sin

wash me with your tears

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Jesus Wept by Daniel Bonnell
 
Lord, we show you our wounds so that you may heal us.
And even if we do not, you know,
    and you wait to hear our voice.
Do away our scars by tears,
    like the woman in the gospel who washed your feet with hers.
 
You know how to help the weak,
    when there is no one who can prepare the feast,
    or bring the ointment,
    or carry along a spring of living water.
You come yourself to the grave.
 
So come to this grave of mine, Lord Jesus,
    that you would wash me with your tears.
With my dry eyes I have no such tears
    as to be able to wash away my offenses.
With your tears I will be saved, if I am worthy of your tears.
 
With them you will call me out of the tomb of this body and say, 
    “Come forth.”
Then my thoughts will not be kept pent up
    in the narrow limits of this body,
    but may go forth to you, and move to the light,
    that I may think no more on the works of darkness,
    but on the works of light.
 
Ambrose of Milan, c.339-397, Bishop of Milan
 
___________________________
 
 
When Jesus saw her weeping,
    and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping,
    he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
“Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
 
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, 
    “Lazarus, come out!”
The dead man came out, 
    his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, 
    and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, 
    “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

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I fly to you for refuge

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
photo by jonathan emili via pexels.com
 
 
I fly to you for refuge, blessed Christ, my only redeemer and savior.
My sins are certainly great.
But greater still is the payment you have made for them.
 
Great is my unrighteousness, but greater by far is your righteousness.
I admit my sin.
Please, in your grace, would you pay its penalty?
I reveal the sin, in your mercy conceal it.
With remorse I uncover it; please hide it, in your grace.
 
There is nothing in me but sin that deserves your condemnation.
But in you there is nothing but grace that gives me a blessed hope of salvation.
 
I hear a voice in scripture which tells me to hide in the clefts of the rock.
You are the rock that cannot be moved, and your wounds are those clefts.
In them I will hide from the accusations of the world.
 
My sins cry aloud to heaven for vengeance,
    but still more loudly cries out your blood shed for my sins.
 
My sins accuse me before God, 
    but your suffering is mightier for my defense.
My horribly wicked life calls for my condemnation,
    but your holy and righteous life pleads more powerfully still for my salvation.
I appeal from the throne of your justice to the throne of your mercy.
I have no desire to come before your judgment –
    unless your holy merit intervenes between me and your sentence.
 
Have mercy on us, only God of mercy,
    and turn our stony hearts to you! Amen!
 
Johann Gerhard, 1582 – 1637, Lutheran church leader and theologian
 
___________________________
 
 
Let all that I am wait quietly before God,
    for my hope is in him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
    my fortress where I will not be shaken.
My victory and honor come from God alone.
    He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me.
O my people, trust in him at all times.
    Pour out your heart to him,
    for God is our refuge. 

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to sweep out the corners

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image by Louis Henri de Fontenay
 
 
God, we come
with hesitant steps
and uncertain motives
to sweep out the corners
where sin has accumulated,
and uncover the ways
we have strayed from Your truth.
 
Expose the empty and barren places
where we don’t allow you to enter.
Reveal our half-hearted struggles
where we have been indifferent
to the suffering of others.
 
Nurture the faint stirrings of new life,
where your spirit has begun to grow.
Let your healing light transform us
into the image of Your Son.
For You alone can bring new life
and make us whole.
 
Christine Sine, Australian physician and contemplative activist
 
_______________________________
 
 
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
    and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

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my neighbor has injured me

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Photo by Rana via Pexels
My Lord Jesus Christ, 
    my neighbor has injured me,
    hurt my honor by talking about me,
    and interfered with my rights.
O God, hear my complaint.
    I would gladly feel kindly toward my neighbor,
        but I cannot.
    How totally cold and insensible I am.
 
O Lord, 
    I am helpless and forsaken.
    If you change me, I will be sincere.
O dear God, 
    change me by your grace,
        or I must remain as I am.
Amen.
 
Martin Luther, 1483-1546, German Reformer
 
________________
 
 
Even my close friend,
    someone I trusted,
one who shared my bread,
    has turned against me.

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Separate us from forgiven sins

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image, Steve  F, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
 
Father, when You forgive sins, 
You separate them as far from us as the east is from the west
 
Bury them in the bottom of the deepest sea
and put up a sign for the devil that says,
NO FISHING.
 
Corrie Ten Boom, 1892-1983, Dutch Holocaust Survivor and author
 
______________________
 
 
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his love for those who fear him;
 as far as the east is from the west,
    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
 

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a prayer for freedom

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image by Zulmaury Saavedra via unsplash
 
Dear God,
 
I used to think that freedom meant I could do anything 
    or have anything I wanted.
That just made me a slave to my own desires.
Soon I found myself trapped 
    in destructive habits, hurtful relationships and even powerful addictions.
That is not freedom. That’s bondage.
 
When I learned about Jesus, I saw the truth:
I am a needy person who needs a merciful God.
Only you provide what I’m looking for.
Only you can provide that path to freedom.
Thank you for teaching me that freedom is found 
    in living a life consistent with truth,
    in a way that keeps my heart, mind, body, and soul all free.
True freedom comes when the reality of your holiness
    overpowers my sinful inclinations
    and fills my life with the fullness of your liberating love.
 
Ronald Beers, Chief Publishing Officer for Tyndale
_______________________
 
 
But the Scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin, 
  so we receive God’s promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ.

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patient, kind & compassionate Lord

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Do you roll your eyes in frustration, Lord,
   when I pay no attention to you, to your truth,
      – not even to common sense?

Do you want to dope slap me, Lord,
   when I miss the better, right choice to make
     – staring me right in the face?

Do you ever turn and walk away
   when I, for the thousandth time,
      make the same foolish, stupid mistake?

No, Lord, you don’t…

Instead,
   you show me time and again
      the things I’ve failed to see,
   you look with compassion and mercy
      on me and all my folly,
   you always, freely, pardon my sins
      and grant me a new beginning…
Patient, kind and compassionate Lord,
   be gracious to me today – as you always are –
      and help me grow in your grace…

Amen. 
 
Fr. Austin Fleming, Roman Catholic Priest in Massachusetts
 
___________________________
 
 
But all they gave him was lip service;
    they lied to him with their tongues.
Their hearts were not loyal to him.
    They did not keep his covenant.
Yet he was merciful and forgave their sins
    and did not destroy them all.
Many times he held back his anger
    and did not unleash his fury!
For he remembered that they were merely mortal,
    gone like a breath of wind that never returns.

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believing in the resurrection of Jesus

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image, by William Hole, via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
Almighty God,
Who through the death of your Son 
    has destroyed sin and death,
And by his resurrection 
    has restored innocence and everlasting life,
That we may be delivered from the dominion of the devil,
    and our mortal bodies raised up from the dead:
Grant that we may confidently and whole-heartedly 
    believe this,
And, finally, with your saints, 
    share in the joyful resurrection of the just;
through the same Jesus Christ,
    your Son, our Lord.

Martin Luther, 1483-1546, German Reformer
 
_______________________________
 
 
But these are written that you may believe 
    that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, 
and that by believing 
    you may have life in his name.
 

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the last step of love

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Cristo crucificado, Titian via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
A few hours more,
A few minutes more,
A few instants more,
For thirty-three years it has been going on.
For thirty-three years you have lived fully minute after minute.
You can no longer escape, now; you are there, 
    at the end of your life, at the end of your road.
You are at the last extremity, at the edge of a precipice.
You must take the last step,
The last step of love,
The last step of life that ends in death.
 
You hesitate.
Three hours are long, three hours of agony;
Longer than three years of life,
Longer than thirty years of life.
 
You must decide, Lord, all is ready around you.
You are there, motionless, on your Cross.
You have renounced all activity other than embracing these 
    crossed planks for which you were made.
And yet, there is still life in your nailed body.
Let mortal flesh die, and make way for eternity.
Now, life slips from each limb, one by one, finding refuge in his 
    still beating heart.
Immeasurable heart,
Overflowing heart.
Heart heavy as the world, the world of sins and miseries that it bears.
 
Lord, one more effort.
Mankind is there, waiting unknowingly for the cry of its Saviour.
You brothers are there; they need you.
Your Father bends over you, already holding out his arms.
Lord, save us,
Save us.
 
See.
He has taken his heavy heart,
And,
Slowly,
Laboriously,
Alone between heaven and earth,
In the awesome night,
With passionate love,
He has gathered his life,
He has gathered the sin of the world,
And in a cry,
He has given all.
‘Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.’
 
Christ has just died for us.
 
Michel Quoist, 1918 – 1997, French Catholic priest and writer 
 
_____________________________
 
 
It was now about the sixth hour,
    and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 
    while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 
Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, 
    “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” 
And having said this he breathed his last.

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mourning my sin

/ Eric Mathews / 2 Comments

Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash

 
Eternal Father,
You are good beyond all thought,
    but I am vile, wretched, miserable, blind;
My lips are ready to confess,
    but my heart is slow to feel,
    and my ways reluctant to amend.
I bring my soul to you;
    break it, wound it, bend it, mold it.
Unmask to me sin’s deformity,
    that I may hate it, abhor it, flee from it.
My natural abilities have been a weapon of revolt against you;
    as a rebel I have misused my strength,
    and served the foul adversary of your kingdom.
 
Give me grace to mourn my unconscious folly.
Grant me to know that the way of transgressors is hard,
    that evil paths are wretched paths,
    that to depart from you is to lose all good.
I have seen the purity and beauty of your perfect law,
    the happiness of those in whose hearts you reign,
    the calm dignity of the walk to which you call,
         yet I daily violate and condemn your precepts.
 
All these sins I mourn, lament, and for them cry pardon.
Work in me a more profound and abiding repentance;
Give me the fullness of a godly grief that trembles and fears,
    yet ever trusts and loves,
    which is ever powerful and ever confident;
Grant that through the tears of repentance may see more clearly
    the brightness and glories of your saving cross.
 
 
__________________________
 
 
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, 
    but worldly sorrow brings death. 
See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: 
    what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, 
    what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. 

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