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| "Tundra" by Joseph |
Levites
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A Greeting
You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
(Psalm 51:6)
A Reading
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit.
For you have no delight in sacrifice;
if I were to give a burnt-offering,
you would not be pleased.
The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
(Psalm 51:10-12; 16-17)
Music
Meditative Verse
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
(Psalm 90:14)
A Prayer
You alone know my sinfulness, my imperfections, faults.
Help me, above all, in courage. I want to walk your way. Here I am.
Make me a saint even if it breaks me in the making.
I want to be filled with You as a cistern is filled with water -
clear and cool in the desert of life.
I want to fertilize your fields, forever overflowing with Your spirit,
the spirit which alone can bring men and women to you.
- by Catherine de Hueck Doherty,
found in The Flowering of the Soul: a book of prayers by women
ed. by Lucinda Vardey
Verse for the Day
Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us,
and prosper for us the work of our hands—
O prosper the work of our hands!
(Psalm 90:17)
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| Image by Israel Nature Photography |
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“Christ has no body now but yours.” In marking the moment when Jesus enters the desert wilderness for forty days, we become aware of where we ourselves are in the deserts and wildernesses of our own lives. If it already seems challenging to find a few moments for reflection, the task of becoming the hands and body of Christ may feel like a lofty ideal. How do we bridge that gap? One way is to hear the psalmist petitioning God to restore us to our truest selves, the self that is closest to God. If we can enter a little more into that space, perhaps serving Jesus and God would not be so much a task as a joining into God’s will for humankind. The Levites were men of the tribe of Levi who served the priests of the temple in Jerusalem and were sometimes also priests themselves. Their work was to sing or play music and to assist in the general labour of the temple sacrifices. Levites were dedicated to the idea that ritual practice kept the Israelite closer to God. One of their main responsibilities was to carry from one part of the temple to another everything needed for the sacrifices and to move the ashes afterward. The hands of a Levite were covered in blood, soot and ash, while the Kohanim priests remained clean in order to do the most holy tasks of worship. Though ritual sacrifice is a thing of the past, something of that memory is present in preparing the ashes for Ash Wednesday. A priest burns Palm Sunday crosses from another year and the ash is laid on the foreheads of worshipers during Ash Wednesday services to signify our commitment to journey with Jesus to the Cross. Reminding ourselves of our deepest nature, that which God made and loves, can sometimes involve letting go of things that keep us from that place. On Ash Wednesday, we might commit to abstaining from that which causes us to feel separated or distanced from God. Or we may renew our sense of dedication to practices that remind us of how close God always is to us. God lives in the palms of our hands and in all they encounter. Our hands are one part of how we bring God's love for us into the world. How do you feel called by God into what you do? How can God prosper in you the work of your hands?
Every third day we will look at a biblical vocation or occupation.
For more on The Porter's Gate Worship Project, visit their site.
LC† Being God's Hands is a project of
Lutherans Connect / Lutheran Campus Ministry Toronto
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