Epiphany 2

Lord and God,

You once confirmed a covenant and established witnesses to your holiness, for each tribe of your people. With oaths and promises you swore, priests and prophets, sacrifices and offerings you brought us near. On Sinai, your glory lay before us like a devouring cloud. Blood fell upon the alter, and blood fell upon us as we proclaimed that we would be obedient in everything you command.

When your son came to offer himself as an everlasting sacrifice, we again proclaimed our obedience. We wondered at the pronouncement of a betrayer; we proclaimed our devotion and following; we counted ourselves clean. Then we watched as you who alone loves the Lord and fulfills his law, you who alone commits his way to the Lord, you who alone has the law of God upon his heart and speaks in the fullness of wisdom; you, we pray, the Son of God, were found guilty, abandoned to the power of Sheol, disinherited, cut off. These things you did willingly, tasting the portion of the wicked, that we may always have yours. We who not only receive your bread, but take and eat and feast upon you, let us delight in your will and walk in your ways. Nourish us, we pray, to feast upon not bread alone, but the holiness of Christ, and his every word and command. Teach us to love, and we will be made obedience, by the obedience and mercy of the Savior.