Among the prophet Isaiah’s messianic visions is a picture of God’s people, the church, as a house of prayer. Writing in unison with the LORD, Isaiah says,
“the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,
to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD,
to be his servants…
…even these I will bring to My Holy Mountain
And make them joyful in My House of Prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be
acceptable on My altar;
For My house will be called a house of prayer for
all peoples.”
(Isaiah 56:6-7)
Through the image of ourselves that the LORD paints for us in Isaiah, we pray for the church today with these adapted words from Ernest Campbell. Let us pray together,
Here, together, in this house of prayer, we pause to pray for ourselves, for the church.
Some of us carry a brokenness inside too deep for telling.
Some of us are madly in love with a past that can never be again.
Many of us are tired of trying to sustain the image of a self that no longer exists—or never did.
Not a few of us have grown hard and unmannerly from battling social wrongs, and we want to be civil again.
Others—more — of our number have become worldly wise and sophisticated at the expense of neglected prayer and a seldom-opened Bible, and we yearn to feel that oneness with you which marked our earlier years.
O Father whose name we bear,
you have loved us; love us still—
until our conflicts are resolved,
our imbalances are corrected,
and our sins, which are many, lose their appeal for us before
the beauty of your righteousness.
All this we pray in faith and with thanksgiving,
through Jesus Christ our LORD. Amen.