Prayer for Illumination
Even in your silence, Lord Jesus Christ, may we hear your voice.
Mark 15:2-5
Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?”
Jesus replied, “Yes, it is as you say.”
Then the leading priests accused him of many crimes, and Pilate
asked him, “Aren’t you going to say something? What about all these charges
against you?”
But Jesus said nothing, much to Pilate’s surprise.
Habakkuk 1:12-15
O LORD my God, my Holy One, you who are eternal—is your plan in
all of this to wipe us out? Surely not! O LORD our Rock, you have decreed the
rise of these Babylonians to punish and correct us for our terrible sins. You
are perfectly just in this. But will you, who cannot allow sin in any form,
stand idly by while they swallow us up? Should you be silent while the wicked
destroy people who are more righteous than they? Are we but fish to be caught
and killed? Are we but creeping things that have no leader to defend them from
their enemies? Must we be strung up on their hooks and dragged out in their
nets while they rejoice?
Is this how it will end? Is this the best Justice can do? “Surely
not!” But there are times when Jesus says nothing, to our surprise as much as
Pilate’s, and only when time has passed can we see the great salvation of our
God. BR
“But, sir, I cannot but bless God for the glorious anticipation of a not
very distant period, when these things which now help to degrade us still no
more be practiced among the sons of Africa,—for, though this, and perhaps
another, generation may not experience the promised blessings of Heaven, yet,
the dejected, degraded, and now enslaved children of Africa will have, in spite
of all their enemies, to take their stand among the nations of the earth. And,
sir, I verily believe that God has something in reserve for us, which, when he
shall have poured it our upon us, will repay us for all our suffering and
miseries. —David Walker (1796?-1830), speech to the Massachusetts General
Colored Association, December 1828
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