Sunday’s Gospel lesson tells of Jesus healing a blind man and of the anger of the Pharisees. This is the “Rejoice” Sunday in Lent, focusing on the heart of the gospel message: Jesus bringing true light and sight into our blindness. So, we will continue our Lenten confessions of sin while celebrating the good news: “I was blind, and now I see.” Blindness is a metaphor for losing our way, failing to see the miracle of light before our eyes.
The anthems this Sunday will focus our confession:
- Samuel Wesley: “Wash me throughly from my wickedness…I acknowledge my faults…”
- “Hymn to God,” composed by Eleanor Daley to carry the famous words by John Donne (1572–1631): “Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun…that sin through which I run and do run still…I have more.”
Our hymns, in response to these confessions, point to forgiveness, hope, and light. We will sing “Amazing Grace” and “There’s a Wideness in God’s mercy.”
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
like the wideness of the sea…
For the love of God is broader
than the measures of the mind,
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
In honor of his birthday, I will be playing J.S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E Minor (BWV 548). It is often nicknamed The Wedge because the intervals in the fugue expand outward. Maybe this week we can imagine the image of God’s grace spreading waves of sight/light like the wideness of the sea.
Lyn Loewi, Associate Organist
Links to the appointed readings and prayer for today:
