Thursday, April 6 | St. Andrew's Anglican Church

Psalm 102

¹ Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry come to you! ² Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress! Incline your ear to me; answer me speedily in the day when I call! ³ For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace. ⁴ My heart is struck down like grass and has withered; I forget to eat my bread. ⁵ Because of my loud groaning my bones cling to my flesh. ⁶ I am like a desert owl of the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places; ⁷ I lie awake; I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop. ⁸ All the day my enemies taunt me; those who deride me use my name for a curse. ⁹ For I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with my drink, ¹⁰ because of your indignation and anger; for you have taken me up and thrown me down. ¹¹ My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass. ¹² But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever; you are remembered throughout all generations. ¹³ You will arise and have pity on Zion; it is the time to favor her; the appointed time has come. ¹⁴ For your servants hold her stones dear and have pity on her dust. ¹⁵ Nations will fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory. ¹⁶ For the Lord builds up Zion; he appears in his glory; ¹⁷ he regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise their prayer. ¹⁸ Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord: ¹⁹ that he looked down from his holy height; from heaven the Lord looked at the earth, ²⁰ to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die, ²¹ that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord, and in Jerusalem his praise, ²² when peoples gather together, and kingdoms, to worship the Lord. ²³ He has broken my strength in midcourse; he has shortened my days. ²⁴ “O my God,” I say, “take me not away in the midst of my days— you whose years endure throughout all generations!” ²⁵ Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. ²⁶ They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, ²⁷ but you are the same, and your years have no end. ²⁸ The children of your servants shall dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you.

Psalm 142

¹ With my voice I cry out to the Lord; with my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord. ² I pour out my complaint before him; I tell my trouble before him. ³ When my spirit faints within me, you know my way! In the path where I walk they have hidden a trap for me. ⁴ Look to the right and see: there is none who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me; no one cares for my soul. ⁵ I cry to you, O Lord; I say, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.” ⁶ Attend to my cry, for I am brought very low! Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me! ⁷ Bring me out of prison, that I may give thanks to your name! The righteous will surround me, for you will deal bountifully with me.

Psalm 143

¹ Hear my prayer, O Lord; give ear to my pleas for mercy! In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness! ² Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. ³ For the enemy has pursued my soul; he has crushed my life to the ground; he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead. ⁴ Therefore my spirit faints within me; my heart within me is appalled. ⁵ I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands. ⁶ I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah ⁷ Answer me quickly, O Lord! My spirit fails! Hide not your face from me, lest I be like those who go down to the pit. ⁸ Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. ⁹ Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord! I have fled to you for refuge. ¹⁰ Teach me to do your will, for you are my God! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground! ¹¹ For your name's sake, O Lord, preserve my life! In your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble! ¹² And in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies, and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul, for I am your servant.

Jeremiah 20:7-11

⁷ O Lord, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me. ⁸ For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. ⁹ If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. ¹⁰ For I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! “Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” say all my close friends, watching for my fall. “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we can overcome him and take our revenge on him.” ¹¹ But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten.

1 Corinthians 10:14-17, 11:27-32

¹⁴ Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. ¹⁵ I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. ¹⁶ The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? ¹⁷ Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread ... ^11:²⁷ Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. ²⁸ Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. ²⁹ For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. ³⁰ That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. ³¹ But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. ³² But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

John 17

¹ When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, ² since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³ And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴ I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. ⁵ And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. ⁶ “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷ Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. ⁸ For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹ I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. ¹⁰ All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. ¹¹ And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. ¹² While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. ¹³ But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. ¹⁴ I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁵ I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁷ Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸ As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. ²⁰ “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹ that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, ²³ I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. ²⁴ Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. ²⁵ O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶ I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”