This Day of Descent
In our tradition, Pentecost always includes Holy Communion as part of our time of gathered worship.
Holy One,
We revel in this day of descent, when your promises rang true and your presence, your very Spirit, rested upon your people, filling them and permeating them to their core. As exciting as that promise is, because we too participate in the blessing of receiving your Spirit, we confess that it is also difficult to comprehend.
For millennia, you chose to dwell in a place, and now your dwelling place, your temple, is us. In your infinite, perfect wisdom, you chose us as vessels of your presence and power.
While our first and most honest questions may be, “Why? Why me? Why us?” we are reminded that the way you see us is not how we might see ourselves. It is not through the lens of our sin and shame. No, you see us as pure, cleansed, restored, made new, and marked by the blood of your new covenant of grace.
You are with us in your perfect love, because of your perfect love. And we are witnesses to a new hope, good news, that proclaims that you, Jesus, have set humanity free.
It is the truth of your presence that courses through us, fanning the embers of our faith, filling our hearts with hope, and giving us your vision of all things being made new again. Thank you, God, that this messy, broken world we inhabit will not always be this way. Thank you that death will end. Hatred will end. Jealousy, envy, bitterness, greed, resentment, fear, and the darkness of sin will be no more.
Until that day, as a great multitude clothed in Your power, we co-labor alongside You. We accept the invitation to draw ever near, inviting people to live light and free in Your unforced rhythms of grace. Your urgency replaces our impatience. Your holy discontent consumes our selfish anger. Your vision of justice becomes our own. And we learn to live from real, abiding rest.
Today, as we draw nearer to the Table of Holy Communion, we ask that you prepare our hearts. Strengthen us to linger before you, allowing your affectionate presence to reshape all of who we are as individuals and as a community.
Amen.