Vespers - 10 March 2019


(This responsive prayer is encased by the 8th Century Latin hymn, Jesu, Nostra Redemptio. It can be found in the Trinity Hymnal, rev. ed. number 161 "O Christ, Our Hope, Our Heart's Desire.")


“O Christ, our hope, our heart's desire, redemption's only spring! Creator of the world art thou, its Savior and its King.” Our mighty Savior and sovereign lover; who alone can bring order and goodness to the unruly hearts and lives of people, we pray for these… Take hold of their lives, health, hopes and longings and bring about their wellbeing. Hear their cry, and ours for them, and draw them up out of the pit, out of the miry bog, and set their feet on a rock making their steps secure (Psalm 40.1-2). O Lord, hear our prayer.  

“How vast the mercy and the love which laid our sins on thee, and led thee to a cruel death, to set thy people free.” Our Passover who has been sacrificed for us to liberate your people from their Egyptian bondage, the house of slavery; we pray for you to rescue and redeem and regenerate and reclaim those who either are not Christians or once claimed to be and have since walked away… We beg you to watch over these others whom we are concerned may be falling into traps and dead-ends… And we implore you to give liberating, loving aid to those who find themselves in dark places crawling with doubt and deviant thoughts about you… O Lord, hear our prayer. 

“But now the bands of death are burst, the ransom has been paid; and thou art on thy Father's throne, in glorious robes arrayed.” Jesus, the true Lord and Master, look on our nation, and shepherd our leaders and the led toward more wholesome ways morally, ethically, economically, politically, judicially, and legislatively. Bring us back around to where we will work with one another for the common good of our communities and neighborhoods. Restore to us the important virtue of being good neighbors. Recall your church out of any idolatry, immorality, injustice, ignorance, or idiocy; and help us to be the embassies of your kingdom and emissaries of your saving rule. O Lord, hear our prayer.
  
“O Christ, be thou our lasting joy, our ever great reward! Our only glory may it be to glory in the Lord.” For us in our homes, vocations, hobbies, learning, and together as your church, may these words be our hearts desire in all we think, speak and do – together and individually. O Christ, be thou our lasting joy, our ever great reward! Our only glory may it be to glory in the Lord. O Lord, hear our prayer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“The Shift” - 2023 Movie. A Review

Image
  What do you get when you cross a dark dystopian storyline with sci-fi, alternative dimensions, theological and philosophical questions, and the biblical book of Job? You get The Shift , written and directed by Brock Heasley, produced by Ken Carpenter, and distributed by Angel Studios. This roughly one hour and 45 minute tale swirls around Kevin (Kristoffer Polaha) as he moves from one realm of life, with it’s happiness and heartbreak, to another dimension that is a dismal existence clearly governed by The Benefactor (masterfully played by Neal McDonough). A viewer will be asking questions all the way through, and picking up clues and answers that pull the story together bit-by-bit. The story bumps up against an infinite set of alternative possibilities, of time, space, and versions of one’s self that will likely stoke a viewer’s imagination. But the heart of the narrative - besides love, grief, loss, trust/distrust - is around the place of evil, specifically, personal or human evil.
Read more

"On Getting Out of Bed" by Alan Noble. A Review

Image
  When it comes to family members or friends going through a significant mental crisis, or suffering, we often can feel like we’re fumbling about to help them. Sometimes, we can become like Job’s friends, whom he had to call “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2). But very recently Alan Noble, assistant professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee Oklahoma, and cofounder and editor-in-chief of “Christ and Pop Culture” penned a deeply beautiful 120-page hardback that addresses mental affliction. “On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living” is written for those who struggle with mental affliction, but also pastors, teachers, parents, and loved ones, to “help them understand their loved one’s suffering. It is for anyone who ever struggles to get out of bed” (3). I finished this book earlier this week, and kept finding myself saying, “Finally! Someone gets it!” Eight chapters fill up this handy manual. They run through several subjects, like not sounding like Job’s f
Read more

Community?

Image
  (This is from my letter to my congregation I sent out today, 30 August 2023) As one of my elders was leading us through Carl Trueman’s Strange New World in our adult class , I appreciated Trueman’s emphasis on community. And our discussions, especially the last two Sundays, were very fruitful as we thought out loud together about this subject. Therefore, I thought I would share something from David Brooks, an Op-ed columnist that leans into this discussion.   Brooks published a book in 2019 titled, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life”. In that work he was taking a gentle punch at destructive trends he has been seeing, and giving some helpful correctives. And so, he notes that “Individualism, taken too far, leads to tribalism” (34). He then shows how the loneliness and spiritual emptiness of individualism taken too far have become more prevalent in our time and the ways that they lead to very dark social consequences. These darker social consequences foster the need t
Read more