PASTORAL PRAYER

EASTER SUNDAY, 11 a.m. SERVICE

MARCH 23, 2008

BISHOP KENNETH W. HICKS

O God, our Creator, we recall this great news that there was a morning on which the Lord Jesus appeared to human beings who had begun to lose hope. They needed news that would assure them that there was life ahead. We, too, want to live again as we come here with an accumulation of cares and worries. For some, there are relationships that are in jeopardy. There are jobs in peril. Plans don’t work out sometimes. Loved ones have left us. War goes on. We want to live again, oh God!

We cherish the news of that first Easter when folks remembered what scripture had foretold, that He would become a Presence that would be the Presence of God among us.

May the Risen Lord breathe on our minds and open our eyes that we may know him even in such simple things as the breaking of bread, or in aiding the hurt and wounded and the deprived in his name. Our humble efforts in ways of justice – these too allow us to be aware of His living presence in the suffering and pain of the world.

Living God, when we follow the risen Jesus we realize that it is you we find, and we live again!

We ask for peace, but now we know we can become channels of your peace. Indeed we must. Is there life being lived only in part? Make our hands and hearts the tools by which the ministry of your living Presence is fulfilled.

Precious Lord, you were in the suffering experienced by Jesus. You were in the anguish of the disciples. And they discovered what it means to live again! Divine Master, so would we! We do not ask for a life without crosses. You showed us that you are in the crosses; in the suffering and anguish of everyone here, even in losses experienced in war.

God, help us to live again, to have a resurrection of faith and hope; to have the courage to be Easter people through Him who has shown us the way and who is the way now. Great God of Resurrection, if you walk with us and in us we too shall live because He lives, the Christ of Easter who taught us to pray: Our Father, who art in Heaven…………..