Psalm 95:1-7 (NRSVUE)
O come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the Lord is a great God
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it,
and the dry land, which his hands have formed.
O come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture
and the sheep of his hand.
Devotion
The readings for today do not let us hide behind vagueness. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me” is not a request for a tune-up or a software patch. It is a confession that something fundamental is out of whack. Lent begins right there. Not with improvement, not yet, but with honesty about how far off the mark we really are.
Scripture details the double truth that presses on us from both sides: we are deeply compromised, and God is relentlessly merciful. The psalm doesn’t deny the mess; it names it without flinching. And it doesn’t despair, because mercy isn’t something God doles out reluctantly. It’s who God is. The real danger isn’t that God has stopped speaking, but that we have become practiced at not listening.
Much of what Scripture calls sin shows up, day to day, as the “spirit of the world.” The reflex to promote ourselves, to measure our worth by productivity, approval, and control. The silent belief that we are what we achieve, purchase, post, or protect. Most resistance to God does not arrive dressed as rebellion. It arrives as routine. As saturation. As a life so full of noise, information, and self-management that there is no remaining space for interruption. The spirit of the world does not usually ask us to reject God outright; it simply keeps us busy enough not to notice God at all.
The “new and right spirit” we seek in Lent is not heightened religious feeling or moral enthusiasm. It is responsiveness. It is a willingness to be interrupted, to be addressed, to notice. Scripture keeps telling stories of people who had already been delivered and still refused trust. That story persists because they are us. We prefer a manageable God. A God who affirms our lives as we’ve made them, and therefore never quite reaches us.
There are parts of our lives that need forgiveness, certainly. But there are also parts that need thawing: habits of thought, misplaced loyalties, and nagging fears that have quietly settled in and hardened over time. Lent presses on that discomfort and asks whether our hearts are still capable of hearing, or only repeating what we already believe.
Prayer
Lord, help us accept Lent’s risky invitation: to stop managing, to stop hardening, and to listen again. Not eventually. Not when life slows down, but today.
Joe Parisi