Here we stand, Lord,
utterly overwhelmed
by the sheer fullness of your love …
by your light shining in the darkness …
by your Incarnate Word
living among us …
loving us …
beyond our capacity to comprehend.
You promised it.
Your prophets foretold it.
Your messengers proclaimed it.
Even commoners from the fields declared it.
But like those who walked the streets of Bethlehem,
we find it difficult to welcome you …
to embrace your teaching …
to believe what we cannot touch with our own hands
or see with our own eyes
or hear with our own ear.
Perhaps, like Herod of Jerusalem,
we are confounded by the interest of foreign nations …
frightened by what we do not understand …
marred by our own insecurities …
jealous of a power we cannot harness.
Shine your healing,
transforming
light
into us,
and around us,
and through us,
O God.
Awaken us to your presence
in our lives …
to your continues pouring
of grace upon grace,
molding us
and shaping us …
past, present, and future …
into the children of God
you have called us to be,
that we may reflect that light
upon others,
through grace upon grace:
welcoming,
embracing,
declaring,
proclaiming,
LOVING
in all we say and do.
Amen.
Julie Gvillo is Commission Pastor (PCUSA) and Founder and Creative Executive Director of A Place of Grace. Julie shares liturgy written on RCL passages each week on her blog, Point of Contact: Where Life and Worship Intersect.
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