The following prayer is offered by Joshua Brockway, the Church of the Brethren’s director of Spiritual Life and Discipleship:
God of the empty tomb, whose life and resurrection we celebrate in this season of Easter, we are confronted by so much death–from the demise of thousands of nameless individuals to celebrations over the killing of notorious criminals–while knowing in our hearts that the death of one of your children is never a cause to rejoice.
As we gather proclaiming the truth of Easter, hear our wondering thoughts of the future, and our visions of your peace, so that our lives may reflect your way of life within a world falling into terror and death.
For it is in the confession of fears and hopes, anxiety and relief that the world knows us to be fully human and fully alive in you. Multiply our witness through our praise and service so that our prayers for “your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” might become manifest in our midst.
In the name of the one who died and yet rose again, Jesus the Christ, we pray. AMEN
I find the recent denominational statement good as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. A great deal of the Bush/Obama rationale for the Afghanistan war was that we had to get BinLaden. As in Iraq, that was a cover for the projection of American power in the world, military and otherwise. The debate on withdrawal from Afghanistan has been renewed in light of BinLaden’s murder, but I expect that there will be more stonewalling and justification for continued occupation. The statement should have done on to condemn the occupation, but its silence on the subject condones it.
As one badly injured by a human being that chose an evil path; I felt relief but a great sadness that the human family had to ‘ get rid of’ one whom we helped create. May the response be to make sure no child goes without knowing that there is a Christ who loves them and died for each one of us and we show his love through our love for each other. Many come from ‘ bad beginnings’ and do well in life; some end up filling our prisons. Often, those that do well know of someone who showed some kindness early in their lives. we are called to prevent any more ‘ monsters’ being created. i can’t help but think that at the final judgement; all of us will be asked to account for our part in the outcome of every individual. I can only say, I tried to show kindness, but this person’s soul was already hardened beyond reach ability by humans in 7/88 and in 1/89 he succeeded in getting rid of many of us and injuring others such as me. Few know about the attack, as the arrogance of many of our leaders was to be too embarrassed for being tricked? to protect the world and get him stopped before 2 wars and other attacks and the path to WWIII.