Epiphany Prayers

Call to Worship
(Based on Psalm 72)

L: Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king's son.
P: May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.
L: May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness.
P: May all kings fall down before him, all nations give him service.
L: For he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper.
All: Come let us worship the King of kings and Lord of lords!

 

Opening Prayer

Creative God, you make all things new in heaven and on earth.
We come to you at the dawn of a new year with new desires and old fears, new decisions and old controversies, new dreams and old weaknesses.

Because you are the God of hope, we know that you create all the possibilities of the future.  Because you are a God of Love, we know that you accept all the mistakes of the past.

Because you are the God of our faith, we enter your gates with thanksgiving and praise, we come into your presence with gladness and a joyful noise, and we serve and bless you.  Amen.

An Epiphany Prayer

Heavenly Father, we celebrate with the wise men the heavenly light and the discovery of the Light of the World- Jesus the Christ.  God of Light, make us faithful. Give us light, O God, sufficient for each step of the way. Help us to spread the light you have given us. Help us to live our lives in accordance with your great commission to make disciples in those common everyday places.  Help children and mothers and fathers to know what is enough and to be satisfied with what is enough - enough of food, clothing, shelter, things, and even revelation. Help us to live with what you give us and to give away what we have in abundance; in Christ's name. Amen.

Prayer of Illunination

Send, o God, into the darkness of this troubled world,
the light of your Son.
Let the star of your hope touch the minds of all people
with the bright beams of mercy and truth;
and so direct our steps that we may ever walk in the way revealed to us,
as the shepherds of Bethlehem walked with joy
to the manger where he dwelled,
who now and ever reigns in our hearts, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Prayer for Year's End
Barry in OH

O God beyond every calendar, and every season under the Sun, how foolish we can be with our obsessions and fixations on time, its courses, vagaries, and purposes. Speak to us with power and wisdom from your secret dwelling beyond time, which has a door in every heart, and a window in every soul. Help us see with utter clarity how you are at work in our lives, through our lives, with our lives, giving birth to the fullness of time and the goodness of creation. Give us strength and courage to follow Christ Jesus, all the time, for the sake of our time, until the end of our time. Amen

 

Excerpt from the Canticle of Light and Darkness:

We look for light but find darkness,
For brightness, but walk in gloom.

We grope like those who have no eyes;
We stumble at noon as in the twilight.

Blessed be your name, O God, for ever.
You reveal deep and mysterious things;
You are light and in you is no darkness.

Our darkness is passing away
and already the true light is shining.

 

Closing Prayer

O God, you made of one blood all nations and, by a star in the East, revealed to all peoples him whose name is Emmanuel.  Enable us who know your presence with us so to proclaim his unsearchable riches that all may come to his light and bow before the brightness of his rising, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.