Loving Lord,
All praise and honor and glory to you—Father, Son and Holy Spirit!
Even to call upon your name is to enter the deepest of mysteries,
You who are One yet three, three but One!
As high as the heaven of heavens, higher still you are enthroned,
Yet as low as any of us have or may plummet, lower still you stoop.
All in hopes of wooing back our wandering hearts, by assuming
Our fading form, embracing our lethal maladies, accepting our
Undoing, in order to effect massive re-doing, re-making, reconciling
All that once was whole but now is splintered, scattered, scuttled.
So, here we are worshiping and exalting the name above all names,
Calling the whole of creation to join in chorusing your goodness and
Power—even as we also groan grievously, desperately, inarticulately,
Powerlessly, so it seems, even to imagine what or how to cry out!
Trusting that we cry in concert with a deeper, wider, bottomless ache
Of Holy Spirit within and around, lifting our cries, making connection!
So, Loving Lord, have mercy upon us and all, and hear our cries,
Make sense of our groaning for:
The afflicted and their families;
Caregivers;
Front-line responders;
Researching and developers of treatments and vaccine;
Efforts to coordinate therapeutic responses to the sick;
Efforts to coordinate and distribute protective equipment for responders;
All who suffer the loss of job and income;
All who grow impatient, frustrated, and angry;
All who are entrusted to lead wisely, effectively, compassionately.
On the strength of your unfailing love, O Lord, you broke the reign of
Terror and fear of dying by entering the realm of the dead, and then
You plundered it by raising Jesus up from the grave.
On the strength of your unfailing love, O Lord, you re-form a People,
Breathe them alive, strengthen their hands, bless them to bless their
World.
On the strength of your unfailing love, O Lord, help us, to be your life-giving, peace-making, and hope-generating servants this week,
Amen.