Saving God, in these last weeks of Lent, we cling to the promise of your glorious resurrection.
Bloodshed and hate, fear and death are our daily news. We yearn instead for your daily bread — for the grace and love we need to survive, for the justice and wholeness you want for your children. We have repeated destructive patterns for so long that we don’t know how to live together, much less to love each other. We have acted out our hate and wasted precious life too many times to count. We see so much violence that we can hardly envision peace. We need you to break in, Lord. Break into this world, into our lives, into our hearts. With deep and desperate hope, we wait for you. And as we wait, we pray:
Come, Lord Jesus, to shatter the order of violence with your disruptive peace.
Come, Lord Jesus, to replace the death all around us with reverence for life.
Come, Lord Jesus, to root out the hate and loathing that live in us; stop us from hurting each other and ourselves.
Come, Lord Jesus, to release the chokehold of our fear; free us to know your joy.
Come, Lord Jesus, to show us that we cannot undo one sin with another; turn us back toward you.
Come, Lord Jesus, to hold the pain and sorrow we can no longer carry; heal and comfort us with your love.
Come, Lord Jesus, to show us how to live; give us the wisdom, courage, and fortitude we need to tell the truth and to be changed.
Come, Lord Jesus, come. Amen.
by Rebekah Close LeMon, executive pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta
