A Prayer for the Lenten Days.

Brutal is this world we call "home".

And that word cannot be used with ease - brutality marks this mankind race; indeed we left our mark on You.

You in Your forbearance, send Your Beloved Son. You, in Your affection, send us a lamb to slaughter. Yu, in Your preace-making way, gave us the God-Man to be our brutal selves with.

And we were.

Our treatment of the Son of God comes as no surprise. Rather, what strikes us as peculiar is the seemingly passive way He came. It seems to us strange that He would suffer our brutality with quietness, in silence.

Yes, Your silent way is bizarre to us…

…and sacred.

So as we enter these Lenten days would You join us in Your suffering - at least in ways we are able. We confess we mean to go on a diet and equate it with Your suffering sacrifice. And for this, too, we need newness.

We acknowledge, as it was with Your midnight Son, that "newness" is only an articulation for after the suffering verbs.

So, as we try some semblance of suffering, would You help us with the silent nature. Remember well we are brutal.And we know little of pure passivity.

As we look down the long dark channel of the coming days, grant us tears under the reality that there is no newness yet.

No newness yet.

And for that reason, give us the courage to encounter those suffering verbs.

We pray in the name of the Passive Lamb who won our Peace,

Even Jesus.

Amen.