Prayer for Newtown, CT by Andy McDonald

This week’s blog is a transcript of the beginning of the December 15 sermon at the Florida Hospital Church.  The prayer offered is on behalf of all those affected by the tragedy experienced this past Friday in Newtown, Connecticut.

Sermon:  “All I Want for Christmas Is…Joy” by Andy McDonald

Scripture:  Luke 2:10

Today’s sermon title is “All I Want for Christmas Is…Joy.”  Yesterday, a lone gunman short-circuited joy in Newtown, Connecticut, with the horrible tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary. The sadness, the loss, the inexplicable nature of the crime, the age of the victims, the proximity of so many young minds to the tragedy, the season of the year, all combine to compound the pain.  The guilt of those who are overwhelmed with joy that their children are safe while the neighbor or friend or workmate have just the opposite experience—these people all need our prayers.

I want us to continue our day of service by serving this distant community with our prayers.  Silently for a moment, pray for the people in Newtown, Connecticut, and for all of us across this country.  Pray for comfort, sanity in face of this crisis, the ability to frame random acts of cruelty without allowing them to define us. And then, after the silent prayers, I’ll pray for us corporately.  Let’s pray.

Father, we don’t understand.  You are the God of all creation.  Your intention for humanity in our creation was so different from these events, from this pain and suffering and hurt and senseless destruction. However we frame this, however these families and community closest to the tragedy frame this, please protect from the off-loading of this upon you.  Father, we sense, maybe more than ever, the significance of those often rushed-by words in the prayer your son taught his disciples—“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  That is what we want, and this isn’t it. 

We long for a day when sin will be no more, when the promise is fulfilled, and all things are made new and there is no more crying for all this is far behind us, and you will make all things new. Father, in our little spheres of influence, teach us how to usher in your will being done on earth as it is in heaven.  Show us how to love and to teach love, and to demonstrate and be love in this world that so desperately needs it.

Right now, we pray for comfort and strength, for healing and forgiving, for some sense of hope to be ministered to the hurting people in our world through your Holy Spirit. All across this nation and around the world, restore the joy of your salvation and uphold us.  We recognize we have no hope outside of you, so we cast ourselves and all our cares on you, and we trust that you will make all things new.  In Jesus name we pray, Amen.