Easter Sunday, April 1, 2018
Offered by Nanette Sawyer, Associate Pastor

Gracious and loving God, on this glorious day of resurrection we turn to you once again in prayer. We celebrate life and new life and give you thanks for all the ways you love us and journey with us through this adventure we call life.

We come before you with joys and sorrows today, Holy One. We cry out to you for comfort and strength as we face our own griefs and losses. Be with those of us who are suffering from illness of any kind, and be with all our loved ones. Be with our doctors and caregivers to whom we turn for help.

Be with those of us who struggle to find work. Help us each to find our place in the world, a place from which to offer the gifts we bring. Enable us to support our families, to care for our loved ones, to provide stability and the needs of life.

O Holy One, be with those of us who grieve today. Shower your peace upon us and help us to bless and let go those whom we have loved and will always love but who have now joined the Church Triumphant at your side.

Be with those of us who are vulnerable and facing risks of any kind. Give us hope and strength and perseverance. Help us to get the help we need, and guide us to give help when we are able. Be with those of us who have been decimated by violence, those who have been wounded, those who have been killed, those who have been left with their shock and grief.

We see injustices in our world, God of life. We see forces of death that tear at us, even as we wish to be people of abundant life. Give us strength at the core of our being to see what is right before us. Give us vision and will to make changes. Be with those who strive with all their hearts to make this world a better place.

Let us be those people, God. Let us be the ones carrying your good news into the world and making it true and embodied and real. We seek to follow you, God—to follow your Way and the Way of Jesus Christ.

Mold us and form us into faithful disciples; nudge us and call us toward the hope of resurrection, that we might embody that in this world, your creation.

Seeking to follow you, we follow Jesus, praying in the way he taught us to pray, saying, Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church