Scripture Focus: Luke 8:43-48
43 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. 44 She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. 
45 “Who touched me?” Jesus asked. 
When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.” 
46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.” 
47 Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. 48 Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.” 

From John: Each Monday of Lent, Jon Polk will be bringing us a devotional highlighting a hymn appropriate to the Lenten season. For many of us, 2020-2021, with all that Covid has cost us, seems like one long year of Lent with no Easter in sight. We’ve had to give up so much and miss so much and suffer so long. And in the United States, especially, the season of Covid that we thought would be a few weeks has now stretched an entire year and is not ending anytime soon. I pray that in this season, these hymns and God’s Holy Spirit will bring each of you comfort, peace, and resurrection of what has been lost. Easter is coming.

Reflection: Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Wretched — Lenten Hymns
By Jon Polk

In the introduction to his collection of hymns published in 1759, Joseph Hart honestly describes his experience of spiritual emptiness.

“I hastened to make myself a Christian by mere doctrine, disregarding the internal work of grace begun in my soul by the Holy Ghost. I ran such dangerous lengths both of carnal and spiritual wickedness, that I even outwent professed infidels, and shocked the irreligious and profane with my horrid blasphemies and monstrous impieties. For having obtained by Christ a liberty of sinning, I was resolved to make use of it; and thought the more I could sin without remorse, the greater hero I was in faith.”

Born in London in 1712 to particularly pious parents, Hart was raised, as he described, with “the sound doctrines of the Gospel from infancy.” However, upon reaching his twenties, he began to struggle with the destiny of his soul.

Hart forced himself deep into religious practices, such as fasting, prayer and virtue, only to encounter vain superficiality. He then turned headlong to selfish pursuits and vices, taverns and drinking companions, describing himself as a “loose backslider, an audacious apostate, a boldfaced rebel.”

The first verse of his most famous hymn, “Come Ye Sinners,” reads like his own autobiography.

Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched
Weak and wounded, sick and sore
Jesus ready stands to save you
Full of pity joined with power

What prompted Hart’s change of heart and recovery of the faith that had been nurtured in his childhood?

The power of Easter.

In his own words, “The week before Easter, 1757, I had such an amazing view of the agony of Christ in the garden, as I know not well how to describe. I was lost in wonder and adoration, and the impression it made was too deep.”

It is exceedingly easy for those of us who have been faithful Christians for a long while to experience spiritual amnesia, forgetting what it was like to identify with sinners and outcasts. We can develop a callous piety, a “holier-than-thou” attitude that prevents us from embracing our own continual need for a Savior, shielding us from the necessity of repentance.

The season of Lent purposefully reminds us that we are mere dust, that without the work of Christ and the grace of God, we are all sinners, poor and wretched.

In one of the original verses of the hymn not often found in modern hymnals, Hart beautifully sums up the significance of Christ’s sacrifice.

View him groveling in the Garden
Lo! your Maker prostrate lies
On the bloody tree behold him
Hear him cry, before he dies
“It is finished, it is finished, it is finished.”
Sinner, will not this suffice?

Music: Come Ye Sinners by Indelible Grace Music 
Lyrics: Lyrics from Hymnary.org 

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
Restore us, O God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved. — Psalm 80.3

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Exodus 5 (Listen – 3:15) 
Luke 8 (Listen – 8:09)

Read more from Jon Polk: The Slavery of Plenty
Although we may not recognize it, we are far too easily enslaved by our possessions, our comfortable way of life, or our status and authority.

Read more about Rumors or Repentance
The Jordan, where John baptized, is a river of decision. Will you cross over or not?  Will you repent? Will you enter the Kingdom of Heaven or not?

Scripture Focus: Luke 5.8, 10
When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.”

From John: As someone who has had a lot of bad days and made a lot of mistakes at things I am supposed to be good at, I relate deeply to Peter. It’s so true to life that every time the camera of scripture is on him, he’s failing at fishing… For all of us in moments of failure, this post can remind us that Christ will be there for us.

Reflection: A Bad Day Fishing
By John Tillman

The Bible describes Peter as a fisherman but every time we see him fishing in the scriptures, he is failing at it. Peter never catches a fish without Christ’s help.

We shouldn’t assume from this that Peter was a bad fisherman. Quite the opposite. We are meant to assume that Peter was a good fisherman. These days are recorded because of their uniqueness, not their normalcy. This means that we see Peter fishing on the worst days of his career. 

You learn a lot about people on their worst days. The days when nothing seems to work…when the project loses funding…when despite our best efforts, we come up empty. We also learn a lot about Jesus on those days.

Imagine for a moment that all Jesus was there for on his worst day was to solve Peter’s problem. Imagine if Jesus granted him a windfall of a miracle catch, then left Peter there to continue as usual, but now flush with operating capital flopping around on the beach. If we are honest that’s the kind of miracle we want from God. “Just bless what I’m already doing, God. Don’t ask me to change!” 

Peter’s first recorded words to Jesus in response to the miracle are “go away.” 

Peter seems to believe that his sins disqualify him from the financial blessing he has just received and certainly from being a follower of Jesus. But Jesus didn’t come to bless Peter’s business, he came to change it. Jesus didn’t ask for Peter to tithe a portion of the fish to his ministry, he asked Peter to offer his entire self, business and all, to “fish for men.”

Peter is fascinating. He seems prideful at times yet humble at others. He is outspoken yet hides when confronted. He lacks the ambition of the Zebedees but often takes initiative, leading other disciples and even attempting to lead Jesus.

Peter never seems to push directly for power or control. Perhaps this is precisely why Jesus specifically calls him to strengthen his brothers and places him in a position of leadership. Jesus, instead of solving Peter’s earthly problem made him part of Heaven’s solution to the world’s problem. He wants to do the same with us.

Jesus will show up on our worst days. He is calling us to fish. Peter never catches a fish without Christ’s help. And neither will we. 

Follow him today. Find out how he will direct you to fish.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
For your Name’s sake, O Lord, forgive my sin, for it is great. — Psalm 25.10

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Exodus 2 (Listen – 3:18) 
Luke 5 (Listen – 5:04)

Read more about Recalling the Failures
The world calls us a bad debt. Jesus redemptively reinvests in us…Jesus has a following—a following of failures. Join us, won’t you?

Read more about God of the Weak and Doubtful
He calls. He loves. He holds out his hand, and trusts the gospel, to all of us doubters.

Scripture Focus: Luke 4.13
13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

From John: I decided to do a touchup and rewrite on this post from 2019 as it occurred to me that many of us have been through, or are still in, deserts of isolation and fear in the season of Covid-19 and quarantine. Devils often come out for us in the deserts. I pray that we all will remember Jesus’ example of resistance and, if we have failed, we will remember that Jesus takes back repentant Peter, just as he will take back you and me.

Reflection: Our Opportunistic Opponent
By John Tillman

I doubt that the devil has horns, but when considering demonic influence in our world, there are two horns on which we can be caught.

It is unwise to make too much of Satan. We stumble into dualism when we think of him as an all-powerful, omnipresent evil. When we imagine Satan hiding behind every inconvenience and minor temptation in our world we deny our own propensity to sin and the omnipresent Spirit of God that truly is with us at all times.

It is unwise to make too little of Satan. It is dangerous to consider him and other evil spirits as mere phantoms of psychology or to explain him away as a metaphor of our inward sinfulness. This makes Satan less a dangerous foe and more a delightful fable.

No devil is needed for us to be tempted or tormented. We are sinful, deceiving and tormenting ourselves. We have broken our world, leaving sharp edges at every turn that cause harm. But we will encounter specific times of spiritual opposition in our lives.

Scripture warns that Satan desires to thresh us like wheat, that he prowls like a roaring lion, and that he has power to deceive the elect and to appear as an angel of light.

Satan is a limited, yet dangerous, creature of opportunity. It is wise to attempt to deny Satan opportunity by avoiding temptation, but being led by the Spirit does not always lead to safety. Jesus went into the wilderness to face temptation head on and Satan made the most of his opportunity. The Spirit will often lead us, as he did Christ, into deserts, alone, through times of testing. The devils will come out for us in our deserts.

The disciples, even when physically present with Jesus, were surrounded by, and succumbed to, temptations of greed, lust for power, anger, vengeance, selfishness, and self-righteousness. That’s leaving out Judas’s betrayal and Peter’s foul mouth.

Temptations are a time for us to come to terms with our limitations and recognize our sinfulness. In times of temptation, when we feel our limitations, there is comfort in knowing that our tempter is also limited. His opportunity to torment us will come to an end. 

By Christ’s mercy, we can resist Satan and he will flee. But just as when Satan left Jesus in the wilderness, he is only waiting for an opportune time to return.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Let not those who hope in your be put to shame through me, Lord God of hosts; let not those who seek you be disgraced because of me. — Psalm 69.7

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Exodus 1 (Listen – 2:32) 
Luke 4 (Listen – 5:27)

Read more about Pride and Shortsightedness
The tempter overcomes very many, by making them presumptuously confident of their own strength.

Read more about Quotations from the Desert
From the temptations in the garden to the temptations of Jesus and his followers, Satan encourages us to misapply and misinterpret God’s words.