Prayer for Illumination
We behold you, Lord Jesus, judged by the unjust; enlighten our
hearts to comprehend the injustices of this world and to hear the voices of the
voiceless. Create an awareness in us today: an awareness of the many ways in
which our own personal sin contributes to all that is despicable in the world.
Fill us with a holy anger to release captives, exalt the oppressed, and
proclaim good news to the poor. Amen.
Mark 15:1
Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the
teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. They bound
Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate. TNIV
Psalm 58
Is this any way to run a country? Is there
an honest politician in the house?
Behind the scenes you brew cauldrons of
evil,
behind closed doors you make deals with demons.
The wicked crawl from the wrong side of the
cradle;
their first words out of the womb are lies.
Poison, lethal rattlesnake poison,
drips from their forked tongues—
Deaf to threats, deaf to charm,
decades of wax built up in their ears.
God, smash their teeth to bits,
leave them toothless tigers.
Let their lives be buckets of water
spilled,
all that’s left, a damp stain in the sand.
Let them be trampled grass
worn smooth by the traffic.
Let them dissolve into snail slime,
be a miscarried fetus that never sees sunlight.
Before what they cook up is half-done, God,
throw it out with the garbage!
The righteous will call up their friends
when they see the wicked get their reward,
Serve up their blood in goblets
as they toast one another,
Everyone cheering, “It’s worth it to play
by the rules!
God’s handing out trophies and tending the earth!” The Message
It
is easy to recoil in horror at this Psalm. The righteous washing their feet in
the wickeds’ blood—the image is too grisly for refined people. But perhaps the
“refined” have suffered too little, for the oppressed can comprehend this
desire. And it is only, having experienced the anger and hatred of this Psalm,
that we can truly understand the radical nature of a Messiah who cries out, “Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Refined sentiments cheapen such
grace. BR
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