My Vision of Your Sadness-Lent 37, 2020

Prayer Focus: Sorrow

Lord Jesus, that Your soul was overwhelmed with sorrow makes me really sad. Angry, too, at sin and truly grieved that human sin made You suffer to redeem us from it. Your sadness, Your sorrow, Your distress and trouble–all of these remind me that You didn’t go to the Cross as a superhuman. You went to the Cross in Your humanity. I’m so sorry You had to suffer in ways I cannot even imagine. I’m sad thinking that You were so distressed and for my part in it–oh, Lord, forgive me! I’m so sorry, Lord! You asked Your disciples to stay and keep watch, to be with You in Your hour of need. They fell asleep. I would have done the same thing, I’m certain, because You said that “You will all fall away…for it is written: “‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ These days and moments leading up to Your Crucifixion are dark. Humanity’s evil in all its ugliness displayed itself and tried to claim victory. Death wanted You to die, die, die. Death wanted to trample Your grave, dance on it, and pounce forever on every man, woman, and child as victorious. But You were resolved to see these events as God had planned them and that You would have victory over death! In the flow of time, Your sadness, sorrow, distress and trouble remind me that the battle was and remains real. There is a terrible cost. Casualties happen, but as You have said “Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come! Lord Jesus, thank You for Your faithfulness– from Your birth and life to Your death to the tomb to the resurrection and ascension! Darkness had its moment, but the Light of the World prevailed! May I share in the communion of the saints and proclaim Your death until You return. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.

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Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014.
Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations. We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17.
ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ. It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.
Lent 2018, we explored the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We asked and answered the questions “Why?” from the movie Life of Pi as we discovered the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in a world of many faiths.
Lent 2019 gave us a deeper window into Easter “More to the Easter Story” since we miss so much when we rely only on a superficial understanding of the work of Christ. These devotionals are archived beginning March 6, 2019.