Lent Devotional 2021 - Pittsburg - Flipbook - Page 30
Who do you think you are? Saved by grace. None of this is
easy. Thanks be to God.
PRAYER
O Lord, I don’t always journey along a neatly groomed pilgrim
path. Sometimes I wander in the wilderness. Sometimes I
even outrun the hope that is in me. So help me find hope in
you. In your name I pray. Amen.
SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 2021
The Rev. Rebecca McGee ’09
SCRIPTURE
Psalm 31
1 In you, O LORD, I seek refuge; do not let me ever be put
to shame; in your righteousness deliver me. 2 Incline your
ear to me; rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me,
a strong fortress to save me. 3 You are indeed my rock and
my fortress; for your name’s sake lead me and guide me,
4 take me out of the net that is hidden for me, for you are
my refuge. 5 Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have
redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God. 6 You hate those who
pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the LORD. 7 I will
exult and rejoice in your steadfast love, because you have
seen my affliction; you have taken heed of my adversities,
8 and have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
you have set my feet in a broad place. 9 Be gracious to me,
O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief,
my soul and body also. 10 For my life is spent with sorrow,
and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my
misery, and my bones waste away. 11 I am the scorn of all my
adversaries, a horror to my neighbors, an object of dread to
my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from
me. 12 I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have
become like a broken vessel. 13 For I hear the whispering
of many—terror all around!—as they scheme together
against me, as they plot to take my life. 14 But I trust in
you, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.” 15 My times are in
your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and
persecutors. 16 Let your face shine upon your servant; save
me in your steadfast love. 17 Do not let me be put to shame,
O LORD, for I call on you; let the wicked be put to shame;
let them go dumbfounded to Sheol. 18 Let the lying lips be
stilled that speak insolently against the righteous with pride
and contempt. 19 O how abundant is your goodness that
you have laid up for those who fear you, and accomplished
for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of everyone!
20 In the shelter of your presence you hide them from
human plots; you hold them safe under your shelter from
contentious tongues. 21 Blessed be the LORD, for he has
wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was beset
as a city under siege. 22 I had said in my alarm, “I am driven
30 Lent Devotional 2021
far from your sight.” But you heard my supplications when I
cried out to you for help. 23 Love the LORD, all you his saints.
The LORD preserves the faithful, but abundantly repays the
one who acts haughtily. 24 Be strong, and let your heart take
courage, all you who wait for the LORD.
DEVOTIONAL
“Into your hand I commit your spirit” were the words that I
prayed after my 99-year-old maternal grandmother took her
last breath. My mother, brother, and I were with her when
she died on March 15, 2011. I would say these words again
during her funeral service, the first service I ever officiated.
I have quoted these words from Psalm 31:5—the same
words which were the last that Jesus spoke from the cross
in Luke 23:46—at every funeral and memorial service since
my grandmother’s funeral. I prayed them brokenheartedly
shortly after my father died—once I had stopped keening and
wailing with an intensity I didn’t think possible.
The Psalms, and in this particular case a personal lament
such as Psalm 31, give voice to practically all the emotions
we human beings experience, yet sometimes can’t articulate.
Our afflictions, distress, sorrows, and grief are poured out to
our faithful God, who hears them all and gives us shelter and
refuge. Blessed be the LORD, who hears our cries of despair
and covers us in God’s incredible, never-ending steadfast
love!
PRAYER
Merciful and compassionate God of all creation, we thank
you for your care of our whole beings—body, mind and
spirit—in both life and death. Help us to continue to grow in
our trust of your abundant goodness and unwavering love
so that, whatever we encounter, we know in both our heads
and our hearts on whom we can depend. In Jesus’ name we
pray. Amen.
SUNDAY, MARCH 28, 2021
The Rev. Dr. Roderick Grahame ’15
SCRIPTURE
Matthew 21:12-17
12 Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who
were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned
the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who
sold doves. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house
shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a
den of robbers.” 14 The blind and the lame came to him
in the temple, and he cured them. 15 But when the chief
priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did,