Psalm 72 is David’s prayer for Solomon as David is dying and
Solomon becomes king. It is a prayer for God to make Solomon into a righteous
and gracious and famous king. All of these things reflect God’s Kingship over
the world. He is the righteous and gracious King, the King to whom all kings
and people give tribute and obeisance.
Jeremiah 3:6-18 is a message from God to the people of
Israel. First he reminds them of their and Judah’s rejection of Him as their
husband. Yet He makes plans to bring them back to Him, and to be closer to them
than ever, not separated by sin and blood and the Ark of the Covenant, but the
very home of His presence.
Romans 1:28-2:11 is a New Testament reiteration of the
Jeremiah passage above, in which God gives people over to their sin in order
that they might be driven back to Him by the immenseness of their depravity.
John 5:1-18 tells the story of Jesus healing a lame man on
the Sabbath. Through this act He demonstrates His power over Creation. But it
isn’t the healing of the physical body with which Jesus is primarily concerned.
He finds the man later and tells him “See you are well! Sin no more…” The
outward healing was a sign of the inward healing that Jesus had performed in
the man.
I’m currently reading C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, which I’m finding to be very appropriate reading
for Lent. It deals with the tempting of a particular new Christian by a demon
named Wormwood, whose job it is to turn the man away from God. While I doubt
the existence of a demon on each person’s shoulder whispering in his ear, I
have no doubt that my own self works in much the same way as Screwtape urges
Wormwood to work. Lewis posits that God’s greatest desire is for man to turn
away from himself and towards God and others. This is important to remember
during Lent, because it could be easy to fall into trap of wallowing in our sin
and forgetting to look forward to the Cross, for which this 40 days is supposed
to be a preparation. Screwtape puts it this way “Even of his sins the Enemy
[God] does not want him [the Christian] to think too much: once they are
repented, the sooner the man turns his attention outward, the better the Enemy
is pleased.” Think on your sin, Christian, but for every one look at your sin,
look ten times at the Cross (Robert Murray McCheyne), where each of your sins
was taken from you and fastened on your Lord.
