Lamplighting Prayer Seven

Did you know we offer God more than just words during Church? Some people think the tradition of offering God sacrifices ended with the Old Testament. Every day in the Church we offer God more than just our thoughts and prayers.

The Old Testament mandatory sacrifices included animal sacrifices for all sorts of reasons. You may not know that the Old Testament included offerings to God of oil, bread, and even incense. This is the main reason I don’t like the term sacrifice.

We associate the term ‘sacrifice’ with death. Mainly because of Hollywood, we think ‘something’ (or someone) must die in a sacrifice. Not every sacrifice requires death. All sacrifices are offerings to God for us to become Holy. Sacrifice is from the Latin term for holiness.

Our 2025 Daily Lenten Journey on Prayer has focused on the emotions and reasons for our prayers throughout the day. Today’s prayer is the seventh silent prayer of Vespers. This prayer prepares us to make an offering to God. The priest is about the offer God incense.

O great and most-high God, Who alone has immortality; Who dwells in unapproachable light, Who creates all things in wisdom; Who divides light from darkness; Who places the sun to govern the day, and Who establishes the moon and the stars to rule the night; Who makes us sinners worthy at this hour to enter before Your countenance in confession and to offer You evening praise: O You, the Lord Who loves mankind, direct our prayer as incense before You, and accept it as a sweet fragrance. Grant that we may spend this evening and the coming night in peace; clothe us with the armor of light; save us from fears of the night, and protect us from all things that lurk in the darkness; and grant that the sleep which You give to refresh us from our weakness may be protected from every diabolic fantasy. Truly, O Master of all and Giver of every good thing, being moved to compunction upon our beds, may we remember Your name throughout the night, may we be enlightened by meditation on Your commandments, and may our souls rise up with gladness to praise Your goodness, coming before You offering prayers and supplications to Your compassion for our sins and for the sins of all Your people; visit us with mercy through the intercessions of the Theotokos. For You are a good God Who loves mankind, and to You we send up glory: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

As the priest begins to offer incense to God the chanter and people sing Psalm 142 with the words, “Let my prayer arise as incense before you.” Today’s prayer anticipates our offering by asking God to accept the incense as pleasing.

The offering of incense extends far beyond Christianity and Judaism. In fact, except for the most recent ‘religions’ in the world, offering incense has been a central act of worship throughout human history. It makes sense since Isaiah saw God being worship with incense in heaven. (see Isaiah 6)

As we complete our study of the Lamplighting Prayers which feature our offering of oil to God, our attention turns to our offering of incense. It is ‘just’ a gift to God. As the smoke rises to heaven, God receives it. Unlike our requests, incense doesn’t expect a blessing in return.

True, the fragrance of incense turns our attention toward God. That is more of a ‘side effect’ rather than the goal of burning incense. At a minimum the fragrance reminds us that our gift is ‘on its way’ to God. The goal is to ‘give’ to God, not get from Him.

We ask Him for so much. The least we can do is offer a simple gift of incense every now and then. Happy praying.