Excerpted from 2024 Lenten Guide: Terror and Amazement, a Lenten Guide for Lectionary Year B from the North Carolina Council of Churches.
Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19
I love the Lord because he has heard
my voice and my supplications.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
What shall I return to the Lord
for all his bounty to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord;
I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his faithful ones.
O Lord, I am your servant;
I am your servant, the child of your serving girl.
You have loosed my bonds.
I will offer to you a thanksgiving sacrifice
and call on the name of the Lord.
I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people,
in the courts of the house of the Lord,
in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the Lord!
I still gasp for air recalling the terror of being on pilgrimage in Uganda and being stuck on a bus entombed in mud at Bujagali Falls near Jinja. The American pilgrims were instructed to get off while the male Ugandan sojourners rushed to help bystanders attempting to free the bus stuck on a ledge. Although afraid, I remained with our bus driver John, and Ugandans Esther and Rosemary, because the bus needed to maintain weight to get unstuck.
“Lawd, I didn’t come here to die in the Nile River,” I thought to myself as I sat back down.
As the men pushed with might, we began to sing on the bus.
“May the spirit of the lord come down; Amen, may the spirit of the Lord come down,” we sang between one-word prayers. I had learned the song upon our arrival. “May the power of the Lord from heaven come down.”
The terror of the unknown gripped us with each note, yet we cried and sang, believing God would rescue us. On that rainy day more than a decade ago, the psalmist’s words were confirmed as the Lord heard and responded.
