Palm Sunday Prayer

Eternal God, our Father, we come to this time of prayer and yet we confess that are too often not ready for prayer. Our lips speak the words but our hearts are far from Thee. Come, Holy Spirit with Thy quickening power and kindle a flame of sacred love in these cold hearts of ours. Then we can both pray and live. This is our deepest need.

Today, our Father, we recall once more that first Holy Week through which our Saviour walked with such steadfastness, such love, such triumph. Bring its scenes before us! Strip it of the mere pious words and the sentimentality to which we are so prone when we speak of Him. Let us see His humanity - the reality of His suffering; the cruelty and injustice which were inflicted upon Him; His loneliness; His rejection; His pain from the crown of thorns, the lash of the whip, the hammering of the nails, the thrust of the spear; His death. But let us not forget that God was there - God in Christ, suffering and dying in love; blameless but taking all the blame; sinless, being made sin; just, yet suffering the penalty of the unjust; eternal, yet dying....all for us; wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities; healing us with His stripes - the perfect sacrifice made in love. We believe that when we really see His passion through our eyes that have been opened by the Holy Spirit, we will know why it is to Him we owe our life and breath, and all the joys we have. And when we come to Easter morning, we will know that He can make us triumph over death and save us from the grave.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for us. It is high - we cannot attain to it. But open us, O Lord, to the power and glory of the gospel. And may all those in their homes, in the hospitals, on the battlefields, in the school rooms and under the burden of living and the fear of dying, may all of us hear Thee saying, " I am the resurrection and the life; He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whoever believes in me shall never die."

We make this prayer in His name.