Trail Guide
When I was sixteen, I opened a present from my older brother, George. It was a bible: a rather new translation at the time, The New English Version. George was a year out of High School so he must have had income enough to buy gifts. I have that bible sitting right in front of me. It reads, “To my brother David, Christmas 1972 — George”. I remember using that bible for an Episcopal Young Churchmen series, taught by my rector, The Rev. Bill Weeks on the floor of his living room. Each of us had our bibles and a little bowl of popcorn to get us through the study. I use it extensively today.
When I turned eighteen, I got a birthday present from a friend—a hand-tooled leather bible cover. It has a leather strap with a brass hook and ring to secure it closed. The bible I mentioned fits right into that cover. On the front cover is a bible verse; my friend had asked me ahead of my birthday what verse was meaningful to me. The one I chose comes up for us in the liturgy this Sunday. From the NEB version, here it is:
Make thy paths known to me, O Lord; teach me thy ways. Lead me in thy truth and teach me; thou art God my savior. —Psalm 25:3-4a
That birthday, just four months out of high school, this young Episcopalian man was genuinely wanting paths shown and ways taught. On my good days, I am still making that request of God: I want to be led, taught, and shown God’s paths. The prayer book version of those verses, which we will voice on Sunday reads like this: “Show me your ways, O Lord, and teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation.”
Isn’t that a wonderful request to make to your Savior, as you begin Lent? Think of the scene in the Gospel from last Sunday, and put yourself there. You have seen Jesus Transfigured on the mountain top, and he tells you to come down with him. You are heading to Jerusalem. Picture yourself descending that mountain; with Jesus is Peter, James, John and you on the trail with all its switchbacks. On the road, you go across the land here and there, and eventually to Jerusalem. Keep your eyes open for how he leads you and stay on the path with the Teacher. Now late in February, you walk with Jesus. Weeks from now, on March 28 you will enter with him into the city, on the first day of Holy Week.
What will you hear from your peripatetic guide as you walk along? Are his ways coming into focus? Get out your personal Bible or prayer book. Notice as you pray this psalm how you are asking God to have forgetfulness. We find in verses six and seven a request that God remember the tender care held for God’s people in ages past, and remember not the sins and offenses of our youth. This is a very special fervent plea for God to have selective amnesia. Look how Hebrew scholar Robert Alter translates it: “Recall Your mercies, O Lord, and Your kindnesses—they are forever. My youth’s offenses and my crimes recall not. We like God’s good long-term memory concerning divine love unfailing, and we like God to blank out short-term memory concerning the transgressions of our lives.
All of that makes this a very fitting psalm for beginning the joyful, yet penitential trail of Lent. We need the intimate guidance of the Messiah. Let it be forty days of sticking with Jesus along the path Can we make our ways match his ways? We finish with Dr. Alter’s reading on verse ten: “All the Lord’s paths are kindness and truth for keepers of His pact and His precepts.”