Midday Prayer, Wednesday before Easter

 

 

OPENING SENTENCES

O God, make speed to save us;

O Lord, make haste to help us.

THE GLORIA PATRI

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. AMEN.

THE PSALMS

Psalm 147:1-11

Praise the Lord!

For it is good to sing praises to our God;

for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting.

The Lord builds up Jerusalem;

he gathers the outcasts of Israel.

He heals the brokenhearted

and binds up their wounds.

He determines the number of the stars;

he gives to all of them their names.

Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;

his understanding is beyond measure.

The Lord lifts up the humble;

he casts the wicked to the ground.

Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving;

make melody to our God on the lyre!

He covers the heavens with clouds;

he prepares rain for the earth;

he makes grass grow on the hills.

He gives to the beasts their food,

and to the young ravens that cry.

His delight is not in the strength of the horse,

nor his pleasure in the legs of a man,

but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him,

in those who hope in his steadfast love.

Psalm 5

To the choirmaster: for the flutes. A Psalm of David.

Give ear to my words, O Lord;

consider my groaning.

Give attention to the sound of my cry,

my King and my God,

for to you do I pray.

O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;

in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;

evil may not dwell with you.

The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;

you hate all evildoers.

You destroy those who speak lies;

the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love,

will enter your house.

I will bow down toward your holy temple

in the fear of you.

Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness

because of my enemies;

make your way straight before me.

For there is no truth in their mouth;

their inmost self is destruction;

their throat is an open grave;

they flatter with their tongue.

Make them bear their guilt, O God;

let them fall by their own counsels;

because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out,

for they have rebelled against you.

But let all who take refuge in you rejoice;

let them ever sing for joy,

and spread your protection over them,

that those who love your name may exult in you.

For you bless the righteous, O Lord;

you cover him with favor as with a shield.

THE PSALM PRAYER

O good God, our King and Creator, seeing that we have our whole trust in you and worship you in spirit and truth: Do not despise, we pray you, the sighs and prayers of your poor servants, oppressed and afflicted by your enemies. And keep us continually under your protection, until we be glorified with our Head and Savior, Jesus Christ your Son. AMEN.

THE OLD TESTAMENT LESSON

A reading from Lamentations 2:1-9

^2:1      How the Lord in his anger

has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud!

    He has cast down from heaven to earth

the splendor of Israel;

    he has not remembered his footstool

in the day of his anger.

²   The Lord has swallowed up without mercy

all the habitations of Jacob;

    in his wrath he has broken down

the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;

    he has brought down to the ground in dishonor

the kingdom and its rulers.

³   He has cut down in fierce anger

all the might of Israel;

    he has withdrawn from them his right hand

in the face of the enemy;

    he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob,

consuming all around.

⁴   He has bent his bow like an enemy,

with his right hand set like a foe;

    and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes

in the tent of the daughter of Zion;

    he has poured out his fury like fire.

⁵   The Lord has become like an enemy;

he has swallowed up Israel;

    he has swallowed up all its palaces;

he has laid in ruins its strongholds,

    and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah

mourning and lamentation.

⁶   He has laid waste his booth like a garden,

laid in ruins his meeting place;

    the Lord has made Zion forget

festival and Sabbath,

    and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.

⁷   The Lord has scorned his altar,

disowned his sanctuary;

    he has delivered into the hand of the enemy

the walls of her palaces;

    they raised a clamor in the house of the Lord

as on the day of festival.

⁸   The Lord determined to lay in ruins

the wall of the daughter of Zion;

    he stretched out the measuring line;

he did not restrain his hand from destroying;

    he caused rampart and wall to lament;

they languished together.

⁹   Her gates have sunk into the ground;

he has ruined and broken her bars;

    her king and princes are among the nations;

the law is no more,

    and her prophets find

no vision from the Lord.

THE EPISTLE LESSON

A reading from 2 Corinthians 1:8-22

For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you. For we are not writing to you anything other than what you read and understand and I hope you will fully understand— just as you did partially understand us—that on the day of our Lord Jesus you will boast of us as we will boast of you.

Because I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a second experience of grace. I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on my way to Judea. Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to the flesh, ready to say “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time? As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

THE GOSPEL LESSON

A reading from Mark, chapter 12:1-12

And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this Scripture:

“ ‘The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;

this was the Lord’s doing,

and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.

THE MIDDAY PRAYERS

I will bless the Lord at all times.

His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

Holy God,
holy and mighty,
holy and immortal,
have mercy on us.

The Lord’s Prayer     

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. AMEN.

O Lord, hear our prayer;

And let our cry come to you.

Let us pray:

Heavenly Father, send your Holy Spirit into our hearts, to direct and rule us according to your will, to comfort us in all our afflictions, to defend us from all error, and to lead us into all truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles, “Peace I give to you; my own peace I leave with you:” Do not regard our sins, but the faith of your Church, and give to us the peace and unity of that heavenly City, where with the Father and the Holy Ghost you live and reign, now and for ever.

O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ our Redeemer.

Assist us mercifully with your grace, Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the meditation of those mighty acts by which you have promised us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. AMEN.

THE DISMISSAL

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

For his steadfast love endures forever!

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God,

and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. AMEN.