Approach and confession prayer 28 February 2021

Lord

we’re weary

we long to praise your Holy Name

we long to celebrate the joy of knowing Christ Jesus

we long to gaze at your majestic presence

but it’s hard to feel you

to really know you

for this year, as we travel through Lent

in many levels it feels we’ve never left the Lent we entered last year

our Alleluias have been stifled

we don’t want our worship to just be going through the motions

truly, we long for it to honour you

to waft up to heaven as a pleasing fragrance

for it to be sweeter than honey

really we do

we long for the Holy Spirit to enter our hearts, fill us with awe and love and the whole presence of God

as we pray, as we meditate on your Word

we long for our stifled and hidden alleluias to burst forth

as snowdrops and crocii are bursting forth with a riot of colour out of the bare earth

assist us, God

come to us, Christ

bless us, Spirit

One God three in one and one in three

Holy, Blessed trinity

remind us of the covenant made to Abraham

a covenant we are inheritors of

remind us that, no matter how we feel

no matter how we feel distant from you

you are with us

your promises are true

including the promise, of forgiveness of sins to those who sincerely confess and repent

so we pause, to confess all the times we have failed,

on our own and in the company of others

to follow the path of Christ

longing to be forgiven

may we know, this day, the mercy and grace which is freedom from our sins

that we may genuinely worship this day

and continue to follow Jesus this Lent to the cross of our salvation

Amen