To help strengthen, inspire, and connect our community of faith, the Lenten Devotions Team has gathered daily reflections for Lent written by members and friends of the Nassau congregation.
Contributors have written a meditation and prayer for each day from Ash Wednesday, February 26, to Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020. Each meditation focuses on select verses from a lectionary text of the day.
How will you follow along this Lent?
- Visit this page daily and see the daily entry below.
- Sign up to receive each day’s devotional via email.
- Pick up the Lenten Devotional book at the church or download here: 2020 Lenten Devotional (PDF)
- Comment on the daily post on Facebook
Interested in reading the complete daily lectionary? We recommend the one maintained by the Vanderbilt Divinity Library.
Today’s Entry
Wednesday of Holy Week, April 8
The Lord God has given me
the tongue of a teacher,
that I may know how to sustain
the weary with a word.
Morning by morning he wakens—
wakens my ear
to listen as those who are taught. (v. 4 NRSV)
Those in positions of authority must shepherd their speech with great care. How often has a careless word from a teacher caused lasting damage to an impressionable student? Or a parent, offering “constructive criticism” to a son or daughter, inflicted a wound that never heals? Each of us has been given the power of speech to be used for harm or for good. When we follow Jesus’s way, the way of the suffering servant portrayed in this passage of Isaiah, we can draw on words of comfort and encouragement from a deep well of empathy and caring.
Listening is as important as speaking, sometimes even more important. The servant in Isaiah is able to teach because he has been
given the ears of a student. When we ourselves have suffered a loss or a setback, we are better equipped to offer words of support to someone else going through the same experience. As Christians and as human beings, we are in this thing together. Let us help one another with kind words and encouraging sentences during this season of Lent and throughout each year.
Lord Jesus, may my words always encourage and console the people around me, so that together we may be strengthened by your eternal love. Amen.
Celia Tazelaar
Celia is a deacon, and has been active in Small Groups and Children’s Ministries over her past eight years of membership at Nassau. She is busy working in the community as a Realtor, and volunteering as vice-chair of the Princeton Historic Preservation Commission. She is mother to Julia, Sophia, and Clara. When Celia isn’t attending to all the above, she enjoys spending time in Princeton and at the Jersey Shore with her husband, Eric.
