2/21 Thursday in the First Week of Lent

Isaiah 58:10-12
 

  If you offer your food to the hungry
   and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
   and your gloom be like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you continually,
   and satisfy your needs in parched places,
   and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
   like a spring of water,
   whose waters never fail.
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 live in. 

An Offering from Kimberly Horne:

The Bible is full of plenty of head-scratching moments so I appreciate those verses that are bracingly clear.  It’s like stepping barefoot into a cold mountain stream--there is no confusion.  These moments can be lifted out of context, and while the meaning might be enhanced by a reading of the full chapter, verses like these from Isaiah can stand just as well alone, scribbled on a piece of paper and folded into a wallet, stuffed into a pocket, committed to memory, passed along and handed down.  Who doesn’t want to be a repairer of broken walls, a restorer of streets with dwellings?  And the good news is that the equation is simple—if this, then that.  Feed the hungry and you will be like a well-watered garden.  Of course, it’s the living out of the equation that proves difficult.  Lent seems as good of a time as any, if not better, to remind ourselves that, in a complicated world full of abstractions and confusions, the clarity or the divergent interpretations of the message isn’t always the problem.  Sometimes, there’s simply nothing to fight over. 

Prayer

 

This is a sweet prayer that we’re teaching our son Fisher to say:

Father, we thank thee for the night,
and for the pleasant morning light;
for rest and food and loving care,
and all that makes the day so fair.
Help us to do the things we should,
to be to others kind and good;
in all we do, in work or play,
to grow more loving every day.

(Rebecca Weston, 1890)