O Lord Jesus Christ,

There is so much to drag us back:

    empty pursuits, trivial pleasures, unworthy cares.

There is so much to frighten us away:

    a pride too cowardly to submit to being helped,

    cowardly apprehensiveness which evades danger

        to its own destruction,

    anguish for sin which shuns holy cleansing

        as a disease shuns medicine.

 

But You are stronger than these.

    so draw us now more strongly to Yourself.

We call You our Savior and Redeemer,

    since You came to earth to redeem us 

    from the slavery from which we were bound

    or had bound ourselves.

 

This is Your work,

    which You completed,

    and which you will continue to complete

    until the end of the world;

for since You Yourself have said it,

     therefore You will do it –

lifted up from earth, You will draw all unto Yourself.

 

 

______________________________

 

 

But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, 

    not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. 

He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 

    whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior