Preparing for the Fifth
Sunday in Lent
Year C

Daily Readings for Friday
April 5, 2019

Prayer

Creator God, 

you prepare a new way in the wilderness 

and your grace waters the desert. 

Help us to recognize your hand 

working miracles beyond our imagining. 

Open our hearts to be transformed 

by the new thing you are doing, 

so that our lives may proclaim 

the extravagance of your love for all, 

and its presence in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Psalm 126

Sowing with tears, reaping with joy

 

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,

we were like those who dream.

Then our mouth was filled with laughter,

and our tongue with shouts of joy;

then it was said among the nations,

“The Lord has done great things for them.”

The Lord has done great things for us,

and we rejoiced.

Restore our fortunes, O Lord,

like the watercourses in the Negeb.

May those who sow in tears

reap with shouts of joy.

Those who go out weeping,

bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

carrying their sheaves.

 

Isaiah 43:8-15

God is Lord, Holy One, Creator, Ruler

 

Bring forth the people who are blind, yet have eyes,

who are deaf, yet have ears!

Let all the nations gather together,

and let the peoples assemble.

Who among them declared this,

and foretold to us the former things?

Let them bring their witnesses to justify them,

and let them hear and say, “It is true.”

You are my witnesses, says the Lord,

and my servant whom I have chosen,

so that you may know and believe me

and understand that I am he.

Before me no god was formed,

nor shall there be any after me.

I, I am the Lord,

and besides me there is no savior.

I declared and saved and proclaimed,

when there was no strange god among you;

and you are my witnesses, says the Lord.

I am God, and also henceforth I am He;

there is no one who can deliver from my hand;

I work and who can hinder it?

Thus says the Lord,

your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

For your sake I will send to Babylon

and break down all the bars,

and the shouting of the Chaldeans will be turned to lamentation.

I am the Lord, your Holy One,

the Creator of Israel, your King.

 

Philippians 2:25—3:1

Paul praises a co-worker

 

Still, I think it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus—my brother and co-worker and fellow soldier, your messenger and minister to my need; for he has been longing for all of you, and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. He was indeed so ill that he nearly died. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, so that I would not have one sorrow after another. I am the more eager to send him, therefore, in order that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. Welcome him then in the Lord with all joy, and honor such people, because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for those services that you could not give me.

 

Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.

 

To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a safeguard.

 

 

 

 

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Prayer reprinted from Revised Common Lectionary Prayers, © 2002 Consultation on Common Texts. Reproduced by permission.

Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings copyright © 2005 Consultation on Common Texts admin. Augsburg Fortress. Reproduced by permission. No further reproduction allowed without the written permission of Augsburg Fortress.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.


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