NIGHT PRAYER: Friday 3/13

For several years I've posted a weekly Lenten series on a selected topic.  This year, on Fridays, I'll be featuring songs we sing to honor the Cross of Jesus. (Here are links to the first and second and third posts in this series.)  The very fact that we sing of the Cross on which Jesus died is a testimony to our faith and belief that in his suffering we find our healing and our life...  Tonight's selection is Faithful Cross by fellow Rory Cooney and Tom Kendzia.  I find Cooney's lyrics here to be among the finest I've encountered in contemporary church music...

I suggest you pray with the song first, and then move on to my Night Prayer...  

If a video doesn't appear below, click here! 

 

Night Prayer

These lyrics remind us, Lord:

    how present is your Cross

    in our lives and in the tragic news

    that wounds our hearts and yours...

 

The mighty arm of Caesar 

still dares to claim your name

to defend its iron arrows 

    launched with lusty, lethal power,

    mingling human blood and spirit 

    with the mud of mother earth...

 

Your kingship, Lord, is humble,

your reign, a life of service:

    you stoop to wash our dusty feet

    to teach us now to kneel 

    and tend our neighbors' many needs...

 

Your prophet's cry still echoes, Lord,

still shouts above the fray:

    "Beat your weapons into farm tools

    and go out into the fields

    to yield a crop of justice

    and a harvest of my peace..."     

 

Your Cross reveals your wisdom, Lord,

it's gilded with your love:

    it shines with grace, 

    with light undimmed,

    enlightening every heart...

 

On the Cross you told our story

with redeeming, saving grace:

    help us now to lay down our lives,

    to let go our greed and pride,

    to surrender to your love, Lord,

    to the victory you have won... 

   

Protect us, Lord, while we're awake

    and watch over us while we sleep

that awake, we might keep watch with you

    and asleep rest in your peace...

 

Amen. 

 

Perhaps you'd like to pray the song a second time...

    If a video doesn't appear below, click here!  

 

 

1. Who shall dare to sing the praises

Of the gallows tree whose limbs

Bore the carpenter of Nazareth,

Tree whose wood was borne by him?

Sing as his dear blood and spirit,

Mingled with the air and earth,

Make the tree a new creation,

Recreate the universe.

 

2. Mighty is the arm of Caesar

Who to God's own name pretends,

Strong the iron of the arrow,

Stronger still the oak that bends.

Christ's the empire unlike others,

All must put away the sword.

Here the king becomes the servant,

He who washes feet is Lord.

 

Rising from the earth to heaven,

Stretched between the mud and stars,

Terrible in pain and purpose,

Beautiful the wooden bars.

Rooted in the glades of Eden,

Tree that shaped the saving ark,

Light your frail human burden:

He the light undimmed by dark.

 

3. "Better one life than the nation,"

Argue those who plot and arm.

Guarding their civilization:

Violence and threats of harm.

Thus are prophets' voices silenced.

Privilege that fears its loss

Summons servant of the violence,

Forges nails, and builds the cross.

 

4. Love's astounding transformation

Gilds the instrument of death,

Love confounds sophistication,

Takes away the cynic's breath

Ever shunning power and glory,

Love has stripped the cross of shame,

So God saved the human story,

Taking human flesh and name.

 

5. Lifted up, his heart laid open,

Robbed of breath, his body torn,

Still his arms recall the rainbow

Promising a world reborn.

Gazing on the cross, look upward,

Til his heart arrests the glance,

And his arms direct us outward

To the world, with healing hands.

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