"Robust and Resplendent God..." Vespers - 25 October 2020

 

O God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; one God who is simultaneously three persons in eternal love and joy: thank you that you made all creation and creatures out of love and joy; and out of love and joy you will not let us go but are actively working out the restoration and liberation of your sin-enslaved, sin-damaged creatures and creation. Praise God from whom all blessings flow; praise him all creatures here below; praise him above, ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!

Robust and Resplendent God, please take note of our world situation; the destroyed families, homes and livelihoods crushed under the heel of demonic and despotic powers; ethnic tensions promising to explode; regions ravished by this revolution and then that one; people groups hunted down and decimated by reigning powers; populations writhing under poverty and pecuniary paralysis. Yes, please take note of our world situation: defeat that which is evil and advance that which is good! O Lord, hear our prayer.

Robust and Resplendent God, please take note of our own nation with all of its plenty and power, tensions and turmoil, history and hysterics, decency and discriminations. Yes, please do take note of our nation, and steer us a straight passage where we may firmly and beautifully hold up and uphold the self-evident truths “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” O Lord, hear our prayer.

Robust and Resplendent God, please take note of the sick, sore, strained and sapped (…). Yes, please do take note and supply refreshment, restoration and resolution. O Lord, hear our prayer.

Robust and Resplendent God, please take note of those who live in our neighborhoods and communities whose lives are in a shambles, or their bank accounts, or their bodies (…). Yes, please take note and bring to them the aid and encouragement fitting for their situation. O Lord, hear our prayer.

Robust and Resplendent God, please take note of your Church in all places, and especially this congregation. Help us to hold tightly to the awareness that we have been and are being rescued by grace alone, in Christ alone, received by faith alone, and therefore our only rule of faith and life is Scripture alone, so that we may thrive and live and love to the Glory of God alone! And so, renewed with this awareness may we be freed to love you and our neighbors; work toward the reunion of your church; become the means of healing old cultural, ethnic and social wounds; and happily play our part in your world reclamation project, so that in the fullness of time, you will unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth (Ephesians 1:10); when “Jesus who died shall be satisfied, and earth and heaven be one.” O Lord, hear our prayer.


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