Marks of Weakness
Songs of Experience: London. Series/Portfolio: Songs of Innocence and Experience (copy Y), plate 46. William Blake (British, London 1757–1827 London). [1794] printed ca. 1825
Meditation for the Second Sunday in Lent
Focus Text: “The poor shall eat and be satisfied.” – Psalm 22:25
In today’s readings, an elderly woman will become pregnant, non-adherents will be justified, and the poor satisfied.
In Genesis, God tells Abram at ninety-nine: “You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations…As for Sarai your wife…I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her.”
In Romans, those who have not adhered to ethical codes and religious obligations are justified along with those who have: “For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace…not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham.”
In Psalm 22, David declares, “The poor shall eat and be satisfied.”
What about the real world, though? The elderly aren’t expecting. We don’t justify those who don’t follow the rules. The poor are not satisfied. William Blake maps the contours of this real world in his first stanza of “London.”
I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
For Blake, the mapped-out world of chartered commercial privilege left marks of weakness and woe in the faces of London’s poor. We also bear marks of weakness and woe: We come to an end and see no sign ahead. We look back and see miles of regret. We are insufficient to satisfy our needs.
When politicians, priests, and experts fail us, or worse, exclude us, to whom can we go for hope, mercy, and aid? To whom can we bring our tears, which run down over the “marks of weakness, marks of woe” in our faces? To whom shall we, the poor, and the poor in spirit, go? Who is sufficiently like us, to love us? Who is sufficiently unlike us, to help us?
“The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” In his rising again, as N. T. Wright states in Surprised by Hope, “God’s new world has been unveiled.”
Prayer: Jesus, you took our marks of weakness and woe into your own self, on the Cross, in your pierced body and rejected heart. You underwent great suffering for us, and with us. You were cast away, that we would be brought near. In you is our hope, justification, and satisfaction. Amen.
Lectionary Readings: Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38; Psalm 22:22-30
M. F. Davidson
Second Sunday in Lent, 2024
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Scripture references from the New Revised Standard Bible (NRSV).
This Lenten meditation was published in 2024 in Signposts on the Way, a collection of daily devotions by and for the people of the Parish of St. Matthew in Pacific Palisades, California.