Lent Devotional 2021 - Pittsburg - Flipbook - Page 17
was stopping by Moses’ Rock on a hot, summer afternoon.
I would hold my hand for a moment over the water that
was gently bubbling up from the rock. Then, as I would
release my hand, the water would gush up! I would lean
over and drink from the fountain of water. Nothing was
more satisfying to my parched mouth than a drink of cold,
mountain spring water!
water to refresh my heart, to saturate my spirit. Come, Lord
Jesus, come. Amen.
Nothing is more satisfying to a parched soul than a deep
drink of the living water offered in our scripture lesson! Jesus
said, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one
who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of
the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’”
SCRIPTURE
Jesus spoke these words to believers on the final day of the
Feast of the Tabernacles, a joyous festival that remembered
God’s provision for the people of Israel as they wandered in
the wilderness. The image of a priest drawing water out of
the pool of Siloam and pouring it into a bowl in the temple
would have been fresh on the peoples’ minds. The prayer
of the priest for God to send rain would have been ringing
in their ears. The remembrance of God’s gift of water in the
wilderness when Moses struck the rock would have been
burning in their hearts.
As the Festival neared the end, the people wanted the
joy to continue. They did not want to wait until next year
to experience again the joy of God’s presence flooding
their lives. They did not want their Spirit-saturated hearts
to become parched again as they went home to an arid
existence.
So Jesus’ offer of living water was captivating. Although
there were detractors who did not want dependency on ritual
and hierarchy to end, the invitation to be in relationship with
the God who daily provided the satisfaction of living water
was powerful. The opportunity never again to experience
a parched spirit was a gift to those who were oppressed,
beaten down, broken, and in need of resuscitation. They
craved such living water!
As we journey through the wilderness of Lent, many of us
realize our spirits are parched, our joy has run dry. Bitterness
and brokenness have beaten us down. We need our
conviction of faith revived! We need our thirst for justice
quenched! We need the aridness of our hearts saturated
anew with Jesus the Christ!
As you pray, fast, read Scripture, and worship during Lent,
may you discover anew the living water of our Lord Jesus and
never be thirsty again!
PRAYER
My heart is dry, O Lord, and my spirit is arid. Joy and hope
have been wrung out of my life by disappointments,
misunderstandings, tension, and pain. I need your living
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2021
The Rev. Dr. Mark Ioset ’87/’86
Jeremiah 8:4-7, 18-9:6
4 You shall say to them, Thus says the LORD: When people
fall, do they not get up again? If they go astray, do they
not turn back? 5 Why then has this people turned away in
perpetual backsliding? They have held fast to deceit, they
have refused to return. 6 I have given heed and listened, but
they do not speak honestly; no one repents of wickedness,
saying, “What have I done!” All of them turn to their own
course, like a horse plunging headlong into battle. 7 Even
the stork in the heavens knows its times; and the turtle-dove,
swallow, and crane observe the time of their coming; but
my people do not know the ordinance of the LORD. 18 My
joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick. 19 Hark, the
cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land: “Is the
LORD not in Zion? Is her King not in her?” (“Why have they
provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign
idols?”) 20 “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and
we are not saved.” 21 For the hurt of my poor people I am
hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me. 22 Is there
no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has
the health of my poor people not been restored? 9:1 O that
my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of
tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my
poor people! 2 O that I had in the desert a traveler’s lodging
place, that I might leave my people and go away from them!
For they are all adulterers, a band of traitors. 3 They bend
their tongues like bows; they have grown strong in the land
for falsehood, and not for truth; for they proceed from evil
to evil, and they do not know me, says the LORD. 4 Beware
of your neighbors, and put no trust in any of your kin; for all
your kin are supplanters, and every neighbor goes around like
a slanderer. 5 They all deceive their neighbors, and no one
speaks the truth; they have taught their tongues to speak lies;
they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent.
6 Oppression upon oppression, deceit upon deceit! They
refuse to know me, says the LORD.
DEVOTIONAL
As I write this devotional there is a jackhammer pounding
away outside our apartment, as well as construction trucks
with backup beepers going full tilt. I’m thinking this is rather
appropriate and perhaps a moment of God-incidence.
Jeremiah and his message were, at times, not unlike a
jackhammer. He hammered home concussively that the
people, his people, God’s people, needed to get back to God
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary | www.pts.edu