Opening Verse of Scripture Psalm 9:8
He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the peoples with justice. The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.
Collect Prayer for the Day—Before we read we pray
O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that with you as our ruler and guide we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not our hold on things eternal; grant this, heavenly Father,
for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Gracious Father, by the obedience of Jesus you brought salvation to our wayward world: draw us into harmony with your will, that we may find all things restored in him, our Saviour Jesus Christ.
First Bible Reading Job 38.1–11
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. ‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? ‘Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?— when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped”?
Second Reading 2 Corinthians 6.1–13
As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, ‘At an acceptable time I have listened to you,
and on a day of salvation I have helped you.’ See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honour and dishonour, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. In return—I speak as to children—open wide your hearts also.
Gospel Reading Mark 4.35–41
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’
Post Communion Prayer
Eternal God, comfort of the afflicted and healer of the broken, you have fed us at the table of life and hope: teach us the ways of gentleness and peace, that all the world may acknowledge the kingdom of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Commentary
The book of Job is sometimes seen as one of the greatest poetical literary pieces of writing in the world. It was probably written around the 5th century BC and seems to reflect a time before the organised priesthood; Job himself reminds us of Abraham and the patriarchs. It’s perhaps an ancient story that has been used by a later wisdom writer to explore the place of pain and suffering in the world. Unfortunately, the book of Job is also often widely misunderstood. The book gives us a structured dialogue between Job and his well-meaning but mistaken friends and comforters named Bildad, Zophar and Eliphaz. Elihu, who comes along later, is a little better and defends God’s superior knowledge and ways, but is still way off the mark regarding Job’s suffering and the work and wisdom of God. All of Job’s friends have the view that everything that happens to a person in life, good or bad, is a direct result of whether that individual has pleased God or not. Some people still think like this today. The friends can’t understand when Job, who we know to be an upright and righteous man, protests his innocence with great eloquence and states that he has done nothing to deserve the miseries that have been inflicted on him. Job’s trails include bereavement, prolonged physical suffering and illness, and acute financial hardship, quite a testing for anyone, but especially for someone who is described in the first chapter of the book as ‘the richest man in the East’. In line with the prevailing thinking and orthodox theology of the time, the friends insist that Job must have seriously sinned against God and done wrong for all these things to happen to him. They argue that if Job is the person he makes himself out to be, then God would have continued to richly bless him, constantly rewarding him for doing good by giving him the benefits of long life, children and material rewards, all of which now seem to have been taken away from him. On the contrary, if Job is suffering, he must be a wicked man. They urge Job to make a clean breast of it, confess his sin and admit that God does indeed administer a just and fair world and one in which we all get what we deserve. But Job shows that his faith is not so superficially thin and counters their arguments time and time again and puts forward the perspective that life is not always fair, and that the world is not always how God wants it to be. Through his trails and suffering, even though he clearly felt abandoned by God at times, Job’s faith deepens as he begins to understand more about who God really is.
The central issue of the book of Job still challenges us today. If God is all powerful and good, why do evil and natural disasters happen and why does God allow good and innocent people to suffer? Why isn’t the world how God wants it to be? As we have seen, the arguments go back and forth between Job and his friends going nowhere. It’s not until the climax of the book and God Himself intervenes in the debate, the passage we have in today’s reading, that a resolution to this impasse is revealed. But rather than answer Job’s questions directly, God, who speaks to Job and His friends out of ‘the tempest and the turmoil’, simply reveals His glory and His nature to them, telling them of the wonders of the universe and His creation. He corrects the friends’ misconceptions and puts the situation into perspective. As God speaks, Job realises that even if the theology and philosophy of life held by his friends is too narrow and presents a restrictive picture of God, his own concept of God has also been far too small. The world’s wisdom is seemingly very logical but incorrect. There are many things in life which will never be understood. God works on a different plane to human beings, a plane that we only glimpse occasionally and never fully comprehend. Through the words that God speaks, He vindicates Job’s position against the perceived wisdom of the world as articulated by his so called friends.
The disciples too were capable of thinking like Job’s friends when they were in the boat together with Jesus. Didn’t Jesus care that they were in danger? Just as God did not answer Job’s questions neither does Jesus reply directly to the disciples. But just like God, Jesus demonstrates His glory and authority over the natural world in response to the unfathomable situation. It seemed natural to the disciples that if God is in control of the world, then everything that happens in it must be according to His will and everything would be fine for them from here to eternity. The reality, which not just the book of Job and the gospel of Mark, but the whole bible teaches, is that many things happen in life which are not as God wishes them to be. Paul in his epistle to the Romans is very clear that suffering is not the result of sin. He stresses that ‘All that we suffer in this life is nothing in comparison with the glory which is destined to be disclosed for us’ (Rom 8 v 18). The crucifixion of Christ on the cross is the ultimate outworking of this as we see the suffering to death of the only truly righteous person who ever lived. The cross more importantly shows that whatever the suffering, God does prevail. When all seemed lost, Christ arose from the dead, ascended back into heaven to be with His Father whilst leaving His Spirit with us to comfort and strengthen us in all our circumstances. Things that we can never understand do happen in our broken and fallen world. Life can be full of uncertainty, apparently meaningless suffering, hardships and all kinds of contradictions. Ultimately Job accepts this, admitting that he had spoken of things he did not understand. We too sometimes need to turn our thoughts away from ourselves and this world to reflect on God’s character and personality and respond in trust and worship as Job eventually did on his knees.
Sam Cappleman
Meditation
Job and the disciples, as have many people through the ages, asked ‘Where is God in my suffering and hardship?’, ‘Where is He when I need Him most?’, ‘Doesn’t God care that I’m in danger and everything’s going wrong?’. Sometimes it can be difficult to see God or understand His actions, or lack of it as it sometimes seems. Busy as He is, I sometimes suspect God feels a lonely God as He waits for our prayers and our engagement with Him so He can bring peace and calm out of our storms. God does care about the situations each one of us finds ourselves in, however difficult or trying they are. He also wants us to share in His cosmic purpose for the world and understand more about how we fit into bringing His Kingdom to completion on earth. God is not a vindictive God, He does not wish bad things to happen to anyone, that not a part of His loving and forgiving nature. Similarly, our tough times are not part of some kind of divine retribution because we have done wrong or disobeyed Him. Suffering, hardship and pain happen because we are part of a fallen and imperfect world to which God sent His Son to bring redemption and salvation. Sometimes as part of that redeeming work we share in His pain.
Additional Material
The passage from Mark today shows Jesus in a storm and clearly nature is important, but so also is geography. Listen to Jesus at the start of the passage ’Let us go over to the other side.’ At the start of Chapter 5 we read that when they had eventually crossed the lake and they get out of the boat they are in the country of Gerasenes and Jesus heals a man who has demons and we are told that the demons go into the pigs. They are going to a place where there will be pigs, it was a foreign place. It was different. Specifically if you were one of the disciples you would regard this as going to gentile territory. For Jesus the Jew, and the Jewish disciples this is a significant symbolic crossing as well as a literal one.
In their upbringing the disciples would have been taught that this was an unclean place, the place where gentiles lived. Gentiles were not favoured by the Jews, since Gentiles were unclean, the fundamental things for a Jew was to avoid such places and such people, they were to remain uncontaminated. The thing which is perhaps most important for us to remember is that this was not just something which they had picked up from their parents. This was Jewish teaching, this was Biblical teaching, this was from God. The God fearing faithful Jew believed that the gentile was unclean. God had told them. Jesus is now crossing the lake, and he is also crossing centuries of prejudice and separation. Jesus is rewriting the rules in a way which must have seemed frightening.
The worry which we all should share is that sometimes what we think of as God’s prejudice is actually just our prejudice and we justify it by convincing ourselves that God demands such behaviour. Good Christian people have done this throughout the centuries as we have colluded with racist and sexism. It was not so long ago we considered it alright for Christians to subjugate black people, marriage between blacks and whites was considered wrong by good God fearing people in this country. This would be bad enough if it were not for the fact that we use scripture to reinforce our prejudice.
The challenge for us today is to ask ourselves whether we are prepared to get into the boat with Jesus, knowing that it might take us to the other side, to foreign territory, spiritually, intellectually. The hardest journey is not a physical one, it is being able to open our minds. We know how difficult it was for the early church to come to terms with the inclusion of the gentiles into the new community. How prepared are you to cross to the other side, to meet people who you have been taught are unclean, to see them as Christ sees them?
So here are the disciples going to gentile country, a mission to new territory and they are doing so in the dark. Then there is a storm at sea and it is clear that they are frightened. The boat in which Jesus and the disciples were travelling was a little boat, and the waves were large and the wind was blowing in the night. The language used could mean a hurricane. The impression we are given is of hardened fishermen who had been through quite intense weather conditions and they were afraid because the conditions were life threatening. The waves were beating on the boat and the boat was filling with water. It is in this context that we are told the disciples use the words to Jesus ‘Don’t you care.’ These words are considerably softened by the other Gospel writers ! Matthew has, "Save, Lord, we are perishing." Luke has, "Master, Master, we are perishing!" These words recorded by Mark sound harsh towards Jesus but we can understand them. Have you ever wondered what on earth Jesus was doing whilst people you knew suffered, or terrible things took place? Have you ever asked Jesus why he seemed less compassionate towards suffering than you? This story teaches us the valuable lesson that we cannot judge Jesus by the ferocity of the storms which rage around us. Jesus was totally present physically with the disciples and yet they encountered life threatening storms.
We are told that Jesus raised from sleep rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be silent!'" Jesus rebuked the wind just as he had rebuked the demonic powers (1:25, 3:12). He says to the sea, "Be silent!", which is the same thing he had said to the demon which had possessed the man in the synagogue (1:25). This is really difficult because we could read this passage and believe that when we get into the storms of life, be they physical, spiritual or otherwise, that all we have to do is wake Jesus up and he will do something about it. This is the belief of many Christians. Millions of prayers are made which ask Jesus to stop the storm and provide a nice sunny day with calm seas. Give me a new job, give me a new girlfriend, stop the bank from taking my house, give me better exam grades than last year, make me well again. We must never lead people to believe that Jesus is like a Genie in a bottle. We all know that this is not what God is like. Jesus rebukes the disciples and the rebuke he uses is about their faith. Jesus says to the frightened disciples "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?" Faith will not protect us from the storms of life. Neither should we be in denial and pretend that storms around us do not exist. The presence of Jesus in the boat does not change the condition of the sea, neither are we protected from storms. However Jesus is clear that faith should have one important impact, it should drive out fear. His disciples will be buffeted and tossed about, they will be persecuted and tortured and killed. Yet Jesus is absolutely resolute that despite all of this they should be a people without fear. Charles Royden
Meditation
Will your anchor hold in the storms of life?
When the clouds unfold their wings of strife?
When the strong tides lift, and the cables strain
Will your anchor drift, or firm remain?
The theme of this hymn by Priscilla Owens (1829-99) is surely right. When life is easy we can plod along regardless, not concerning ourselves with the complexities and deeper mysteries of life. Yet when the going gets tough, when we are faced with enormous problems, then questions come along which can shake the very core of our being. The death of a dear friend, a life threatening illness, these kinds of things can leave us wondering who we are and what point there is in life.
None of us is immune from this angst. In the words of the song by Allan Roberts 'Into each life some rain must fall.' In early Christian art it was not unusual to depict the church as a boat driven hard in a perilous sea, and Jesus in the midst, surrounded by a drenched crew filled with fear as they watch the waves plunge into their boat. We are all like a boat tossed against the "wings of strife." Can we survive ?
The answer, of course, is yes, for we have an anchor that keeps the soul.
The Summer Solstcie marks the longest day of the year. The word "solstice" is Latin and comes from "sol" and "sistere," which means "sun stands still." For those living in the northern hemisphere, the Summer Solstice is the day on which the earth, spinning on its axis, has its North Pole ‘tipped’ as far as it will go to face the sun. Because of this ‘tipping’ towards the sun, the northern hemisphere receives the longest hours of daylight of the year. Lord God, Creator of light, at the rising of your sun each morning, let the greatest of all lights - your love - rise, like the sun, within my heart. (from the Armenian Liturgy)
Hymns
- Lord of creation (Tune Slane)
- Be still for the presence of the Lord
- Eternal Father (Tune Melita)
- Jesus call us o’er the tumult (Tune St Andrew)
- God is our strength and refuge (Dambusters March)
- O Lord my God
- Will your anchor hold
- All my hope on God is founded
Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead
Keeper of our lives, you know the hardness and gentleness of human hearts. You call your people to faithful living. Through the storms of life that bring suffering and fear, joy and laughter, teach us to turn to you for all we need, so that we may come to know your presence even in the midst of the trials that surround us. Amen.
Make us ever eager, Lord, to share the good things that we have. Grant us such a measure of thy Spirit that we may find more joy in giving than getting. Make us ready to give cheerfully without grudging, secretly without praise and in sincerity without looking for gratitude, for Jesus Christ’s sake.
(John Hunter 1849-1917)
O God, the King of righteousness, lead us, we pray thee, in the ways of justice and of peace, inspire us to break down all tyranny and oppression, to gain for every man his due reward and from every man his due service; that each may live for all and all may care for each, in the name of Jesus Christ.
(Archbishop William Temple 1881-1944)
O God who hast bound us together in this bundle of life, give us grace to understand how our lives depend on the industry, the honesty and integrity of our fellow men; that we may be mindful of their needs, grateful for their faithfulness, and faithful in our responsibilities to them; through Jesus Christ our Lord
(Rev Dr Reinhold Niebur 1892-1971)
Commentary
Commentary
In a nutshell, the 42 chapters of the book of Job describe him being subject to a divine test to find out if he will serve God without profiting from it. After a short introduction a debate (in 3 cycles with a few bits missing) follows with his three friends around the subject of divine justice. There is then an interlude where the writer asks where wisdom is to be found, followed by Job’s oath of innocence, aimed at evoking a divine response. But instead of God appearing, Elihu shows up and chastises both Job for his complaints and his friends for their inadequate answers. Then, finally, out of the storm, God appears. He rebukes Job, but speaks mainly about the beauty and majesty of creation on the earth and in the sky. In the face of God and His words, Job relents and the book closes with a description of Job’s restoration.
The gospel reading describes Jesus and His disciples having an encounter with a ‘furious squall’. And this time it is Jesus who speaks out of the storm to bring calm and order. The disciples were right to be frightened. The boat they were probably in would have been flat bottomed and have the look of a rather large punt. This design had advantages for fishing, and Jesus had just used this particular boat as a speaking platform as people thronged around Him at the lakeside.
The parallels are clear. Just as we see in the Genesis story, we have a God who is in ultimate control of all His creation and who speaks out and acts, to bring hope out of despair, order out of chaos and peace out of turmoil. For some people, their lives too seem full of despair, chaos and turmoil. And all of us have days where the odds seemed stacked against us and where we long for a bit of order, peace and respite. Order, peace and respite that can often come by simply turning to God and asking Him to intervene in our lives, or in a particular situation or event. At any moment in time our storms may have a significant impact on our lives and may seem extremely large. But God is infinitely bigger. He is in control. And He listens out for our prayers.
Job and the disciples, as have many people through the ages, asked ‘Where is God in my situation?’ Sometimes it can be difficult to see Him or perceive His actions. Perhaps sometimes we get as far as asking ourselves and each other about what God is doing about a particular set of circumstances or events but forget to ask God directly. Or sometimes we’ll send up a quick prayer asking Him for help, (which He does hear) but don’t spend sustained time praying with God to try to work out with Him what He wants us to do in a situation or how he wants us to respond. Busy as He is, I sometimes suspect God feels a lonely God as He waits for our prayers. He longs to work with us so that He can bring peace and calm out of our storms. And as we communicate with Him and see Him in all His glorious majesty we reflect more of His restoring glory and offer hope into the broken, turbulent and stormy world in which we live.
Sam Cappleman
Commentary
"Teacher, don't you care….?"
If you read through the first four chapters of Mark you will quickly recognise that the ministry of Jesus was not a peaceful one. Indeed it would be possible to say that it was characterised by scenes of terrible conflict. It all starts off well with the baptism and calling of the first disciples but it seems that Mark is just starting off by reassuring us who Jesus really was before all the trouble starts! Jesus is Son of God (1:1) but this serves only to prepare us for the battle to come.
- In Chapter 1 Verse 24 an evil spirit tells that Jesus has come to destroy and he goes on to drive out demons.
- In Chapter 2 Verse 7 the religious leaders turn against him charging him with blasphemy.
- By Chapter 3 Verse 22 they are accusing him of being in league with Satan.
- Then in Chapter 3 Verse 21 even some his own family have decided to arrest him because they think he has finally gone out of his mind, we learn in verse 31 that his mother went along with this.
Little surprise then that by Chapter 4: Verse 35, our reading today, that his own disciples accuse him of not caring from them.
The episode concerns a storm on the lake. Remember that these were hardened fishermen, so this was clearly a storm of some proportions.
I wonder would we have behaved any differently if we were in that boat on Lake Galilee when the storm came and the waves started washing over the boat? Would the fact that you had Jesus with you have made any difference as you watched the water filling the inside of the sinking boat? Imagine no flares, no life jackets, no lifeboats, just you and the others and the imminent prospect of a dangerous swim. Undoubtedly the disciples were terrified, they had real fear and even the fact that Jesus was with them made no difference to their terror. The words of Jesus are a rebuke to the storm, but also a rebuke to the disciples "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"
From his words should we conclude that Jesus expected the disciples to have been more calm? I doubt it, to be fearful in the face of life threatening situations is more likely to be a God given gift which help us to survive, it is foolish to walk without fear into danger. I am sure that Jesus would have understood the adrenalin rush as the waves leapt over the boat and the concern of the disciples in the face of the storm. However Jesus would understandably be hurt by the critical words of the disciples which went further than fear and doubted his care and love for them. The words of the disciples to Jesus are a personal challenge to him, "Teacher, don't you care….?"
The early Christian Church would have shared the same lives of confrontation as Jesus. They too knew the anger of the religious authorities, betrayal by friends and family. They would also have recognised evil in the world and understood that they were up against real spiritual evil. So they also may have been tempted to wonder whether Jesus cared for them when they were being killed for their faith. The answer to the question "Teacher, don't you care….?" was an emphatic YES!
So let us bring that message up to date and apply it to ourselves. You and I are in the boat and we face throughout our lives all manner of storms and crises which make us fearful. We cannot stop ourselves from being afraid when we are in perilous situations but we must never doubt that in that perilous situation Jesus is present with us and cares for us.
The early readers of Mark would have been reminded of the presence of their Risen Lord with them at all times, even in the face of organised state persecution and martyrdom. Only by trusting, even when we are afraid, can we come to know that same reassurance and peace which our Saviour brings.
(Charles Royden)
Meditation
Will your anchor hold in the storms of life?
In early Christian art it was not unusual to depict the church as a boat driven hard in a perilous sea, and Jesus in the midst, surrounded by a drenched crew. Some of the crew are depicted filled with fear as they watch the waves plunge into their boat, while others are at peace as they look to Jesus - "steadfast and sure while the billows roll." The church is indeed like a boat tossed against the "wings of strife." The storm that came against Jesus had the overtones of the dark domain. The storm represented powers opposed to God's new initiative in Jesus. Jesus was calling out a people to be with him, and the darkness sought to engulf his plan.
The church today is constantly affronted by the power of the secular city. The waves denounce the Christian ethic, denouncing the historicity of our faith, eradicating our influence within society. The waves come from behind, seeking to ; us to the world, sneaking entertainment concepts into worship, leading us to believe that marketing, selling, that the adoption of secular management criteria, are our only hope for future survival.
Will Christianity survive the affront of secularization and the test of marketed religion? Will the individual believer be able to survive the "billows roll"? The answer, of course, is yes, for "we have an anchor that keeps the soul."
Meditation
Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1860) has described the book of Job as an eternal drama with three actors, God, Humankind (he actually said mankind!) and Destiny, and many scholars agree that the book is a major work of literature, poetry, philosophical debate and written language. But what does it mean to us today? How much time do we spend debating among ourselves when perhaps our time would be better spent listening to God so that we can know how He wants to influence our destiny and the destiny of the world through us?
Prayers
Almighty God, the fountain of all goodness, bless our Sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth, and all who are in authority under her; that they may order all things in wisdom and equity, righteousness and peace, to the honour and glory of your name and the good of your Church and people; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Saviour, the prince of peace: give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions; take away our hatred and prejudice and whatever else may hinder us from godly union and concord, that, as there is but one body, one Spirit and one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, so may we henceforth be all of one heart and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
GOD of love, turn our hearts to your ways; and give us peace. Amen.
A Prayer for Refugees ALMIGHTY and merciful God, whose Son became a refugee and had no place to call his own; look with mercy on those who today are fleeing from danger, homeless and hungry. Bless those who work to bring them relief; inspire generosity and compassion in all our hearts; and guide the nations of the world towards that day when all will rejoice in your Kingdom of justice and of peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Two Prayers for Justice 1 ALMIGHTY God our heavenly Father, guide the nations of the world into the way of justice and truth, and establish among them that peace which is the fruit of righteousness, that they may become the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
2. GRANT us, Lord God, a vision of our land as your love would make it: a land where the weak are protected, and none go hungry or poor; - a land where the benefits of civilised life are shared, and everyone can enjoy them;- a land where different races and cultures live in tolerance and mutual respect; - a land where peace is built with justice, and justice is guided by love. And give us the inspiration and courage to build it, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
A Prayer for Mercy LORD, remember Christ your Son who is peace itself and who has washed away our hatred with his blood. Because you love all people, look with mercy on us. Banish the violence and evil within us, and in answer to our prayers restore tranquility and peace. Amen.
A Prayer for the Leaders of the Nations O GOD our heavenly Father, whose love sets no boundaries and whose strength is in service; grant to the leaders of the nations wisdom, courage and insight at this time of darkness and fear. Give to all who exercise authority determination to defend the principles of freedom, love and tolerance, strength to protect and safeguard the innocent and clarity of vision to guide the world into the paths of justice and peace. This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Grant, Almighty God, that while your Son Jesus Christ is exalted to the throne of heaven, we may not be weighted down by the things of earth, but set our affection on the things above, where He is seated at your right hand, and lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen
Blessed are you, Lord God almighty, who gave your Son, Jesus Christ, to be our redeemer and the author of everlasting life; and exalted Him above all for ever; that at all times and in all places we might be partakers of His power and His glory. Amen
O God of love, in whose will is our peace, so set your peace in the hearts of all people that the nations of the world may learn to live as members of one family and children of one God and Father, to the glory of your name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
The God of all grace who called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, establish, strengthen and settle you in the faith; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be among you and remain with you always. Amen
Lord, teach me to trust you in whatever situations I may find myself. Help me to pray, not just when my boat is sinking, but in all the times and places of my life where you can make a real difference. Help me with my family and friends to establish better relationships, in my place of work to allow you to inform the way I behave. Forgive me when I make you a stranger and walk with me always. Amen.
Lord, lead me from death to life, from falsehood to truth. Lead me from despair to hope, from fear to trust. Lead me from hate to love, from war to peace. Let peace fill our hearts, our world, our universe. Amen
We pray for Northern Ireland. For political, Church and Community Leaders, and all who work for peace and reconciliation. For those who suffer because of violence and injustice. For those who use violence and induce hatred. Lord, grant that love may triumph and that your peace may prevail in the hearts of all people. Amen.
