Monday, April 9, 2007

Today’s text

1 John 3:9-10

“Those who have been born of God do not sin because God’s seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God. The children of God and of the devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.”

Prayer

You sow the seed of tomorrow in our hearts, Risen One. Planting your future deep in the soul’s soil, your seed takes root and grows into a vibrant hope that at once comforts and agitates, so that nothing satisfies but your grace, your life, your justice, your mercy … you.

Bearing your future in our bones, we hunger for the healing of time and space and of our own fractured souls. Such is your promise. Nowhere is it more transparent than in the transfiguration of your wounds, blessed Jesus.

You emerge from your tomb bearing the marks of the nails, the scars of your mutilation. The marks of living and dieing are not wiped from your flesh. They remain. So, too, on us.

Your wounds give silent witness to God’s purpose to heal not by removing our scars but by sowing in them the seeds of tomorrow, which flower into your immense beauty even in places of cavernous wounds and sorrow.

Grant that the seed of your resurrected love should take such root in us that sin be choked out so that you may bear in us the harvest of your love and mercy. There is no surer sign of your blessed rising. Amen.

Pr. David L. Miller