Prayers for Eastertide.

Heavenly Father, your Christ has risen indeed! Dear Lord Jesus, because you are alive, I too shall live.

Lord Jesus, you were dead and now you live forever. Fill my heart with the joy and peace of your eternal life.  Dear Jesus, without you finding me, I would be lost. You called me by my name, even when I did not recognize you. I worship you, my Saviour and my Lord.

Lord Jesus, you are alive! Lord Jesus Christ, my Lord and my God! You are truly alive! Grant me hope through the Word that shows me your hands and feet and your side and thus brings me faith and life.

Heavenly Lord, you made me your messenger to proclaim the forgiveness of sins. You truly bring good news to all who receive you in faith.   Oh holy Christ, my Lord and my God! In you I find the power to live, to be free of doubt, and to know you always.

Heavenly Father, on this day of joyful celebration, we pray for people in every kind of need;  that they too may know your power, your protection and your love.  Heal the sick, comfort the poor and console the lonely and forsaken. 

Make your ways known on the earth, your saving power among all nations.  We pray for the leaders of the world:  may they exercise their power with restraint.

Gracious Father, we pray for Your Church, which you love and for which you gave your Son.  Help us to serve the Church, and help us to love the Church, as Christ loves the Church and gives himself for her now and always.

Lord, we pray for our families.   Protect them from danger and from temptation.  We pray for our spouses and for our children. May they learn that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We pray for our parents and relatives:   teach us to honour and love them.

We pray for those who do not know the truth of the Gospel of the risen Christ, for those who seek you, but have not yet found you.   Lord, lead them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Guide us, o God, by your Word and Spirit that we may see your true light and in your Gospel discover victory, freedom and peace today. 

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.    Amen.

Tenebrae

During the Tenebrae liturgy on Maundy Thursday, we are asked to meditate on the fact that it was on the Thursday evening before Good Friday that Jesus and his disciples were together for the last time, when he and they stood in the shadow of the cross, when he washed their feet and instituted the Holy Supper.

Tenebrae is the Latin word for dark shadows.  The gradual extinguishing of candles at our services will be symbolic of the advancing darkness that came over Jesus during the night of his arrest, the anguish of Gethsemane, the flight of the disciples, the bitter hate of his enemies, the looming shadow of the cross, the God-forsakenness. The moments of total darkness will recall the time when he was in the tomb.

We consider the immense sorrow that Jesus experienced.

Jesus knew that the judgment of God for all the sins of the world would be upon him! Not because he ever sinned, or disobeyed or transgressed, but because of the sins of the whole world.

But why dwell on this darkness? Why observe Tenebrae? What are we supposed to learn from it? What is the reason that this dark night is so clearly recorded?

In the darkness of Christ’s anguish we truly discover who we really are, without the grace of God and the redeeming work of Jesus, without the cross and the salvation and the forgiveness of God.

And we see the depth of the love and the mercy of Christ for sinners, for me and for you.

It is not without reason that the Bible records that in Gethsemane Jesus asked his closest friends, Peter, James and John, to keep watch with him while he prayed.

Moved by the overwhelming sorrow of Christ on that day and by the reality of what we are saved from, and the cost of it all, we too are called to keep watch and pray to not fall into temptation again.

We are called to keep watch with Christ, for the sake of the salvation of the world. Shall we forget the horror of those who die without forgiveness by the grace of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord?

After we saw what Jesus did for us, how can we not remember his commission?

Keep watch with me, and pray.

Go, he said, even to the ends of the earth, and proclaim the good news of salvation, make disciples of al. After we saw his love and saw some of his sorrow and his distress at Tenebrae, how can we not go!

Palm Sunday – triumphal entry of the Prince of Peace.

On Sunday 20 March 2016 billions of believers within the world-wide church will celebrate Palm Sunday.

We will remember a peace March in Jerusalem more than 2000 years ago and long for the Messiah of God to bring us peace and set us free, when we come to worship and sing our hosanna’s to the King of kings and prepare our hearts for commemorating his sacrifice of love and deliverance so soon to come!

Palm Sunday commemorates the Saviour’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem only days before his arrest and crucifixion — an event recorded in all four Gospels in the New Testament, emphasising its significance already during the time when the Gospels were written.

"This took place," says Matthew (21:4-5), "to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’” And: “Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road" (Matthew 21:8, quoting Zechariah 9:9-10).

And Luke tells us: "As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”  (Luke 19:37-38).

The Old Testament background to this day is found in Zechariah 9:9-10:

“Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!  Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey. And he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth."

Jesus was no military leader - he rode a donkey, not a warhorse — and his concern was pastoral and not political, as we read in Luke 19: 41 – 42:

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.

Oh, we pray that we would find peace when we celebrate the glory of the King of kings who gave his life to love us, bring us eternal peace and set us free from all bondage!