbles. Cling to Him in faith. Treasure Him as your sufficient Substitute and Sin-Bearer. Only in so doing will you find Good Friday truly good.

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*propitiation: to use John Piper's term, a "wrath absorber," soaking up like a sponge, as our substitute, all God's wrath which we fully deserve for our sin and rebellion against Him.

Scandalous Surrender

And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he wasreclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard,very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.

Mark 14:3-6, ESV

Unclenched hands

Drip fragrant shards

Of scandalous surrender.

Substance, security, and very self

Spill out upon His feet.

(Written sometime since 2012. I don't remember writing it, but the paper it's on makes May 2012 the earliest possible date. You never know what you'll find when you're cleaning out your files.)

The Great Exchange

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin,

so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21, ESV

"My Saviour wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes,

groaned that I might have endless song,

endured all pain that I might have unfading health,

bore a thorned crown that I might have a glory-diadem,

bowed his head that I might uplift mine,

experienced reproach that I might receive welcome,

closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness,

expired that I might for ever live.

O Father, who spared not thine only Son that thou mightest spare me,

All this transfer thy love designed and accomplished;

Help me to adore thee by lips and life.

O that my every breath might be ecstatic praise,

my every step buoyant with delight, as I see

my enemies crushed,

Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed,

sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood,

hell's gates closed, heaven's portal open.

Go forth, O conquering God, and show me the cross,

mighty to subdue, comfort and save."

Valley of Vision, 42-43

Silent Sabbath

In silent Sabbath after Cross,

Disciples hid themselves away

For fear they’d share their Rabbi’s fate.

How little did they dream the hush

Was prelude to defeat of death

And their salvation by His life,

Just as He promised: Christ would rise,

Defying unbelief—locked doors,

Blocked tomb, locked hearts no obstacle

To Resurrection, Life, and Light.

N.B. That the disciples had already hidden behind locked doors on the Saturday immediately following the Crucifixion is an extrapolation. The Scriptures say clearly that they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment and that by Sunday they were sequestered behind locked doors for fear of the Jews (Luke 23:56 and John 20:19). The suggestion in the poem seems at least plausible, but in truth the Scriptures are silent about that Saturday, so take the idea with a sprinkling of salt.

That said, dear Crumble, if you await resurrection in some deep sorrow in your life, take heart. God's apparent silence does not denote His inactivity or His intention not to bring about eucatastrophe in your dire need. If we learn anything from the silence of Holy Saturday, let it be that. May you and I find strength to persevere in trusting God in the waiting.

The Anointing {from the archives}

If right now the Lord seems to be asking everything of you, if you sense the call to leave all your precious things on the altar, to relinquish, to entrust into His hands not knowing whether you will receive your "Isaac" back for burial or in resurrection--

If that is where you find yourself today, dear crumble, let us remember this: we cannot outgive God. Whatever we relinquish today is a small sacrifice compared with what He has already given in His Son who lived love by dying for the sins of His enemies. Whatever dream we empty at His feet drains out only to make room for the fullness of Himself.

He is the LORD, who brought us up from the land of Egypt. Let us open our mouths wide, wider, as wide as we can, that He may fill (Psalm 81:10).

Broken, Rabboni?

The brightness of this alabaster dream
Shattered into fragments at Your feet?
What preciousness deserves so great a price?
This is My body, crushed to give for you.


Emptied, too?
Not one sweet drop remaining for myself?
Bereft of fragrance brightening my days?
What gain can justify such costly waste?
This is My blood, poured out for your forgiveness.


Broken, emptied.
Shattered into fragments at His feet.
Not one drop spared, the fragrance fills the house.
The poverty of all my all is dust
Beneath Your feet, O worthy, precious Lord.
Your sins have been forgiven; go in peace.

                                              {from Luke 7:36-50}

sharing with Bonnie's community on the theme of brokenness today:

Silent Saturday

In silent Sabbath after Cross,

Disciples hid themselves away

For fear they’d share their Rabbi’s fate.

How little did they dream the hush

Was prelude to defeat of death

And their salvation by His life,

Just as He promised: Christ would rise,

Defying unbelief—locked doors,

Blocked tomb, locked hearts no obstacle

To Resurrection, Life, and Light.

N.B. That the disciples had already hidden behind locked doors on the Saturday immediately following the Crucifixion is an extrapolation. The Scriptures say clearly that they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment and that by Sunday they were sequestered behind locked doors for fear of the Jews (Luke 23:56 and John 20:19). The suggestion in the poem seems at least plausible, but in truth the Scriptures are silent about that Saturday, so take the idea with a grain or two of salt.

That said, dear crumble, if you await resurrection in some grave sorrow (groan.. pun not intended) in your life, take heart. God's apparent silence does not denote His inactivity or His intention not to bring about eucatastrophe in your dire need. If we learn anything from the silence of Holy Saturday, let it be that. May you and I find strength to persevere in trusting God in the waiting.

Trampling down Death by Death {Guest Post}

The following meditation on Hebrews 2:10-18 was written by my husband Allen for a church Lenten devotional in 2010. With his permission, I share it here in honor of his birthday. God grant you many years of good health and growth in knowing and loving Him, my Amore!

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

Psalm 23:4, ESV

O Lord, what is a shadow but the obscuring of what is real? It has no power other than to hide from my eyes the light of Your Truth. What is the valley but the place of my tomb, steep sides with no way of escape?

But You, out of love for me, entered into that valley. You, the True Light, entered into my darkness and have suffered through the valley before me lighting my way. You wept in darkness and so gave us joy. You felt hunger and nakedness and so tell us, "Do not worry about the body, what you will eat or wear" (Mt. 6:25). You were tempted in every way and yet said, "Satan, be gone..." (Mt. 4:10). You were spat upon and abused but said, "Father, forgive them..." (Luke 23:34). You suffered humiliation and so were glorified because "God gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). You entered into the very heart of death, but it could not hold You.

If only I would follow the path that You have illumined, then I would find the way to freedom and peace. Too often I want deliverance from the valley, but You have a greater vision. That path through the valley is my glory. The tears, weakness, temptations, humiliations, . . . You desire not so much to deliver me from them as to transform me through them. Going down to death You wait for me to follow that You might raise me up in glory. "Death, where is thy sting?" (1 Cor. 15:55).

Teach me, O Lord, to sing that ancient Easter hymn,*

 "Christ has risen from the grave

Trampling down death by death

And upon those in the tomb bestowing life."

*The Paschal Troparion (Easter hymn) is used widely in Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Its origin is unknown, but it may have been based on the Paschal Canon of St. John of Damascus in the 8th century.