Thursday, February 28, 2013

Morning Psalms: 70, 71 | Evening Psalm: 74
Jeremiah 4:9-10, 19-28 | Romans 2:12-24 | John 5:19-29

“Make haste, O God, to deliver me!  O Lord, make haste to help me!”
(Ps 70:1)
 
Have you ever been in a situation where you could do nothing? I mean absolutely nothing? I found myself in such a circumstance in the autumn of 2011. During the previous few months, my sister and brother-in-law were killed in a motorcycle accident; dementia reduced my mother’s health to the point where she needed 24 hour health care; and a complicated family situation led me to the point where I had only one place to go—on my knees before God. Like the psalmist, the only strength I could muster was the strength to call out “Oh Lord, help me!”

Psalm 70 is a prayer of total faith in the One who will rescue him from his dire situation. Difficulties abound and threats are so close that his very life is in danger. But rather than taking things into his own hands, the psalmist turns to God—Help me Lord and do it NOW! Nothing is held back. No attempts to barter a negotiated settlement. It’s a cry of total reliance on God as deliverer.

This same faithful dependence is what marks our Lenten journey. Ash Wednesday initiates our walk with a clear reminder of our need for the Redeemer. The invitation in the Ash Wednesday Liturgy calls us to a time of “self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial” being steeped in God’s word. The sin which besets us cannot be removed through our own efforts, but each day leads us closer to Good Friday and the cross of Jesus Christ. Our helplessness beckons us to the cross of the One who offered Himself in selflessness so that He might be our deliverer. Just as the Psalmist looked beyond the hardship to the hope in God, we make this same prayer. We faithfully hasten to lay our lives at the foot of the cross with the same simple prayer: “Make haste, O God, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me!”

May our voices echo this same prayer on this our Lenten pilgrimage.

The Rev. Joel Grigg (MDiv 2001, DMin Candidate)
Rector, St. John’s Episcopal Church
Massena, NY