To you, O God, we have run for safety, we run to the protection of the Almighty. We say, “You are our Defender and Protector. You are our God in whom we trust.”
“You will keep us safe from hidden dangers and deadly diseases – You are our refuge. Cover us with your wings and we will be safe in your shadow.”
When we are near you we are not afraid of the terror in the night or sudden attacks during the day. When we are near you we are not afraid of the pestilence that stalks in darkness nor the sudden death that lays waste at noon.
Jesus, you made the Most High your Defender – your protector – and He put his angels in charge of you and they held you with their hands. You trampled the lions and the snakes – the young lions and the crafty serpents. You defeated the roaring enemy in the road and the viper hidden in the weeds.
Though you were crucified, dead, and buried you were not defeated, you were not disappointed, you were not abandoned. You, Almighty God, maker of heaven and earth, giver of life, judge of the living and the dead, said, “Because he has set his love on me, I will deliver him. Because he trusts and relies on me, I will not forsake him. Because he has called upon me, I will answer him.” And, dear Jesus, death tried in vain to hold you down. A tomb, a boulder, a guard, a Roman empire, not even militant unbelief nor the very gates of hell could hold you because your Father, our God, said “I will deliver him.”
Oh God, our God, you have said to us, “I will save those who love me; I will protect those who acknowledge me as Lord.”
You have said, “When they call to me, I will answer them; when they are in trouble, I will be with them, rescue them, honor them, save them.”
And we believe you because of Jesus – the resurrected.
If we have never called on you before, we are calling on you now. If our voices have been too feeble, our faith too weak, or convictions too shallow, we beg you “help our unbelief.” Look on us in our distress. Holy Spirit make your presence known – sweep through our lives and over our little congregation – so we might courageously face whatever is before us – even if it be our Golgotha – because we have put our trust in you.
The distresses before us as a congregation, a city, a nation, and a world are many. Their effects are so apparent they do not need naming. Some distresses hunt us in the road, some curl at our feet ready to strike from their hiding places; others -- the indistinct shadows and unformed faces of unnamed fears -- stalk us in our dreams, and a very real but unseen pestilence seeks us in the very air we breathe.
Almighty God, today we have run to you for safety, we have run to you for protection. Like chicks gathered – huddling – under their mother’s wings we believe if we can only stay close all will be well. We need to be near, to feel your presence.
And not we alone. There are our sisters and our brothers whose homes are no more – camped in hotels and motels and under tents and tarps along the road. There are nurses and doctors who treat the sick and the those who scrub the halls of hospitals. There are those who wait tables, who make beds and clean houses, who repair cars. There are teachers and children – our children. All seeking refuge like so many chicks peeping and crying and racing about.
And there are those, even as we pray, who are facing their last and greatest challenge alone, cut off, in unfamiliar surroundings. Beyond the reach of family whose loving hands would stroke and soothe and comfort. Beyond hearing a cherished familiar voice of assurance.
Today we are gathered and yet not gathered – huddled in our upper rooms, doors closed, praying but not yet realizing the power of the resurrection, not yet grasping the significance of holy guarantees, timidly contemplating the world outside our doors. Today we have run to you for comfort because tomorrow we must start again bringing hope to sister and brother, to friend and family, to neighbor and service station attendant and grocery clerk.
Look into our anxious hearts we pray and see our anger – our fear – of both the known and the unknown, the seen and the unseen, and grant us your peace. We ask for no miracles, we ask only for what you have promised. We are bringing you our anxieties, guard our thinking, guard our feeling. Help us measure our lives in light of the resurrection, so that in the vast sweeping swirling chaotic darkness of our time that our confidence in you will not be shaken; and that we have courage — might be bringers of hope – a light at least bright enough for one more to find their way to shelter.
In the name of Jesus,
Amen.
— Written by Richard White for Sunday Jan. 10th, 2021