Dear Faith Family,
"O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath...The LORD has heard my plea; the LORD accepts my prayer."
(Psalm 6:1,9)
For our journey of Lent to be effective and a movement that transforms, honesty is required: an honest assessment of our situation.
Like the treed publican, the brother in the squalor of his squandering, as well as the brother embittered by his entitlement; what keeps us out of the community, out of the party, on the outside of the full and forever now, is our own sins. We confessed such together last week and in the previous few Sundays:
We confess to you and to another, and to the
whole communion of saints in heaven and on earth,
that we have sinned by our own fault
in thought, word, and deed;
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
(The Litany of Penitence)
We will not travel far in Lent if we are unwilling to look honestly at our hearts and actions, attitudes, relationships, and affections...making an honest assessment of the situation. After all, as Augustine so pointedly reminds us,
"Let us know you, O you who know me; then shall I know even as I am known...[For] the abyss of the human conscience lies naked to your eyes, O Lord, so would anything in me be secret even if I were unwilling to confess to you? I would be hiding you from myself, but not myself from you."
The stories leading to Lent prepared us for this, our honest confession: a self-revelation in relationship. Ensuring us that the one who knows us--who sees us treed and in danger of our sins just compensation, humiliated in our squandering what's been gifted us, and bitter in our overestimated efforts--nevertheless invites us to share all that is his. Knowing we are seen and safe in what is seen, we need not fear the confession.
Yet, as the first of the Psalms of Lent begins, when we see ourselves honestly, we feel the weight of our situation acutely, "O LORD, rebuke me not...nor discipline me..." (6:1). The pslamist takes up where we left out last week, confessing to his contribution to his situation and the just compensation for all that is opposed to Life Himself. What else brings God's wrath, his anger, but that which takes what was made "very good" and twists it unto death?
But notice the psalmist's confession is wrapped in a petition, in a prayer, in a plea. A plea for mercy (v.1), followed by a plea for grace (v. 2), then a plea for restoration (v. 3), and ultimately a plea for life to continue on the other side of death (vs. 4-5), for death not to be our end, but the end of what has led to it.
As we discovered on Sunday, Psalm 6 maps out our Lenten journey. A journey that begins with an honest plea leading to a humble admission (vs. 6-7) and culminating in a hope-filled profession (vs. 8-10).
While the psalm lays out the movement of the Lenten road ahead, it also provides us with our souls' daily/weekly movement along the way. It is that movement I want to invite us into today.
Knowing that wherever you are today (in heart, in mind, in body) there is no need to hide, so take a few moments to make the Lenten journey:
An Honest Plea: Lord, have mercy on me, for I am a sinner.
A Humble Admission: I'm exhausted by my sin. I do not have enough strength or sight to overcome this.
A Hope-Filled Profession: You have heard and accepted my plea...and acted to save me through death into life.
"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
Love you, faith family. God bless!