Pastoral Prayer for the fourth Sunday of Advent

Holy God:

We have journeyed with you to Bethlehem.  We are tired from the journey.  We have longed to see the Christ child.  With searching hearts we follow the star, we peer into the manger.

The preparations for the season have distracted our hearts from our purpose.  There are still many things yet to be done.  You have spoken to our hearts and we have made preparations for your coming to our lives, as well.  Many of the paths upon which you have led us have not been easy paths.  Repentance, expectation, and longing have taken their toll.

And now we near the end of the Advent journey.  We wonder if your visitation is a fairy tale.  We hear the words that you are coming again, that you are visiting us with your son and your salvation, we hear these words like Christmas songs we will soon pack up until next year.

As we look for your visitation, may we be surprised.  Surprised to find that you have been with us all along.  You have never abandoned your people.  You have been hard to find.  But you have been best seen by those who allowed you to reveal yourself.  

You are with us in our sicknesses and you are with us in our strength.  You are with us in our failures and you are with us in our triumphs.  You are with us in our families, in our grieving, in our fears.  You are with us in our decisions.  You are with us in our addictions.  You are with us in our confusion, in wisdom and folly.  You are with us in every attempt at a new start, every faltering act of love, every trembling beginning of reconciliation, every gift, every sleepless night, every dream deferred.

You have been with us all along.  Help us to see you, to recognize you.

Help us to find salvation in you. In every way that we can be saved, save us.  Amen.

Pastoral Prayer for Advent 1 (Expect)

Holy God:

We give you thanks and praise for all you have done for your people.  We thank you that you have revealed yourself in your son, that you have made  a way that we can come into new life, and that we can constantly be reshaped into your image and likeness.

We thank you for all the blessings of life, for family and health and peace, for provision and shelter and friendship.

As we enter into the season of Advent, we thank you also for what you have planned that we cannot know.  We thank you for the unexpected.  Thank you Father, for all you have planned that is beyond our comprehension.

Give us a spirit of holy expectation, a capability to live our lives with wide eyed wonder for the surprises you have in store for us.

We have grown accustomed to making our lives as routine as possible.  We have come to expect that what you will do is what you have always done, that what you will give is what you have always given, that who you will be to us is what you have been, that we will always be who we have always been, that we will always accomplish for your kingdom the kinds of things that we have always done.

You shocked the world and turned it upside down when you took flesh in Jesus and made a new covenant, when you visited the world as one us and the God who created all things became a part of creation.  

So shock us again.  Visit us in surprising and unexpected ways.  Give us a yearning for your visitation and a hunger to see what you will do in us.  Let your work of salvation in us be fresh.  Renew your calling upon our lives and use us in ways we never imagined.  give new life to our relationships.  Visit us again and do what only you can imagine.  Come, O come Emmanuel.

Amen.