A Prayer to Prepare for Easter

This is a guest post from my good friend and colleague Dr. Randy Millwood, Church Services Consultant for the Maryland/Delaware Baptist Convention, FBC Frederick member, and best Real-Beard Santa Claus in the world.

He wrote it as an email to the ministers of BCMD for Maundy Thursday, but it speaks to our situation on this Holy Weekend and so I offer it to you, with the necessary alterations, to help you in your preparation for Resurrection Day.

In the Christian calendar, the Thursday of Holy Week is called Maundy Thursday – maundy from the Latin for mandate – “Now I am giving you a new commandment [a new mandate]: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” (John 13: 34-35 NLT)

This year the ‘clothes’ are different…not just the bonnets (as the song goes), or new outfits for the children, … but the way we clothe the Body of Christ.

As we step into this day, tonight, Good Friday, Sacred Saturday and Resurrection Sunday…we are not able to dress up the Body of Christ as we normally do. Special gatherings, meaningful traditions, majestic music … so many of the things we have come to see as these days are stripped from us this year.

What we are left with, however, are the most fundamental elements of the greatest Story ever told – we have the opportunity to walk with Christ and the disciples into prayer, service, remembering, crucifixion, death, a graveyard, and the fear and wonder of an empty tomb. And, we can do so at His pace instead of rushing from one event to the next!

And so, on this day, I wanted to invite you to push back a little from your laptop or phone and pray with me:

LORD, this Easter is unlike any we have ever known.

You call us to live Your life, follow where You have trod, be Your Presence in the streets of our towns and communities; to show compassion to the poor, support the weak, embrace the outcast, show others the path into Your Kingdom.

Yet our hearts are troubled, for we are overwhelmed by the task, too often deafened to Your promise to be with us wherever we might go, even when going becomes staying and connecting becomes virtual.

Forgive our timidity, grant us peace for the journey, and strength for the day, that we might demonstrate our love in the life we live and share with those who are at home with us, and those who we can touch through technology in these days.

When we meet those who are doubting and say nothing, forgive us.
When we meet those who need Your touch and do nothing, forgive us.
When we are called to take up Your cross and carry nothing, forgive us.

Breathe life into these bones, bring freedom to these lives, that we might declare with heart and soul and voice and creativity that You are our Lord and our God.

When we walk with You, in the light of Your love, it is Your glory seen, not ours.
When we talk of You to those whom we meet, it is Your words that speak, not ours.
When we serve people in need, it is Your hands that heal, not ours.
When we worship You and offer our lives, Your Name is glorified always, not ours.

What a privilege to serve, to share Your love through word and action.
What a joy to know that what we say can bring change in others.
What a blessing to see, hearts touched by the riches of Your Grace.
What a harvest will one day be, when seeds we sow now produce fruitfulness.

Thank You for the challenge. Thank You for the honor. Thank You for Your Presence.

In Christ,

Amen

[drawn from multiple sources]