Lenten Day IV [Eve]

Eve of Lenten Day IV [The Sabbath]

Collect of the Day [Rite I]

Almighty and everlasting God, mercifully look upon our infirmities, and in all our dangers and necessities stretch forth thy right hand to help and defend us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Assigned Lesson

Isaiah 58:9b–14

If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in. "If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the Lord , and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken."

http://bible.com/59/isa.58.9-14.ESV

Lenten Reflection

As I write this it is Monday morning, the day after the Lord's Day, which is the day after the Sabbath.  Thus it's been a while since the beginning of the Sabbath.  And yet I wonder at this text as if Sabbath were springing forth in the setting of the sun and in the rising of the Vesper light of which the ancient Greek Christian canticle speaks.  The prophet calls us to Sabbath.  And how we need to hear that call.

The prophet speaks a promise that if we enter into Sabbath that we shall be blessed and shall delight in the awareness of the Lord.  But the prophet also cautions us that in order to enjoy that delight we must cast off some things.  The daily and the temporal must fade for a moment.  We set aside our normal routine in order to pause and ponder God and the many gifts of God in this life we share with God and neighbor.

The Sabbath is gone now.  The Day of Resurrection has given way to the second day.  It's Monday now, but Sabbath is coming.  In retrospect do we feel as if in these last few days we have known the delight of the Lord that prophets speak of in connection to Sabbath and apostles and evangelists connect also to the eighth day, the day of resurrection, better known as the first day of the week?  Does Monday leave us in want?  Hopefully it's because we knew that joy and wished with Peter and his brothers on the Mount of Transfiguration that we might just stay there.

But we cannot stay there.  It's Lent.  We come back to daily life.  Only remember Sabbath is coming again, and so is the Lord's Day.  So also is Pascha; Easter.  And one of these Paschal mornings there will be no more Lent ever again, and no more Monday mornings in which we are forced to return to what we often call the rat race of this life.