Prayers for Worship
Lent 1
by Ron Gordon

Mark 1: 9-15

Collect: 

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, driven into the wilderness by the Spirit to face temptation, 
testing and struggle. You have overcome and are triumphant. Be for us a refuge and strength 
in all our trials so that your loving purposes may triumph in us and for the world; we ask in your name.  Amen.

Prayer:

Father God, your beloved Son with the full assurance of your approval, boldly faced the wilderness, 
its dangers and wonders.  He struggled with his mission to make known your loving purposes for the people 
you called to be your own. Guarded and guided by the Spirit he was triumphant 
and began his proclamation of the Gospel.  Glorious is the kingdom he proclaimed 
with its end of oppression and deliverance of the captives.

On our lack of repentance and our failure to believe the good news: Lord, have mercy.

Lord Jesus, your victory in the desert assures us that as you followed the way of the cross 
there were victories over evil in its many forms until its powers were broken on the cross, 
and you were raised triumphant forever.

On our lack of repentance and our failure to believe the good news:  Christ, have mercy.

Spirit who brings order out of chaos, and who with water brings new life to the body of Christ: 
grant that we may truly be the people of God here at this present time in the world: 
that we may struggle with all oppressing and dehumanising forces abroad in the world, 
and become signs of the in-breaking of the kingdom founded for us in Jesus Christ.

On our lack of repentance and our failure to believe the good news: Lord, have mercy.

Victorious indeed is he who strives with us and for us that all may know the gift of eternal life 
and enter the struggle for peace and justice in the world.

Holy and blessed is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen

© 2009 Ron Gordon (used with permission)

across the universe
by Jenn Gordon
 
Mark 1:9-15

through one immutable rend
in heaven’s curtained sphere
she descends upon you here

as rising you collide
in Jordan’s waters deep and wide
a voice speaks, pouring through the gash
of these ripped worlds
and blessing claims, names and re-frames

then she that bears you, births you
into enforced wilderness
and it becomes your task, your test,
you taste the tempter’s first but not his last caress
while angels wait
and forty days play long
and then, and only then,
the time is right for gospel song.

(Comments to Jenn at jennieg@labyrinth.net.au.)