Prayers for Remembrance Day
God of peace, mercy, justice and healing, this Remembrance Day:
We give thanks:
- for peace in Australia and New Zealand.
- for armed services personnel willing to put themselves in danger on our behalf to defend what is right.
- for important and hard-won freedoms defended in war.
We grieve:
- with those who have suffered loss through war.
- humanity’s repeated failure to prevent war.
We confess and ask for mercy:
- for the tribalism and hunger for exclusive power and control behind many present-day wars.
- for war propaganda that misuses God’s name and demonises and dehumanises our neighbours.
- for all the other terrible consequences of war.
We pray:
- for civilians caught up in war and for efforts to help them.
- for servicemen and women on deployment and families awaiting their safe return home.
- for chaplains in parliaments and defence forces, that they may be a force for good.
- for wise, responsible and God-fearing leaders to decide if and how nations take part in war.
- for greater commitment to resolving disagreements through good-faith negotiations.
- for efforts to conduct war ethically when it cannot be avoided.
- for just settlements to end wars currently going on around the world.
- for people trying to recover from war and for all who help them.
- for efforts to address war crimes.
- that the time will come soon when God will dwell among us and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.
Pastor Paul SmithChurchwide Bishop, Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand
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