Lent Day 37

by Rachel Roller

Lent is a season of repentance, a time when we look back and confess our sins. But it is also a season of hope, when we look forward to the promise of Easter’s redemption. Today’s readings perfectly encapsulate this Lenten tension between repentance and redemption, penance and promise, heart-searching and hope.

“Have mercy on me, O God,” David prays at the beginning of today’s psalm, “according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions” (Ps 51:1-2). As if in answer, God speaks through the prophet Jeremiah: “I will forgive their wickedness, and remember their sins no more” (Jer 31:34). 

Again, David prays, “Teach me wisdom in the inmost place...Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Ps 51:6, 10). And again, God answers, “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts” (Jer 31:33). 

“Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me,” David pleads (Ps 51:11), and God promises, “I will be their God, and they will be my people...all of them will know me, from the least of them to the greatest” (Jer 31:33, 34). 

Through this dialogue between the psalm and the prophet, we see that God stands ready to forgive, restore, and renew us when we confess our sin and seek God’s presence. The letter to the Hebrews takes the promise even further—because Jesus understands our weakness and temptation, we can “approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb 4:15-16). 

In this season of Lent, let us turn from sin and turn to God, confident in the promise of his mercy, knowing that like the father of the prodigal, God will welcome us home. 

God of justice and of mercy

Christ who conquered every sin

Cleanse us, Lord, and make us holy

Breathe upon our hearts again

Turn this stone to new-born flesh

Salvation’s joyful song restore

Write your law in us afresh

That we may know you more and more

Rachel Roller is an analytical chemistry graduate student at the University of Notre Dame. When she’s not in the lab, she enjoys reading, writing, playing her violin, studying the works of C. S. Lewis, going on long walks, and drinking copious amounts of Earl Grey.