We live in fear and you tell us to be unafraid. You tell us, “Don’t fear.”

Grant that we might revisit your record and find you trustworthy. Anchor us in something deeper than our first, primitive reactions. Drop us into some penetrating truth that the world of death is a world on its way to a fitting close.

Open us to expectation for life even while we move toward Advent. Use us to bring life, to frustrate death the way Jesus did, to remind violence and all its  offspring that life still wins. In the strong name of the winner whose coming gives us hope.