Lent: Day Two
Lent-Day 2
Thursday
February 26, 2009
Habakkuk 3:1-18
Philippians 3:12-21
John 17:1-18
“Unity in Purpose”
We are different. We come from different backgrounds. We have different experiences. We speak different words. We are Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant and Non-denominational.
We are different. We come from different cultures. We have different educational training. We see the world through different lenses. We are conservative, progressive, fundamentalist, liberal, evangelical and apathetic.
We are different. Yet today we are called to remember that we are called to a common purpose. While we have different understandings of the path that we follow but we agree on the destination. We all have the same beginning and the same end.
Today on this second day of Lent, let us confess the injury and pain that we have caused to each other and to those who were caught in the middle of our family squabbles and the counter witness we have offered to those who were standing close enough to see yet distant enough to not understand.
In our reading from John 17:1-18 we are provided with a glimpse into the heart of God. This is one of the longest recorded prayers in the Bible (unless you count some of the Psalms) and to our joy and perhaps embarrassment we are the subjects of that prayer. Jesus prays,
And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. – John 17:11
We are different, yet through the power of God we are called to be one in Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world.
Today let us pray the words of Habakkuk 3:2
“O Lord, I have heard of your renown, and I stand in awe, O Lord, of your work. In our own time revive it; in our own time make it known; in wrath may you remember mercy.” Amen.
