Old Testament

Jesus, Lord of Salvation

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
 
How is it, dearest Jesus, 
    that you graciously reached down to visit your chosen, 
    even so long before your time on earth? 
To tell your people that your thoughts were good, and not evil?
 
When you appeared to Joshua in human form 
    as Captain of the Lord’s host, 
he instantly knew your glorious character as Mediator, 
    and fell to the earth in adoration.
 
Hail then, you almighty Lord, you Captain of the Lord’s host,
    and of my salvation! 
You have entered the holy war and led captivity captive.  
You have fully conquered Satan and sin, and death, and hell, 
    for your people.
 
And you will surely conquer all those tremendous foes of ours, 
    in your people, and bruise Satan under our feet shortly. 
Indeed, dear Lord, you have already brought them under, 
    for by your sovereign grace in the hearts of your redeemed, 
    you have made your people “willing in the day of your power.”
 
By the sword of your Spirit, you have convinced my soul of sin, 
   and by the arrows of your quiver, 
    you have wounded my heart with deep contrition for sin. 
Lord, I fall before you, as your servant Joshua did, and worship you.
 
And with all the church of the redeemed, 
    both in heaven and earth, we cheerfully confess  
  “that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” 
Amen!
 
Robert Hawker, 1753-1827, Anglican Priest
 
_____________________
 
 
When Joshua was near the town of Jericho, 
    he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him 
    with sword in hand. 
Joshua went up to him and demanded, “Are you friend or foe?”
“Neither one,” he replied. “I am the commander of the Lord’s army.”

At this, Joshua fell with his face to the ground in reverence.

“I am at your command,” Joshua said. 
“What do you want your servant to do?”

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God of good ideas

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image, Bureau of Land Management, CC0 via flickr
 
 
God of good ideas,
    who began the world
    with light and word,
    who began again
    with flood and rainbow;
we acknowledge our frustrations with your church:
    its committees and structures,
    its method and systems.
These things have made us angry and sapped our energy.
 
God of new beginnings
    who began a new way
    of living with resurrection,
    who began a new community
    with tongues of fire;
    begin again here
    that structures may bend
    like dancing saplings;
    the past, present and future
    may be woven into 
    a fresh path of commitment.
 
May our ideas for your world and this community
    resonate in your presence,
    so that tested, tried, and challenged
    they may blossom in us
    as do dry places
    when longed-for rain falls.
 
Janet Lees
 
________________________
 
 
Sing to the Lord a new song,
    his praise from the end of the earth,
you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it,
    the coastlands and their inhabitants.
Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice,
    the villages that Kedar inhabits;
let the habitants of Sela sing for joy,
    let them shout from the top of the mountains.
Let them give glory to the Lord,
    and declare his praise in the coastlands.

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reconcile us

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O God, Giver of Life, Bearer of Pain, Maker of Love,
    you are able to accept in us what we cannot even acknowledge:
    you are able to name in us what we cannot bear to speak of ;
    you are able to hold in your memory what we have tried to forget;
    you are able to hold out to us the glory that we cannot conceive of.
 
Reconcile us through your cross to all that we have rejected in ourselves,
    that we may find no part of your creation to be alien or strange to us,
    and that we ourselves may be made whole.
Through Jesus Christ, our love and our friend.
 
Janet Morely, British author, poet, and Christian feminist
 
___________________________
 
 
But now, this is what the Lord says—
    he who created you, Jacob,
    he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
 
 
For God in all his fullness
    was pleased to live in Christ,
 and through him God reconciled
    everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
    by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

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our feeble reality

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image by Ray ZHUANG via Unsplash
 
Lord God, the strongest and brightest of us 
    are as fragile as a floating bubble,
    unsteady as a newborn kitten on a waxed kitchen floor.
If we keep our footing in the shaky space 
    between our arrival and departure from this world
  we owe our survival – not to mention our success – to many other people
    who held us up and helped us crawl or fly or muck our way through
    and to You, God, who keeps breathing life into our lungs
        the way a child keeps puffing air into a leaking balloon.
    We take our every step in the energy of mercy . . . 
    We see each flower, taste each drop of water,
        sense the presence of each person around us,
            through your gift of consciousness.
For all this may we be grateful.
 
Lewis Smedes, 1921 – 2002, American ethicist and author in the Reformed tradition
Prayers for Today, slightly modified
_________________________
 
 
Yes, the Sovereign Lord is coming in power.
    He will rule with a powerful arm.
    See, he brings his reward with him as he comes.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd.
    He will carry the lambs in his arms,
holding them close to his heart.
    He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young.

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a new beginning

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image by geralt via pixabay
 
 
Lord God, the saying,
    “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”
  reveals a deep Christian insight.
At the beginning of a new year, 
    many have nothing better to do than make a list of bad deeds
    and resolve from then on to begin with better intentions,
    believing that a good intention already means a new beginning.
Sometimes we believe that on our own we can make a new start
    whenever we want.
But that is an evil illusion: 
    only You can make a new beginning with us whenever You please, 
    but we cannot make a new beginning with You.
Therefore, we cannot make a new beginning at all;
    we can only pray for one.
When we are on our own and live by our own devices,
    there is only the old, the past.
Only where You are can there be a new beginning.
We cannot command You to grant it:
    we can only pray asking You for it.
And we can pray only when we realize that we cannot do anything,
    that we have reached our limit,
    that someone else must make that new beginning.
 
after Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906 – 1945, German  theologian and martyr
 
__________________________
 
 
Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.
 

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prayer about growing old

/ Eric Mathews / 2 Comments
image by Vinoth Chandar via Flickr CC BY 2.0 DEED
 
 
When the signs of age begin to mark my body 
    and still more when they touch my mind;
when the illness that is to diminish me or carry me off
    strikes from without or is born within me;
when the painful moment comes 
    in which I suddenly awaken to the fact that
    I am ill or growing old;
in all these dark moments, O God, 
    grant that I may understand that it is you, 
        provided only my faith is strong enough,
    who are painfully parting the fibers of my being
    in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance
        and bear me away within yourself.
 
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 1881 – 1955, French philosopher and Jesuit priest
 
___________________________
 
 
Listen to me, O house of Jacob,
    all the remnant of the house of Israel,
who have been borne by me from before your birth,
    carried from the womb;
even to your old age I am he,
    and to gray hairs I will carry you.
I have made, and I will bear;
    I will carry and will save.

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Advent light

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Sovereign Lord,
We thank you for being our Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.
In the fullness of time you, the Word, became flesh and dwelt among us …
    full of grace and truth.
Open our eyes to the great significance of the Incarnation,
    for you have visited and redeemed your people.
You have tented among us.
You have come that we might have life!
    O Come, Thou Day-Spring,
        Come and cheer our spirits by thine advent here,
    And drive away the shades of night,
        And pierce the clouds and bring us light.
 
Yes, Lord, pierce the clouds that dim our trust in you:
    the clouds of grief,
    the clouds of loss,
    the clouds of disappointment,
    the clouds that make us wonder in our difficulties,
        Where are you?
 
O blessed Savior, light of my life,
    Holy Ghost, with light divine,
        Shine upon this heart of mine.
    Chase the shades of night away,
        Turn my darkness into day.
In doing this, Lord, I ask that you enable me 
    to henceforth walk in the light.
 
Sun of Righteousness, we do not yet know what we shall be,
    but we do believe that when Jesus shall appear,
        we shall be like him.
So in between these two Advents,
    may our longing,
    our expectation,
    our hope in him
        make us pure even as he is pure.
We pray in Jesus’ name.
 
Wendell C. Hawley,  American pastor
 
____________________
 
 
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; 
    those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.

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meet us in our wilderness

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

photo by Daniel Born on Unsplash

 
Loving God
when we stand in our own wildernesses
when we stand in the midst of our questions
when we stand surrounded by our hurts and darknesses
may we meet you
in the same place
a God not scared to meet us
in that which is liminal
shadowy
uncomfortable
and imagine a God
who dares breathe new life
in the arid moments

God
may we live in such an advent
a moment of life
a place of promise
that takes all we are
the cracks and bruises
and speaks with promise
with vision
reimagining everything we are
and says
you are renewed
you are reborn
you are alive again
 
In such a place as this
where deserts bloom
and new roadways are made
may we grow again
dare believe in something more
and live into such a way
and that we begin here
this moment
this place
this community

a birthing place
a promise place
an unconditional place
of love
in skin
and among us

May we live within that promise
forever
So be it
Amen

 
Roddy Hamilton, New Kilpatrick Parish Church Scotland
 
__________________________
 
 
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
    that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
    double for all her sins.

A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
    and the rough places a plain.

 

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plowshares beat into swords

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image via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED
 
 
And now their plowshares are beat into swords—as are ours,
    now their pruning hooks are beat into spears—as are ours.
        Not only swords and spears,
        but bullets, and bombs, and missiles,
            of steel on flesh,
            of power against bodies …
And you, in your indignation sound your mantra,
    “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

We dare to believe they are the aggressor,
    and we are the peacemaker.
Yet in sober night dream, we glance otherwise
    and think we may be aggressor,
    as we vision rubbled homes,
        murdered civilians
        and charred babies.
And you, in our sadness, sound your mantra,
    “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

We do not love war,
we yearn for peace,
    but we have lost much will for peace
    even while we dream of order.
And you, in your hope, sound your mantra,
    “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Deliver us from excessive certitude about ourselves.
Hold us in the deep ambiguity where we find ourselves,
Show us yet again the gaping space
    between your will and our feeble imagination.
Sound your mantra with more authority,
    with more indignation,
    through sadness,
    in hope … “Blessed be the peacemakers.”

Only peacemakers are blessed.
            We find ourselves well short of blessed.
Give us freedom for your deep otherwise,
finally to be blessed,
    in the name of the Peacemaker
    who gave and did not take. Amen.
 
Walter Brueggemann, 1933 -,  American Old Testament theologian
Awed to Heaven, Rooted to Earth
 
___________________________
 

Many peoples will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
    so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
    the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He will judge between the nations
    and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
    nor will they train for war anymore.

Come, descendants of Jacob,
    let us walk in the light of the Lord.

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Father we pray for Your peace on earth

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Father Almighty, we pray for your peace on earth.
    For peace that is life-giving;
    for peace that is love-bearing;
    for peace that is true freedom;
    for peace that is purposeful;
    for peace that is prevailing.
Father, we pray for children in time of war;
    they are so defenseless.
We pray for the old;
  they are unable to escape danger quickly.
We pray for those with physical disabilities;
    they are at the mercy of others.
We pray for women;
    they are so vulnerable to abuse.
We pray for the innocent;
    they suffer for the unjust desires of others.
We pray for those whose lives will be changed by war:
    those who are blinded;
    those who are burned;
    those who lose limbs;
    those who lose reason;
    those who lose their peace of mind;
    those who lose their health and strength for ever,
Father, above all we pray for those in anguish;
    those whose lives will never be the same again;
    those who have lost their loved ones;
    those who have lost their lives.
Father, deepen our desire for peace;
    restore our resolve for peace;
    increase our intent to work for peace.
Will for us your peace, perfect and prevailing,
    for your Son, our Savior Christ’s sake.
 
Pamela Wilding, English missionary to Kenya from 1967 to 2003 
 
__________________________
 
 
He shall judge between the nations,
    and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
    neither shall they learn war anymore.

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