Loving Lord God,
We welcome you this coronation week, for you are the Lord, The Maker of Heaven and earth, the Lord enthroned above the heavens, approaching our world to reclaim it and us as your co-regents, hand-crafted, in-breathed, then regally commissioned!
We welcome you, our only Loving Lord, strong and mighty,
Laying aside your glory, stooping to our level, arming yourself
With the weapons of Your warfare, Holy Arms lifted, ready to
Orchestrate the battle fought once for all.
We welcome your majesty, rejected, denied, betrayed, scorned, mocked, beaten, shamed, crucified, and executed.
We shrink from the sight, from the horror of what they did to you, And, then, at the recognition that “they” are us.
We are the ones who fell short of the Glory, who embraced the lie, who subjected the whole creation to futility, ran from the light, and lost our Way, our Truth, and our Life. Yes, we are the ones.
We are the ones for whom you came, loved, suffered, and died, in order to put away our sin, our rebellions, our unfaithfulness. We are the ones, over and over again.
We welcome you, Loving Lord, King eternal, enthroned above, now to ascend another throne, at the end of the week, another throne from which a lesser-than-God could never rise up.
But you are not lesser-than-God, except by consent, for just a moment, lesser-than-God but no less Love entering in, encountering all that wars against God and God’s designs, embracing the full brunt of it all and, wonder of wonders, exhausting its force and power, undoing the unthinkable demise–first of You, and then by your mercies of us.
We welcome you, Loving Lord, King eternal, we open the gates and our hearts, wage the battle fought only by surrender until the war ceases in our hearts, our homes, our communities, our nations and our world,
In the Name above all, we pray, amen!