A Prayer for Japan

    Father in heaven you are the absolute Sovereign over the shaking of the earth.
    the rising of the sea, and the raging of the waves.  We tremble at your power and
    bow before your unsearchable inscrutable ways.  We cover our faces and kiss
    your omnipotent hand.  We fall helpless to the floor in prayer and feel how fragile
        the very ground is beneath our knees.

    O God, we humble ourselves under your holy majesty and repent.  In a moment---
       in the twinkling of an eye---we too could be swept away. We are not more
       deserving of firm ground than our fellowmen in Japan.  We too are flesh.  We
    have bodies and homes and cars and family and precious places.  We know that if
     we were treated according to our sins, who could stand? All of it would be gone
            in a moment.  So in this dark hour we turn against our sins, not against You.

    And we cry for mercy for Japan.  Mercy.  Father.  Not for what they or we deserve
                but mercy.

    May every heart-breaking loss--millions upon millions of losses--be healed by
         the wounded hands of the risen Christ.  You are not unacquainted with your
         creatures' pain.  You did not spare your own Son, but gave him up for us all.

         In Jesus you tasted loss.  In Jesus you shared the overwhelming flood of our
         sorrows and sufferings.  In Jesus you are a sympathetic Priest in the midst of our
                pain.

         Deal tenderly now, Father with this fragile people.  Woo them.  Save  them.

         And may the floods they so much dread make blessings upon their head.

         O let them not judge you with feeble sense, but trust you for your grace.  And so
                      behind the providence, soon find a smiling face.

            In Jesus' merciful name.  Amen.
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