What does God want for us now, in our earthly life? What does God want for us in eternal life? Shall we have eternal life? If so, what will it be like? These are the questions which surround today’s worship, some of which will be directly addressed, while most will go unanswered. We gather in praise of the God who created us, who daily sustains us, and who cares for us much more than we are able to care for ourselves. Therefore let us, with confidence, worship God.
Pastoral Prayer
O Lord, our God, when we come to Thee in prayer, we do so with far more ignorance than knowledge. We think we know Thee, we believe we know Thee, and yet we must honestly admit our thoughts are too limited, and our knowledge is too sketchy. We do not ask forgiveness for being human, and therefore limited, but we admit our limitations, and we ask Thee nevertheless to hear us and to respond to us. Expand our comprehension of Thee by the indwelling of Thy growing presence within us. As the years pass, may we feel ourselves somehow drawn ever closer to Thee, whom, at some point, we trust we shall encounter far more fully than we can encounter Thee now.
We thank Thee for all the giants of faith who have helped to lead us into a closer relationship with Thee: men and women of the Bible, and especially Jesus; men and women of other religions; philosophers and theologians, politicians and historians, people of science and art and literature. We praise Thee for making us part of the human race, and for all the blessings we have received through that wondrous association. Grant us both a willingness and an eagerness to drink deeply of the wisdom of those who have gone before us.
We pray for innocent victims and for their families when terrorists kill people they have never known and whose deaths cause them not a moment of remorse. Give us strength for the necessity of living in a world that is both predictable and tenuous, safe and insecure. We pray for the elderly whose bodies hold out long after their minds have ceased to function, for younger people who have lived lives of health and now are faced with lives of serious illness, for children who may never have the opportunity of a full, meaningful life because of the parents to whom they were born or the environment into which their births ushered them. In hearing the still, sad music of humanity, may we even more so hear Thy majestic, inspiring music, the eternal God who hast created us all. These prayers we make in Jesus’ name, now joining together in prayer as he taught us, saying, Our Father….