Palm Sunday, Year B (2021): Litany for the Humble Way

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In Jesus, all of our ideas about glory, royalty, exclusivity, and honor get up-ended. People project all kinds of notions onto him, and he just proceeds with his work healing and preaching his message.

One minute (in last week’s text) he’s talking about how it's time for him to be “glorified” - when what he means is not exactly our ideal glory: death. As opposed to, say, winning military battles or wearing fancy priest robes. And the next minute (in this week’s Palm Sunday text) he’s playing the people’s game, riding into the city on an unbroke donkey. I can imagine him sortof shrugging like, “guess we’re doing this now.”

See, based on his actions here I don’t get the idea that he feels like he needs to be worshipped. He’s trailed by a crowd due to the fact that he’s just raised Lazarus from the dead* but he’s not letting it go to his head or calling attention to himself. He chooses the most lowly of pack animals. He seems happy with paltry palm fronds for offerings. His ego doesn’t require trumpets. He’s the most willing to get down and dirty with lonely and sick people in the streets and byways. I hear his main message as “God’s community is right here for you to join up with” and not “worship me I’m the king of the world.”

And I wonder how often we are getting this wrong: thinking Jesus needs to be put on a pedestal and worshipped rather than learned from and followed. I wonder how often we are that crowd, projecting our need for a loud and rowdy to-do onto Jesus, rather than plugging into the new way of being that he’s embodying and trying to help us wake up to.


God, we witness Christ in the scriptures
Embodying healing love,
Preaching the nearness of God,
Walking along the Path of Peace….

Lent 5, Year B 2021: Litany for Embracing Change

In this week’s gospel text from John 12, Jesus shares the metaphor of the seed undergoing burial in the ground and death - death of its season of existence as a seed - so that it might become the “glorified” version of itself: the full grown wheat plant that bears fruit for nourishment. The “fruit” being more wheat seeds, and so the cycle continues. The wheat is continually undergoing transformation from one state of being to another: seed, sprout, seedling, mature plant, seed..

Jesus says that he must pass through this similar experience, which he then allows his physical body to undergo: the “seed” of his physical body, he says, must be buried so that it can be transformed into a more glorious state and make way for more cycles. He tells us that this is the nature of things on earth: change, transformation, cycles, rhythms. To resist this is to resist life, and he says as much in verse 25: “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

We participate in eternity by our non-resistant participation in these divine rhythms. We become immortal by not resisting death. What a paradox, hey!

The Psalmist prays to be changed - to be cleansed, washed, purged, transformed, and to be made more fundamentally joyful (Psalm 51:7,8). They pray for their old patterns to die and be replaced: “Create in me a clean heart, and put a new and right spirit within me.”

Lent is our opportunity to create the intention of embracing the death that is naturally part of change and transformation. By embracing change, we embrace death, and by embracing death we embrace life.

God, we behold the cycles of nature,
Understanding that change is the constant -
The release of the old to make way for the new,
The acceptance of death to make way for new life….


Lent 4, Year B 2021: Litany for Alignment with Christ

In Jesus’ late-night conversation with Nicodemus we receive John’s famous (and much-romanticized (1) ) remembrance of Jesus’ words: “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” They beg the question: what does it mean to “believe in him”?

Professor Samuel Cruz of UTS says this:

“ It is therefore necessary to ask some pertinent questions of him and/or this gospel lesson: What does believing in him (Jesus) mean? Why did Jesus need to come into the world? Was it because of sin? If indeed Jesus came to the world to save it from sin, what kind of sin? For John, sin seems to be concrete and structural (that is injustice, hate, lack of mercy, etc.) rather than individualistic….Therefore, for John, believing in Jesus has more to do with what people believe regarding evil, hate, exploitation, and injustice rather an esoteric “religious” conversion.”

I have left writing this installment of this year’s lent series until last, precisely because this verse, over-simplified and over-romanticized, gives such trouble to the modern reader, especially one who has begun any sort of deconstruction from dogmatic or superficial theological interpretation. But Professor Cruz’s words give me hope that we might be able to figure out what it means to truly believe in Christ, to align ourselves with his values, to take up his mission and purpose, to accept his invitation into a new way of being in the world that then becomes ours too. Hope that we might be able, in Western Christianity, to go beyond a flippant or surface-level reading of this passage and allow it to lead us to our true selves, re-creating the world as we go.

 

God, here in this Lenten season, we slough off all that distracts us,
All that doesn’t serve heaven’s cause,
All that is not aligned with the highest good,
All that keeps us from becoming our truest selves:
Inheritors of the riches of God’s grace,
Adopted and beloved siblings with Christ…

Lent 3, Year B 2021: Litany for the Inner Sanctuary

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When Christ turned over the tables of the sellers and money-changers in the temple, he declared that productivity culture has no business in the inner sanctuary of God. God is not about consumption or production. The inner life is a closed-loop: we are divinely resourced and divinely Allowed. We can turn our attention away from pressure to Do, and Produce, and toward the opportunity to Rest, Be, Dwell. There is nothing to prove, nothing to win, nothing to achieve, nothing to earn. All we need has been achieved for us. Cycles of sacrifice ended with Christ’s work - he completed them and we no longer need to play them out.

This theme also comes to us in the Exodus passage. The people are instructed to observe a Sabbath, to remember it, and “keep it holy.” One day out of every seven is reserved for rest and resistance to productivity culture, resistance to exhaustion, to remind them (and us) that our worth is not our work. Even resting, accomplishing nothing, producing nothing, only receiving and allowing, we are worthy, beloved, whole. 


This doesn’t mean we don’t participate in economies and systems while we are here on earth. It means we don’t identify ourselves with them. They are not us. Our work, our doing, is not us. And it means that the Inner Sanctuary is always available to us - the place of rest and peace, of acceptance and being.



God, we feel the pull of the Inner Sanctuary
We are drawn in by your love and beauty, 
Into the welcome and peace of Spirit.
The true temple, the dwelling place of God, is within us …


Lent 2, Year B 2021: Litany for Lenten Cycles

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I’m a firm believer that Lent, practiced consciously, is a guardrail against spiritual bypassing. The regular observance of seasons of austerity, lament, and penance, which we Christians get in Lent and Advent, guide us to enter into aspects of the human experience we’d rather not endure.

Other spiritual traditions have similar seasons: Jews have Yom Kippur; Muslims have Ramadan; Hindus have Navaratri; and so forth. These rhythms keep us pain-avoidant human beings honest: they take us into the shadow so that we have an opportunity to alchemize - or if you prefer a Christianese word: redeem - what we find there: the uncomfortable feelings, the limiting beliefs, patterns of harm, the losses we didn’t have time to grieve, traumas we didn’t have resources to heal before. These seasons offer us the opportunity to make meaning of the human condition and to accept it as it is, to accept ourselves as we are. In Lent we are invited to stop judging our pain and instead feel it and allow it to teach us. It is part of a cycle: we don’t stay in Lent forever. Death comes, and then Resurrection. Weeping comes in the soul’s night, then joy in the morning. We sow in tears, we reap in joy. If we never accept the rhythm of sowing in tears, we have little appreciation, much less gratitude, for joy. We know light by its contrast to darkness.

In Western culture we make very little space for weakness, pain, mourning, lament, sadness. We are taught early on that excessive feeling that doesn’t fall in the category of anger or excitement is unwelcome, and that sadness is a pathology. But the rhythms of the Christian faith tradition offer a different paradigm: one that welcomes the mourner, blesses the weak, and gives space and voice to lament. It assigns value to loneliness and suffering even as it assures us that we are never alone in suffering.

Jesus heading out to the desert wilderness for a period of solitude and austerity sets the precedent for Lenten practice. Jesus accepts all parts of human experience, entering into the full spectrum of emotion. He rejects no parts of the whole.

In week 2 of Lent, Year B, we are invited along with the disciples to “deny” ourselves, take up the instrument of our suffering, and follow him into the totality of embodied adventure, and to do this willingly, without judgement or resistance, trusting that the way out is the way through.

God, our culture teaches us to avoid pain, And to suppress emotion; But in the wisdom tradition that Christ practiced, We find space for pain, emotion, and much more.

Lent 1, Year B, 2021: Litany for the Wilderness

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Oh! Here’s the Baptism account I was telling you about last week! Right here for us all to contemplate again. Jesus is baptized, then heads out to the desert to take care of some inner work. There aren’t but 2 sentences dedicated to Mark’s description of Jesus going to the desert. Matthew and Luke give Jesus in the desert more airtime, noting that he fasted and prayed in the desert, but Mark only stresses the point that he was tempted by Satan and cared for by angels. John (the non-synoptic one) doesn’t mention any of this at all.

(Aside: So, 2 out of 4 gospels give us THE WHOLE SEASON OF LENT? I find this funny; you’d think all four gospels would need to agree in order to justify creating a *whole liturgical season.*)

The Catholic Vatican Council II identifies two central elements of the season of Lent:

  • Baptism: either recalling it or preparing to undergo it

  • Penance

In other words the spirit of the season, as they imagine it, is that it is an extended ritual of purification and preparation. Which, as I mentioned last week, all wisdom traditions (that I know of) contain. 

We wash ourselves, and then we let the desert dry us off. That arid, sandy ground; empty, nowhere for longing to hide. So dry and desperate it cracks open. 

Jesus went out to the desert wilderness; but in my experience, the desert often comes to us. And the desert is what has my attention just now. I am thinking of that solitary expanse. The harshness of it, but also the beauty. I am thinking of how resonant Jesus’ expedition there is to me just now; Mark says the “Spirit drove him” there (NRSV). I am thinking of the circumstances in my own life that drive me to someplace bleak and essential, where the only thing for me to focus on is my own longing, my own thirst. And where I must overcome the temptation to resort to *any old thing* to relieve me of the discomfort of existing there.

When the waters of my baptism have evaporated off me, I recall them with yearning. Yet. When I’m dry as dust, and I am distilled down to my essence, there comes an opportunity for new clarity. The desert can teach me why I’m on this journey anyway.

And here is our invitation: to accept the desert. To not go the long way ‘round. To experience it and feel it - the hunger and the cold and the scorching sun and the desperate thirst - and allow it to show us who we are, and to prepare us for the real work we are here to do.





God, as Christ goes out into the wilderness
To experience solitude
To refrain from distraction,
To be tempted to escape discomfort;
So we find ourselves, at times, in a similar place:
Whether we chose to go there or not….


Epiphany 6, Transfiguration, Year B (2021): Litany for our Highest Spiritual Selves

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Here is the litany for Transfiguration Sunday, Year B, which I wrote in 2018. I still like it a lot.

I looked up the dictionary definition of transfiguration: "a complete change of form or appearance into a more beautiful or spiritual state" (citation). Over the years I've come to interpret most of the actions and experiences of Christ as invitations. E.g. Jesus resurrects; we are invited into resurrection. Jesus is embodied; we are invited to embrace our embodiment. Jesus heals; we are invited into healing. Jesus is baptized; we are invited into baptism. Jesus undergoes transfiguration; we are invited to undergo transfiguration, etc.

Speaking of baptism, I've also come to understand baptism as a precursor to the transfiguration; almost as though baptism is a ritual signaling our consent to the ongoing process of transfiguration. Every culture has its rituals of symbolic purification in preparation for transformation and higher spiritual awareness. I had never noticed this connection until I started learning more about other spiritual traditions.

This week's gospel text comes from Mark 9. Jesus's baptism is recounted in Mark 1. The life of Christ is full of these kinds of symbols, laced with layers of meaning. Embodiment > purification > transfiguration > death > resurrection > ascension. They are both actual and symbolic, inviting us to perceive our own lives in this multidimensional way.

And here we are at Lent's doorway, with this opportunity to ask ourselves: What rituals of purification do I need to engage in to prepare for and give consent to a higher way of being, a personal transfiguration?

Lent: a time of fasting, preparation, re-focusing. It begins, in the church calendar, with this picture, the example, of what we, too, are to become: the image of Christ shining gloriously, full of embodied light. He is fully become; he is his own true self - even before Good Friday. Even before resurrection. He even tells the disciples that they don’t have to die physically in order to see the kingdom of God come in power (Mark 9:1)! And we are invited to follow that path toward “a complete change of form...into a more spiritual state,” even as we live these homely, challenging lives here on earth.

God, we celebrate the transfiguration of Christ -
Christ, shining gloriously with heaven’s light,
Embodying his True Self, even while on earth.
He is fully Become, fully realized.

Palm Sunday (Year A): Litany for Triumphal Entry

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In this week’s account of the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, crowds of people shout praise to God, seeming to understand that Jesus was their long-awaited God-representative. Then, mysteriously, those hordes of supporters disappear. They’re never heard from again. Or maybe they are, but they’ve changed their minds about Jesus’ goodness and divinity. 

What happened to those people? Did they just stay home after that, thinking their contributions, work, and message didn’t matter? Did they not come to Jesus’ defense later because they had changed their minds about him? Or because they were afraid? Or because they were lazy and apathetic and assumed he’d take care of everything all by himself?

I’m honestly curious about those questions, despite knowing I’ll never have an answer.* But the un-knowing does lead me to one knowing: the critical mass of people either stayed home or turned against Jesus. The critical mass of people had power that they either abdicated or used against him. 

So this week, as I give thanks for the witness of Christ to God’s lovingkindness, I am contemplating my own power. My own power to stay home and save lives. My own power to advocate for the poor and marginalized. My own power to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the world now when “Christ has no hands and feet except ours.”


God, we remember Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem,
His arrival met with cheering Hosannas.
He, seated on a humble donkey,
Accepting the praises of a fickle crowd (Matthew 21:1-11). 

see also: “Litany for Palm Sunday, Year A” from 2016.

Lent 5 (Year A): Litany for Living By Spirit

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The Lectionary this week is juicy juicy. Lazarus, the valley of Dry Bones, Romans 8, Psalm 130.  If you are searching for a litany tailored to the Ezekiel passage, please see Litany for Dry Bones. 

I take some issue with the greek SARKI in Romans 8 being translated as “in the flesh” or “on the flesh.” Not because I think it’s wrong; more that I think it’s just not enough. Not a big enough word. Not robust enough language. Strong’s says SARKI means “flesh, body, human nature, materiality.” I think human nature and materiality are getting closer. But as it is, oversimplified, I think it props up a harmful dualistic narrative: body is bad, spirit is good. This hasn’t done us any favors as embodied beings. 

What if, by “human nature” we mean humanity’s drive for self-preservation, self-satisfaction, and survival at any cost? What if we mean the ego-self, the one that propels us toward safety, separation, and self-sufficiency? What if we mean our tendency to be preoccupied with our bank accounts? Where we thought the contrast was between “flesh and spirit”, what if we are actually being pointed to disconnection vs connection?

Thinking about Romans 8 from this vantage point propels me into a different understanding, one of invitation into a life of Wholeness, Community, and Oneness. An invitation to drop our ego-needs (rightness, judgement, never-enough scarcity), and take up Spirit priorities: sacredness, service, generosity, abundance, love.

God, your Spirit dwells in us.
The Spirit of Christ is within us (1).
We turn away from self-preservation and survival
As our primary motivations;And toward unity, connectedness and service
As our foundation. 

Lent 4 (Year A): Litany for Mud and Spit

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Sometimes, like now, we have to endure mud and spit so that we can have our eyes opened and receive light in them. The very essentials of earth and humanity spread across our field of vision, that we may become unblinded. 

When this happens, we have choices: we can scoff at the method, ignore it, resist it. (Gross! Inconvenient! Unneccesary!). Or. We can see it as the love it is. Surrender. Practice gratitude. 

We are in a moment of apocalypse here on this planet. (Apocalypse meaning “revealing”.) Our fragility and vulnerability revealed. In our privilege we are convinced of our invulnerability. We put our faith in economic forces and our physical capabilities to keep us safe and insulated from hardship, only to learn that they are easily toppled by the most base and microscopic of single celled* foes. 

The best part about the story in John 9, of the man born blind whom Jesus heals with “mud and saliva”, is the new level of agency the previously blind man seems to step into. He speaks for himself. He decides to follow Christ. He stands up to bullies. He testifies to the Christ (John 9:33). 

So. We may be whirling. We may feel anxious. But we have an opportunity to have faith in the Light, to regard our new level of seeing as a gift. Because we know that “...Everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." (Ephesians 5:13,14)


God, we know that Christ has come into the world
So that those who are un-seeing might see,
And so that we who are certain of our perspective,
Might have our spiritual blindness revealed ...


Palm Sunday (Year C): Litany for Shouting Stones

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This week is Palm Sunday, and the Lectionary offers two options. I'm using Liturgy of the Palms references for this prayer. Enjoy, and if you have a second, please let me know how this Lent series has gone for you and your community. Thanks!

God, we throw down our cloaks
And raise up shouting praise
Because of the beauty of Christ
And his deeds of power …


Find my book of congregational litanies on Amazon. And follow along via instagram @thelitanist


Lent 5 (Year C): Litany for Wilderness

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This week's litany follows along with the Lectionary texts for week 5 of Lent. A strong theme of wilderness, persistence, and joyful homecoming threads through these texts. I hope you're all leaning in to the Lenten journey in some way this year - letting the wilderness Christ leads you into shape your soul and your practice, offering you a new way of being. 


In Lent, we follow Christ out to wilderness places.
We deny ourselves the comforts that numb us.
We rid ourselves of the distractions that consume us.
We stand aside to let you realign us to your way…

Thanks for following along. If you haven’t grabbed a copy of my book, may I suggest that it makes a great Easter gift :) Also, I’m on instagram @thelitanist ! come join in the contemplative fun going on there! Much love to all you readers and pray-ers out there embodying Divine Love and Light.

f

Lent 4 (Year C): Litany for Wandering

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Hey friends!
Before I get into the litany for this week, I want to say thank you thank you thank you for being on this journey with me. March has been the biggest month ever for me in terms of new patrons, and I am so stinking grateful. Welcome to new friends in this space! May it be a blessing to you! May it throw you a life-raft on a sinking day! May it jolt you with encouragement in a distressing moment! May it offer you sustenance when you're empty! Amen, Amen. Also, thanks for your patience while I was on vacation last week. After a rough month, I needed the break to stoke my curiosity and creativity, and hallelujah the LORD provides.

Ok, this week's Lectionary is juicy! The prodigal son. Psalm 32. The beautiful "new creation" language in 2 Corinthians 5. Week 1 we explored Weakness, week 2 Loneliness, week 3 Longing, and now Wandering. (preview: next week we're pondering "Wilderness.) So basically the hard parts of the life of faith. Which is what Lent is for - uncovering our blindness, exposing our need and vulnerability, urging us toward repentance. It's not supposed to be fun, but it is necessary for our growth.


God, like the prodigal son we have wandered far
From Love’s Center (1).
We are prodigal children,
All of us…

Also, if you’re unsure how to properly attribute a litany when you’re using it congregationally, please check out this post. And if you haven’t already snagged a copy for yourself, a minister, or a friend, you can purchase my book here. 

May you find more joy, peace, and love during your Lenten journey.
Fran


Lent 3 (Year C): Litany for Longing

Hello all.  I'll be on spring break vacation with my family next week and away from my desk. So here is next week's Lent litany. Leaning into the longing of the Lenten Lectionary :) 


O God, you are our God,
We seek you, our souls thirst for you;
Our flesh faints for you,
As in a dry and weary land where there is no water. (1)


Lent 2 (Year C): Litany for Loneliness

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In this week's Lectionary, I'm struck by the sense of loneliness in the passages. I keep thinking how exhausting and draining it must have been for Christ to always be on the run, moving from place to place, never pausing at home, always faced with someone wanting to kill him. And I'm struck that Lent is a time for us to face our own loneliness with intention. If ever there were a time to seek out solitude for self-reflection, Lent is it. 

It's true, we are spiritual beings having an embodied human experience here on earth (at least that's my belief), and there is something inherently lonely about that. But also, the community of humanity is bright and diverse and available - and I think part of why we're here is to make connections and realize our connectedness on both a human level and a spiritual level. Those two ideas exist in tension. And I imagine they created tension for Christ as well.

It seems like we have a few ways to combat loneliness: by realizing our oneness with God, deep in our innermost selves, often via solitude; by realizing our spiritual citizenship in heaven, that we are part of something more vast than what we can see; and by realizing community with other spiritual humans on earth. We have these means, but I think we are still going to feel lonely sometimes - it's just part of the human experience. One that has a lot to teach us if we are willing to listen. 


God, we know that we are citizens of heaven first (1)
Sent to earth to learn lessons and build outposts.
But this is sometimes lonely work
That tests our resolve and our stamina.
Citizens of heaven
Aren’t always earth’s favorite people (2). …

Lent 1 (Year C): Litany for Weakness

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I got waylaid by a terrible flu for the last 7 days. And still my brain is not entirely online. I find it so interesting how the Lectionary seems to coincide with my own real-life events. Here I have been in a fog of weakness, reliant on help from others just to get through. And the Lectionary brings me this story.

In Luke’s account of the temptation of Christ, we see Christ refute the devil’s efforts at getting him to “prove” himself. If you make bread from stones, you’ll show us all. If you worship me I’ll make them know your authority. If you jump off the temple room, the angels will be forced to carry you, and everyone will know you’re the real deal.

Isn’t this what we are always feeling like we have to do as humans? Prove ourselves? We feel like we have to prove that we’re strong, or invincible, or in control, or knowledgeable, or, at the very least NOT WEAK. I can tell you I have had not one shred of control over anything in the last week. Every plan canceled. Every intention thwarted. Every task put off.

And Jesus refuses the whole game. He goes willingly to the physical weakness of hunger and deprivation. He goes willingly to the vulnerability of harsh desert. He doesn’t retreat to a well-stocked fortress, but an empty wasteland of weakness.

I guess this is a lesson we learn from Lent: that weakness is strength. That proving ourselves is a game the ego plays, not the Christ-consciousness.




Oh God, we come to Lent to face ourselves:
Our desperate need to prove our worth,
Our hunger for reputation, wealth, and influence;
Our ego’s power over us…



Palm Sunday (Year B): Litany for the Passion

This litany follows along with the story of the Passion of Christ in Mark's Gospel. You can also find a litany for the Palms here.

God, you showed us who you are in the incarnation:
Yourself as human,
Coming down to earth, enduring human suffering,
Becoming a servant.

And despite your meekness
You offended the Powers;
You drew the wrath of religious and political establishments
You became their scapegoat.

You endured mocking and scorn,
A crown of thorns,
Brutal violence,
And went to death with forgiveness on your lips.

You, Great Heart, have shamed the Powers that killed you:
Exposed violence,
Eschewed vengeance,
And by acceptance, defeated death.

In refusing to repay violence with violence,
You showed us the Path of Peace.
In forgiving your enemies and abusers,
You demonstrated love the world had never seen.

Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Lent 5 (Year B): Litany for Losing

Today's litany comes from the Lectionary text in John 12 for week 5 of Lent (Year B).


God, it’s an upside-down, unexpected world you’ve made.
We can’t assume we understand anything.
Your imagination is unfathomable;
We can spend our whole lives exploring your ways.

To gain status
We must become lowly.
To grow up
We must root down.
To be glorified
We must embrace death. (John 12:24)
To gain life
We must lose it. (John 12:25)
To gain assurance
We must embrace paradox.

We all face loss in this life:
   Loss of loved ones
   Loss of status
   Loss of fortune
   Loss of certainty
In loss we choose: hope or misery.

For in your unfathomable mystery, what was lost
Is found.
What was buried in death
Is planted.
What was useless
Is glorified.
What was old
Is new.
What was hopeless,
Is full of possibility.

Help us to remember the hopelessness of Christ
As he lay in the tomb;
How in his stillness, in his loss,
Lay the seeds of life.

Amen

Lent 4 (Year B): Litany for Sickness

This week's Lectionary selections include the account of Moses raising up a bronze serpent in the desert for the healing of the Hebrews, then the later comparison in John 3 of Christ being raised up; so that all who see him can receive healing.
 

God we are sick in so many ways -
     Some from trauma,
     Some from our own sinful ways,
     Some from hardship,
Not a one of us unaffected
By humanity’s broken choices.

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness (1)
So was Christ lifted up (2);
That, by seeing him and becoming awake to his work
We might be healed (3).
For in him there is no condemnation
But healing for the nations (4).

By grace we have been rescued
It is the gift of God (5) --
From sickness and death
To wholeness and life --
You have raised us up with Christ
And seated us with him in the heavenly places (6).

We thank you, God, for your steadfast love
For your wonderful works to humankind:
You sent out your word to heal us
And delivered us from destruction (7).
We were asleep through our sickness.
You are making us awake with Christ (8).

Amen

  1. Numbers 21:8

  2. John 3:14

  3. John 3:15

  4. John 3:16,17

  5. Ephesians 2:8

  6. Ephesians 2:5,6

  7. Psalm 107:20,21

  8. Ephesians 2:1,5