Communion Sunday
LORD Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God,
You are the LORD of this Table.
You break the bread and give it to us;
You bless the cup and share it with us.
You give us the Father’s love:
A vast and wondrous love you carried to Calvary’ cross … into the tomb and back again … all the way to hell, and then to heaven … to claim an immeasurable territory for your Father’s far-reaching love … a love that cannot be deterred … a love greater than anything in life or in death … a love that will not let us go!
Upon this Table, O Christ, names … names written on yellow cards … people we know and people we don’t – life in all of its wonder and with all of its hardship - thanksgiving and sorrow, birth and death, turmoil and pain, healing and hope, tears and laughter, memories and hurt, dreams and confusion, firm convictions and troubling questions … the stories of our lives and those we love … upon this Table, O God … and for them we have prayed, Jesus my LORD.
We pray, O Christ, for those who suffered loss in the earthquakes and tsunamis of the last week … we pray for the good forces of government and charitable organizations around the world - to join together, to materially rebuild what has been shattered, and materially restore what has been lost.
Every life lost, O Christ, we commend to you.
To you, O Christ, every broken heart.
Unto your care, every dream.
Into your hands, every tear.
We give thanks, dear Christ, that we know you.
That our lives are in your good hands.
That our faith counts for something.
That our efforts to live well are important.
It’s a miracle to know you.
You cam to us at some point in time to lift the veil.
You came to some of us when we are but children and we felt your love.
To some of us, a bit later – to some of us, much later.
You come to us in the sweet times, and you come to us in times of horror and failure, when all we want to do is hide from you.
You come to all of us, in some form or fashion …
To awaken our hearts.
To give us assurance and a fresh start.
To challenge our minds with lofty thoughts.
To give us your love that we might love the world.
To call us to lives of justice and peacemaking, as your Father in heaven would want it, that we might do your Father’s will on earth as it is in heaven.
We bless you, O Christ.
We honor you today with heart and mind and soul and strength.
We lift high your cross.
And we take up our cross, with fresh resolve and high gratitude.
Fill us, we pray, with your divine breath.
Help us leave behind what is flawed and foolish.
Receive our lives, such as they are, and return them to us, made anew!
That we might press on to your high calling,
With love as our signature, writ large in our lives!
In the name of our LORD Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven …
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