Resurrection Day - A Prayer for Power
Prayers for Resurrection Power in time of Trouble
Lord in the Lenten Season, we have raised our laments to you. Today we remember the work of your days on earth, we remember the victory of your resurrection. We celebrate, and we cry still. Will you hear the laments of your children? Born out of our love for you? Will you look upon your children and be our Good Shepherd in the lonesome valley? Will you lead us down the righteous path on meadow’s grass, beside still waters, and restore our souls? Listen, Lord, we need you. We believe that you’re alive. But death’s threat and torment continue for so many who still hate it here.
We need resurrection power - in crowded buses and trains, overwhelmed hospitals and overtired retirement homes, incompetent city halls. Our sense of victory is stalled.
We need resurrection power - in prisons and jails, shelters and encampments. There are more shadows than sunshine.
We need resurrection power - mass burials are trending, new ways to do last rites are on the rise, FaceTime is the new farewell forever feature. We are surrounded by death.
During Good Friday and Holy Saturday, our friends told us “don’t force the feeling of Easter”. And we couldn’t if we tried. So we come to you this morning, over a way that with tears has been watered. We are making our way to your Mercy Seat this morning, Lord; treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered. We need resurrection power.
We need the testimony of the Savior as well as the saints. We need the witness of angels and women.
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they haprepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened. from Luke 24
Lord Jesus may your Spirit give us ears to hear your story anew. Spirit of our sister evangelists, show up and show us how to help our unbelief. Give us a vision so we can testify to our frightened family. Help us to remember Jesus’ words and tell all these things to the household in hiding. Let us bring our gifts of precious oils and spices to the place where we seek the dead, and let us find a living hope among them that empties tombs, leaving legacies of faith and service. For as God’s children are taken from us in these evil days, we need your witness O Spirit of God, to remind us that they are alive forever, in paradise with you.
Lead us from the foot of the cross this morning, let us rise early and come to the tomb. Let us find God’s messengers robed in dazzling apparel, seated at the head and foot of every place that God has made his mercy seat, the new arks of his covenant of life, his covenant of grace.
Lord set an angel at the head and feet of our beds. Set an angel at the head and feet of our tables. Set an angel at the front and back doors of our elder-care centers, set them in the trauma unit and the ICU. Set them in the driver's seat of the ambulance and in the back seat of the Lyft. Give us access to your throne of grace, in every place. Set your dazzling angels on our heads and at our feet, marking each of us as a member of your organized, mobilized Mercy Seat.
Oh that we would know your might in days of pondering sorrow! While we are sore afraid of death, you are yet alive. While our hearts lean over our own graves, you have come up out of yours. We need resurrection power, because our hearts are heavy with the constant news of everything but. Will you prepare a feasting table here - in the earshot of government surveillance, police brutality, racial terror and capitalism - right here? On this day? Set a table for our communion with one another, even as we are contained in our homes. Set a feast of global fellowship, even as we are miles apart. Fill our cups with the wine of rejoicing, for the growing numbers of people whose sickness is leaving the bodies that you have called beloved. Give them life, O God, send hope and speak Life.
Lord, send the power of your resurrection as a shield that restores our hope, as an epistle that edifies the family. Send Life like the Spirit of sweetness, as a surety to the saints who clutch their sanity like straws but don brave faces for their friends today. Send resurrection as a weapon for war with self-destruction; a balm for the sick in soul and conscience. Send it as a story that makes our little ones rejoice and our elders sing. Let the news of your life drive out death, as the message of your love drives out fear. Amen.
“It was a glorious resurrection, from the tomb of slavery, to the heaven of freedom. My long-crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place; and I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact.” Federick Douglass
Experience: "Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation" Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Video: You Brought the Sunshine, The Clark Sisters https://youtu.be/w3YL2t4LrUY
Songs: Don’t Cry, Kirk Franklin // Love’s In Need of Love Today, Stevie Wonder