Easter Prayer

O Gracious, eternal God, on this Easter morning we pray for the world with all its challenges and uncertainties, and for those in positions of leadership.

Lord, hear our prayers.

For those fighting for their lives as we speak, for the isolated and lonely, the quarantined, and unemployed.
Lord, hear our prayers.

For those with chronic pain, addiction and, and depression made worse by this stress.
Lord, hear our prayers.

For children who don’t understand what’s going on and for soon-to-be graduates who wonder what their future will look like.

Lord, hear our prayers.

O Merciful God, hear the prayers of your people as we join our hearts and spirits to celebrate again the miracle of Easter. We’ve never heard the story quite like this, Lord, but it’s the same story most of us have heard every year. We’re grateful for the reassurance that Christ’s triumph over the grave gives us, but we’re not blown away with wonder and awe as those first witnesses were. We know how the Easter story ends.

But God, we’re caught up now in our own scary story, and we’re unsure because we don’t know how it ends. We don’t know how long this pandemic will last or what life will be like when it’s over. We’re hiding at home like those frightened disciples. We’re full of doubts like Thomas, and in our fear we may fail to recognize Jesus like the travelers on the road to Emmaus.

Speak to us Lord; call us by name as you did Mary so the scales will fall from our eyes. Open the eyes of our hearts, Lord, we so need to see you like no Easter before. Show us your resurrection power over fear and doubt and boredom. Give your life-giving power to health care workers and first responders. Open in all of us treasures of love and generosity and creativity and hope.
Let us see you all around us in unexpected places; in hospital rooms and nursing homes, in broken dreams and promises of graduations and celebrations postponed, and yes in that most surprising place, an empty tomb! Let us see you with Easter eyes of faith not just today, but every day of our lives.

Renewed with the Good News of resurrection help us put on the full armor of God, along with masks and gloves that we will be strong for each other and for those whose faith is faltering.

Just as you redeemed Mary and Peter and John from their fear and despair with a power that conquers death and ultimately changed the world, please sustain us through this pandemic. Teach us again that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us” because our hope is not in things of this world but in the risen Christ.

Even as we rejoice this Easter morning give us faith that triumphs over the grave, whatever that grave may be for each of us, for this Easter more than ever we give thanks that when we really don’t know what tomorrow brings we do know we can face it because He Lives. We may not know the day or time when this crisis will end, but we do know the One we can trust for our final victory, and that give us faith to carry on as long as it takes. Amen

On-line Easter service, Northwest UMC, April 12, 2020