creation

It is your home

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
Bright moon, scattered stars; so solitary is creation.
The universe which God has created is especially
   silent on this night.
It waits with bated breath
   for the Lord of Creation to return.
The universe belongs to God,
   it is his home.

Silence reigns supreme.
The flowers of the field sway gently
   in the moonlight.
This night, the vast earth awaits
   the homecoming of our Creator God.
The vast earth and open fields belong to God,
   they are his home.

Bethlehem lies dreaming.
In his gentle mother’s arms,
   the babe sleeps peacefully this night.
The City of David awaits
   the homecoming of David’s descendant.
The town of Bethlehem belongs to him,
   it is his home.

My bones, my flesh, my blood, my lungs and my heart,
   were all made by his hand.
This night, my heart is at peace,
   awaiting my Creator’s return.
My heart belongs to him,
   it is his home.

Advent prayer from China
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Micah 5:2

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
    who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
    one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose coming forth is from of old,
    from ancient days.
 
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How do you recognize God’s presence in creation?
How do you see God’s presence in Jesus? Within yourself?

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God’s rescue operation and new creation

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

image by geralt via pixabay

 
Lord, we dream about justice.
We glimpse for a moment, 
    a world at one, a world put to rights, a world where things work out, 
    where societies function fairly and efficiently,
    where we not only know what we ought to do but actually do it.
And then we wake up and come back to reality.
 
…from the very beginning, two thousand years ago,
we the followers of Jesus have always maintained that
 
You took the tears of the world and made them Your own,
    carrying them all the way to Your cruel and unjust death
    to carry out God’s rescue operation,
and that You took the joy of the world and brought it to new birth
    as You rose from the dead and thereby launched God’s new creation.
 
N.T. Wright, 1948-, British New Testament Scholar, retired bishop
 
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Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: 
The old has gone, the new is here!  
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ 
and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 
    that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, 
    not counting people’s sins against them. 
And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
 

Praise to God in heaven

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
The Throne In Heaven, by Davin Arries, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
How small a part of you do we see, God?
Only a partial picture.
 
Who can understand the thunder of your power?
Touching the Almighty, we cannot comprehend you.
You are excellent in power, judgment , and justice.
You are exalted far above all blessing and praise.
 
You have prepared your throne of glory in the heavens, high and lifted up.
Before you the seraphim cover their faces.
 
And in compassion to us you hold back the face of that throne,
    spreading a cloud upon it.
 
You make your angels spirits, and your ministers a flame of fire.
Thousands of them minster to you, 
    and ten thousand times ten thousand stand before you,
    to do what you ask.
They excel in strength, and obey your word.
 
And we come by faith, hope and holy love into spiritual communion
    with the innumerable company of angels,
    and the spirits of just people made perfect.
We come to the general assembly and church of the firstborn,
    in the heavenly Jerusalem.
 
You are worthy, O Lord, to receive blessing, and honor, and glory, and power.
For you have created all things.
You created them to do your will and to praise you.
 
We worship the one who made heaven and earth,
    the sea and the fountains of waters.
The one who spoke and it was done.
Who commanded, and it stood fast.
The one who said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
 
And you made it all very good, and it continues this day according to your word,
    for everything serves you.
 
The day is yours, the night is yours.
You have prepared the light and the sun.
You have set all the borders of the earth.
You have made summer and winter.
You uphold all things by the word of your power,
    and by you all things exist.
 
The earth is full of your riches; so is the great and wide sea.
The eyes of all wait upon you, and you give them their food in due season.
You open your hand and satisfy the needs of every living thing.
Amen.
 
Matthew Henry, 1662 – 1714 British Presbyterian minister and author
 
________________________________
 
 
But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, 
    the heavenly Jerusalem. 
You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 
    to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. 
You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 
    to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, 
    and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
 

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Prayer for Holy Saturday

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

Lamentation of Christ, Andrea Mantegna, via Wikimedia Commons

Today a tomb holds him who holds the creation in the hollow of his hand; 
    a stone covers him who covered the heavens with glory. 
Life sleeps and hell trembles, and Adam is set free from his bonds. 
Glory to your dispensation, whereby you have accomplished all things, 
    granting us an eternal Sabbath, your most holy Resurrection from the dead.

What is this sight that we behold? What is this present rest? 
The King of the ages, having through his passion fulfilled the plan of salvation, 
    keeps Sabbath in the tomb, granting us a new Sabbath. 
Unto him let us cry aloud: Arise, O Lord, judge the earth,
    for measureless is your great mercy and you reign forever.

Come, let us see our Life lying in the tomb, 
    that he may give life to those that in their tombs lie dead. 
Come, let us look today on the Son of Judah as he sleeps, 
    and with the prophet let us cry aloud to him: 
You have lain down, you have slept as a lion; 
    who shall awaken you, O King? 
But of your own free will you rise up, 
    who willingly gives yourself for us. 
O Lord, glory to thee
 
Mattins, Holy Saturday, Orthodox
The Oxford Book of Prayer slightly modernized
 
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The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph 
    and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 
Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. 
But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.

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teach us to love what you have created

/ Eric Mathews / 1 Comment
 
Our Father, God, Creator of all your different children,
    teach us to love what you have created.
Teach us to see people one by one
    and to acknowledge them as our Father’s children,
    our brothers and sisters:
  not to pigeonhole them;
    not to hammer them into unnatural molds of our own making,
  but to rejoice in our differences,
    accepting people as they are
    – different but of equal worth –
    each one a part of God’s creation,
    showing something of his love and glory.
 
Sybil Phoenix, 1927-, Guyanese born British community worker
 
___________________________________________
 
 
May the God who gives endurance and encouragement 
    give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, 
    so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify 
        the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, 
    in order to bring praise to God.
 

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Prayer at Election Time

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash  

 
Heavenly Father
source of all truth and wisdom, 
who knows and loves the whole creation,
watch over our nation at election time:
that truth may prevail over distortion,
wisdom triumph over recklessness
and the concerns of every person be heard.

Lord Jesus,
who chose the way of the cross in the Garden of Gethsemane,
help us to turn our backs on self interest
and to support policies that sustain the poor, 
the vulnerable and the frightened people of this world.

Holy Spirit,
who brought understanding
among myriad peoples and languages at Pentecost,
give to all your people a passion for peace
and inspire us to work for unity and cooperation throughout the world 
and in our political life together.

Lord, we give thanks for the privileges and responsibilities 
of living in a democratic society.
Give us wisdom to play our part at election time,
that through the exercise of each vote, 
your Kingdom may come closer.

Protect us from the sins of despair and cynicism, 
guard us against the idols of false utopias 
and strengthen us to make politics a noble calling 
that serves the common good of all.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ Our Lord.
Amen.
 
Unboxed Worship, Box Hill Baptist Church, Australia
 
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First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings
be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions,
that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

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Son of God, deliver us

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Photo by Johannes Plenio via Pexels
 
You who guided Noah over the flood waves:
    Hear us.
You who with your word recalled Jonah from the deep:
    Deliver us.
You who stretched forth your hand to Peter as he sank:
    Help us, O Christ.
Son of God, who did marvelous things of old:
    Be favorable in our day also.
 
Scots Celtic Prayer
 
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The Lord is king! He is robed in majesty.
    Indeed, the Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength.
The world stands firm
    and cannot be shaken.
Your throne, O Lord, has stood from time immemorial.
    You yourself are from the everlasting past.
The floods have risen up, O Lord.
    The floods have roared like thunder;
    the floods have lifted their pounding waves.
But mightier than the violent raging of the seas,
    mightier than the breakers on the shore—
    the Lord above is mightier than these!
Your royal laws cannot be changed.
    Your reign, O Lord, is holy forever and ever.
 

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reconcile us

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
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
 
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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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O God, create through me

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image via pxhere
 
 
O God,
who out of nothing
    brought everything that is,
out of what I am
    bring more of what I dream
        but haven’t dared;
direct my power and passion
    to creating life
        where there is death,
    to putting flesh of action
        on bare-boned intentions,
    to lighting fires
        against the midnight of indifference,
    to throwing bridges of care 
        across canyons of loneliness;
so I can look on creation,
    together with you,
        and, behold,
            call it very good;
through Jesus Christ my Lord.
 
Ted Loder, born 1930, American Methodist minister
 
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For we are his workmanship, 
    created in Christ Jesus for good works, 
which God prepared beforehand, 
    that we should walk in them.
 

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from “perhaps” to “Yes”

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

 

You are the God who is simple, direct, clear with us and for us.
You have committed yourself to us.
You have said yes to us in creation,
                        yes to us in our birth,
                        yes to us in our awakening this day.
But we are of another kind,
    more accustomed to “perhaps, maybe, we’ll see,”
    left in wonderment and ambiguity.
We live our lives not back to your yes,
    but out of our endless “perhaps.”
Se we pray for your mercy this day that we may live yes back to you,
                        yes with our time,
                        yes with our money,
                        yes with our sexuality,
                        yes with our strength and with our weakness,
                        yes to our neighbor,
                        yes and no longer “perhaps.”
In the name of your enfleshed yes to us,
    even Jesus who is our yes into your future. Amen.

Walter Brueggemann, 1933 -,  American Protestant Old Testament theologian
Awed to Heaven, Rooted to Earth
 
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Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, 
    for he who promised is faithful.
 

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