Prayers of the People: December 10, 2006

Sunday, December 10, 2006
Offered by Adam H. Fronczek, Associate Pastor

God of hope,
we come to you in this season of Advent with
            hopes and prayers for your world. We wait for
            the birth of a child who brings a message of comfort and of joy.
So, eagerly, we wait.
            We come from a city where our neighbors freeze and starve,
                        where people are ill,
                        where strangers and friends alike go without necessities.
            We wait for the child who will lift up the lowly and
                        fill the hungry with good things.
            We wait for the child who causes the rich and the powerful
                        to be humbled and to take notice.
Eagerly, we wait.
            We come from strained relationships and from loneliness.
            We come wishing we could take back words we have said
                        and wishing we had said and done things we have not.
            We wait for the child who speaks, and speaks tenderly.
            We wait for the child who is your Word made flesh.
            We wait for the child who cries out in his own loneliness—and for ours.
Eagerly, we wait.
            We come from a world where people believe in scarcity as the golden rule.
            We come from a place where people see power and abundance
                        as a zero-sum game, taking from those who have little so that they
                                    might have more.
            We come from a world where people collect goods not out of need,
                        but out of fear.
            We wait for the child who comes to us from the One who created all
                        and called it good
            We wait for the child who challenges us to show us that to be filled up
                        means to empty oneself.
            We wait for the King of kings who was born in a lowly manger.
Lord, eagerly, we wait,
            for your promise in a child, the promise that needs can be met,
            hopes can be realized, emptiness can be filled.
Knowing that your promises are sure,
we wait for tidings of comfort and of joy.