Prayers of Church & Community, September 22, 2024
Westminster Presbyterian Church
Away in a manger
No crib for a bed
The little Lord Jesus
Laid down His sweet head
The stars in the bright sky
Looked down where He lay
The little Lord Jesus
Asleep on the hay
And so you came to us, eternal God …
in ways we hardly expected …
a baby born of Mary,
a child at play, a young man on his way,
to the Jordan River …
To a baptism of love and fire:
A life of courage, truth, and love …
to heal the forgotten, to welcome the rejected …
… with a cross, dear God, and a crown of thorns,
in one dramatic moment of life and death …
where death thought it had won the day …
You came to us, dear God … to take up the human condition,
to bear in body and soul the sins of the world,
the darkness and the demons, the lies and the violence,
the loneliness and sorrows …
our frustrations and despair.
And you dared to say to the man on the cross,
Today, you’ll be with me in Paradise.
You remain hard at work, eternal God.
Your Spirit all around the world …
Amplify our dreams, we pray …
freshen the winds of peace …
broaden our horizons, and reveal to us great possibilities …
That we can make a difference.
Our voices raised in praise and prayer add to the welfare of the world … our hands outstretched with deeds of justice and peace push back the tides of hate and fear …
Help us, we pray, to love one another, to be patient in times of trial … to endure the worst of it, to find our way through … help us, we pray, to believe fervently in the goodness that lives in every human heart … to wait faithfully for the sun to rise … to believe in ourselves, to believe in one another … to believe in you, dear God, forever and a day …
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. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation but 9.22.24 deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.
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