Each day in Lent I’ll be posting something for you to use as an aid to quiet reflection and time with God. Much of it will link in to the Visual Commentary on Scripture’s Lent programme, which is published on Monday of each week in Lent, and I’ll put some of my own material in the gaps.
We start Lent on Ash Wednesday, and I’d like to offer a passage from Isaiah 58: 12
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.
Isaiah speaks of a return to Jerusalem after the tough experience of exile in Babylon, a time of rebuilding the material, cultural, and relational things that were lost. As we journey with Jesus through Lent, we may think too of Jesus as the restorer, the reconciler, as well as the challenger in his own time.
Here is an image of a ruined house in the Scottish Highlands, a literal take on the ancient ruins of Isaiah, representing another great breach caused by humanity. I could just as easily have posted an image from Israel-Palestine or Yemen. The reconciling work of Jesus that we inherit needs to go on.
The classic psalm of penitence set for Ash Wednesday is Psalm 51, which has the opening words Miserere Mei in the Latin, have mercy on me. Here’s a link to a famous choral version by the composer Allegri. Sit with the verse from Isaiah and the image of Strathnaver as you reflect on the ways in which humanity needs to own its “sin”, the ways in which we fail to bring love and light into the world or indeed actively bring darkness, and to hear God’s call to a better, brighter, future based on reconciling love. How can we be part of that vision of “repairing the breach”?
As you think about the
Place of Wondering 