This prayer was included in the latest Amos newsletter – there’s about 3-4 per year and you can sign up for them via the Amos Australia website.

Father, Son and Spirit,

Long ago you hovered over the chaos and the darkness

And out of it you brought order, harmony and beauty

Many years later you hung on a cross

And suffered all the weight of what’s wrong in the world

So that it might be redeemed, healed and restored.

___

While most people could see only a tomb

That from every angle looked permanently sealed,

You were at work on the inside,

Turning a temporary death into everlasting life.

How we miss your cues

And confuse your ways of working:

Forgive us and have mercy on us.

___

We hear echoes of our own greed and mistrust

Our own hatred and anger

Our longings for power and control

In the conflicts ongoing and expanding

In the Middle East

In Myanmar

Ukraine

Sudan

Forgive each one of us and have mercy on us all.

___

We ask you to hover once again

Over the chaos and darkness we’ve created

Turn it – as you did so long ago –

Into spaces of peace and beauty

Bend our weaponry into gardening tools

Convert our skills in killing, maiming and blowing things up

Into gifts that feed and nurture your earth and its people

___

Transform the darker portions of our hearts

Carve them into places of warmth and welcome

That fit the particular shape

Of the people we dislike, dismiss and discard.

Give us arms that embrace them and eyes that see them

With a measure of your steadfast, loving kindness.

___

Grant us strength and perseverance to roll back

The monoliths that seal the tombs of our time

So that we – and others – might see clearly

The quiet and impossible works

Of restoration, redemption and healing

You are already doing in our world

___

Makes us people of peace this Easter

People who can refashion moments that feel like death

Into occasions that breathe with life and hope

We mostly don’t know how to do this

But we know that your Spirit dwells in us

And we have confidence in your track record;

You’re good at this stuff.

___

So do it again, we ask,

And start here, today, with us.

In the name of Jesus,

Amen.