Pictures of Prayer

This text comes from a draft of a devotion I wrote on 10/8/03 to share before our church's adult choir rehearsed the approaching Sunday's anthem, "Take Time to Be Holy."

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It is early evening. The sun is slowly slipping down to the horizon in the west. You tug on the lamb's lead to persuade him away from some dry scrub brush. He follows you, the little bell clunking as he walks.

You enter the courtyard, passing through the fabric gate. The priests stand near the altar of burnt offerings and the laver, carrying out their duties. One of their helpers takes the lamb from you, and you bow. The sweet smell of incense lingers in the airafter a breeze blows from the tabernacle through the courts.

You pray as you watch the helpers and the priests perform the rituals given years ago, repeated day after day through generations of God-fearers. You marvel at these things God has instructed you and your people to do and sometimes wonder why and wonder if it would be OK to ask Him.

Now you smell the aroma of your lamb burning on the altar. You continue praying. May it atone. May it atone.

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It is evening. The sun has slipped down to the horizon on the west. You and your friends are following the Master through the Kidron Valley.

You hear the shofar trumpets blare. You smell the fragrance of incense, the aroma of burnt offerings, and the stench of blood running from the temple. You know that the city of Jerusalem is crowded with Passover worshipers.

You look at the Master walking up ahead. He is singing with you, sometimes with a faraway look you cannot describe. You think about all the events you have experienced with Him and try to compress them all into a single thought, but you cannot grasp the meaning of them.

Then you remember something one of John's followers told you once. John had said, "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." What did it mean? And what does the Master mean when He keeps saying He will destroy the temple and in three days build it again?

One of the followers comes to clasp your hand, and you put aside your musings as together you raise your voices in song: "This is the day that the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it!"

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Looking back on a life well spent in Your presence,
what will I see? The moments others saw as sacrifice
were times I chose to be silent before you,
times I did not listen to the white-noise hum of postmodern mechanics
but to the stretching-into-eternity vastness of the Truth
that has no harmonic on this human scale.
I set You at my right hand and You became my strength
as my weaknesses grew and covered my pride in rags of shame.
You stood in my place, revealed Yourself through the holes,
and washed away every stain.