Email preparing for Sunday, February 21, 2021
Dear Psalms friends,
Doug and I continue to pray for safety, warmth, and now water supply for each of you as God guides us through yet another strange, unprecedented event. This past year from February 2020 to the present has certainly shown us our human frailty and vulnerability, and it has spotlighted our human tendency to think and act independently from God. In 2021, we don’t need Lent to show us how desperately needy we humans actually are!
But I still need Lent. I need this slowed down, God-focused, simplified stretch of time to ask for grace to accept God’s unconditional and unfailing love and to invite our merciful God to search my heart, the hidden depths of me, and point out all that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit know that I am ready to face. (See Psalm 139:23-24.) What wounds and sins, what brokenness do I need to allow God’s saving light to reveal and start to heal in me…and in His Body the Church?
Lent awakens us to both our sinful human condition apart from Christ and to the grace and peace of life in union with God in Christ. Lent can clear our minds and hearts to grasp the necessity and glory of Easter Resurrection, Christ’s victory over sin and death and Satan. So I want us not just to “pass the time” chronologically in Lent 2021, to “get through it,” but to “use this time” as kairos time for holy purposes, a time set apart for ongoing repentance (conversion), a time of God’s grace changing us, redirecting us. (See Mark 1:14-15, Romans 13:11, and 2 Corinthians 6:1-2 for references to “kairos,” opportune time for change.)
This Sunday we will take a Lenten look at Psalm 119 and also to the Lenten instructions in the Book of Common Prayer pp. 542-552. The Kellers share thoughts and prayers about each stanza of Psalm 119 in The Songs of Jesus, pp. 304-325. Meditate on stanzas that are especially meaningful to you and that you might share with our group on Sunday morning.
I’ll send you a Psalm 119 lesson tomorrow about the different words used in Psalm 119 for God’s words to His people, “all things necessary for our salvation.” (BCP, p. 773, article 6 in The Articles of Religion)
May you be warm and hydrated, but not overly so! James and Julie’s welcoming kitchen, the one that many of us gathered in for our first and only official meal together back in Christmas 2019 (I think!), is basically gone because of hot water heater pipes bursting and caving in the ceiling. It was a special bonding time as they scooped up their kitchen together. No kidding. Prayers needed. I think Paula also has plumbing problems, as do we. Pray for plumbers and all of the people who need them. And of course, pray for the restoration of the sanctuary and the offices of Christ Church.
So here we are, with another opportunity to stay God-centered like Jesus did, and to praise and lament with the Psalms.
United with Christ and with you,
Toni