As our family gathers greenery for a wreath, searches for candles in the cupboard, and assembles the prayers we will use each week, I have to admit…I’m ready to be done with this year!
But unlike the secular new year filled with champaign and kisses, confetti and fireworks, and optimistic personal resolutions, Advent is an opportunity to confront the darkness in our world.
And we have plenty of darkness to confront at the end of 2020.
Finding words to name all that is wrong—without rushing to salvation but still holding hope that God will come—can be hard. We want all to be well, we want peace and joy and love to reign. But that is not the part of the story in which we find ourselves. We are in the middle still, where there is much suffering, much evil, and still-gathering darkness.
Rather than looking away from all that is too terrible or too hard or too uncomfortable, I invite you to join our family in the following prayer (compiled from the Hebrew prophets) this Advent season, as we wait in the darkness, as we cry out for salvation, and as we continue in that certain hope that God will rend the heavens and come down among us.
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Family Prayers for Advent in 2020
During this time of increasing darkness and waiting, we pray for our suffering and broken world…
Your holy cities have become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Your people are scattered, and we war among ourselves. And so we cry out,
Come Lord Jesus
People walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices, sitting inside tombs, and spending the night in secret places. And so we pray,
Come Lord Jesus
The land is filled with silver and gold, with no end to its treasures. The land filled with horses, with no end to its chariots. The land filled with idols: people bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made. And so we cry out,
Come Lord Jesus
The righteous are sold for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. People trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and push the afflicted out of the way. And so we pray,
Come Lord Jesus
Father and mother are treated with with contempt; the foreigner is oppressed, the orphan and the widow mistreated. And so we cry out,
Come Lord Jesus
The earth is plagued by floods and fire, smoke and darkness. The mountains fall into the heart of the sea, the waters roar and foam, and the mountains quake with their surging. And so we pray,
Come Lord Jesus
The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up; the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the olive oil fails. Farmers despair, vine growers wail, grieving for the wheat and barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed. And so we cry out,
Come Lord Jesus
People eat their food in anxiety and drink their water in despair, fearing the land will be stripped of everything in it because of the violence of all who live there. And so we pray,
Come Lord Jesus
People’s souls are full of troubles, and their life draws near to Sheol. They are counted among those who go down to the Pit, like those who have no help, like those forsaken among the dead. And so we cry out,
How long, O Lord, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth? How long, O LORD, must we call for help but You do not hear, or cry out, “Violence!” but You do not save?
Come and judge between the nations. Settle disputes for many peoples. Then we might beat our swords into plowshares, and our spears into pruning hooks. Then nation will not lift up sword against nation, then we will not learn war any more.