Christmas Psalms: Singing to the King

Pastor here at Cheyenne Mountain Presbyterian Church, and it's my joy to bring God's Word

to you.

Special welcome if you are new or visiting with us.

We're glad you're here, and we're glad you're here not because we are interested in filling

more and more seats, but because we are following Jesus together as one community, and we're

convinced as we're following after Jesus that there's no one so good that they don't need

God's grace, and no one so bad that they can't have it.

And so we believe that everyone who's here, everyone in the world, needs to hear what

God has to say to them.

As Paul mentioned earlier, we've had two deaths this week in our church community.

First, our founding pastor, Bob Stewart, who was the man who helped start this church over

20 years ago, and I had the privilege of meeting his wife, Dina.

I never had the opportunity to meet Bob, but just keep them in your prayers.

Their hope is our hope, the hope of the resurrection.

And of course, we also had our beloved deacon, Stephen Clark, in a very short battle with cancer

on Thursday.

And so, first of all, I want to make sure I let you all know that we are going to have

a memorial service here at 6.30 this Wednesday at the church.

And so I would encourage all of you to be there.

I'd love to see all of you there when we, if you were here, when we went through the book

of Ruth, we talked about the difference between thick and thin communities.

And one of the things that makes a thick community a thick community is that we are together, we're

with each other in painful times.

And it is painful.

Death is painful and it's brutal.

And the reason it's painful and it's brutal is because it's unnatural.

We're never, we weren't made to die.

We weren't designed to die.

And that's not the way that God put this world together.

And so when we encounter death, it, it jars us, whether we've encountered it many times

before, whether it's for the first time.

And so just ask that all of you, if you're able, come and join us on Wednesday as we remember

Stephen and celebrate his life.

And it is that, it's that reality of death that is part of the tension that we, we experience

at Advent.

Remember we talked last week about the season of the Advent, the fact that we are in it

right now.

And Advent simply comes from a Latin word that means to come or to arrive.

And so we celebrate at Advent the fact that Jesus did come and he did arrive here on this

earth.

But the tension comes in the fact that while he did arrive, he is not here with us right

now physically.

He went back up into heaven.

And so we're also waiting for him to come and arrive again.

And Advent then is, is a season that reminds us of what's true of the entire Christian life,

that we are always looking back and celebrating what God has done in the past.

And we take hope from that, take confidence from that.

God has made a down payment, so to speak.

He's put down earnest money, what he plans to do.

But then we're always looking forward to what he is going to do in the future.

We're looking forward to when he is going to finally and fully defeat death.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that death is the last and final enemy.

And so that's the tension that we find ourselves in Advent.

We're always looking back and looking forward.

You might remember I talked about Christians as people who are, in a sense, always crossing

the street because we're always looking left and looking right.

We're always remembering the past and the future as we live in the present.

We had another death this week in our nation.

If you've been following the news, you know that George H.W. Bush, the elder, passed away.

And, of course, it's a sad time for us as a nation.

It's also something beautiful that I love when a president passes away just because we get

to see both sides of the aisle come together and get to see tributes.

People remember what was good and what was helpful and well about someone.

We hear it from Democrats and Republicans because this is a time when we come together as a nation.

And so whatever you think about George H.W., whether you liked him as a president, whether

you didn't like him, whether you were not born yet, it highlights one thing for us, which

is that we need, we desire, we long for good leaders, we want good leaders, we celebrate

good leaders, we want people to lead us who look out for others' interests more than their

own, we want people who are humble, who serve.

We need leaders.

We don't just long for them, but we need them.

We need people who will help us work and walk towards the future.

And so you might wonder, what does George H.W. Bush have to do with Advent?

Well, we don't have kings in the U.S., we have presidents, but it's the closest that we

get.

And as we think about Christmas, Jesus is also a king.

We talked last week in the Psalms about our sorrow and the fact that we look at Jesus coming

to give us hope in the midst of that, but that's not the only thing we look to.

We also look to Jesus as our king.

If you were with us in the book of Matthew, this will be a review, so I'll go quickly,

but we're told over and over, attended to and alluded to, that Jesus is the great king.

We find out in the book of Matthew, the very first verse, which is a way of saying he is

the one who's come to fulfill all the promises that God has given about a future and great

king.

This then leads straight into a genealogy in the book of Matthew, and this genealogy is

filled with kings.

So if we had any doubt that Jesus was going to be a king, we have that.

And then we read just this morning in our New Testament reading that why it's the king

of the Jews that they're seeking.

And they come bringing him gifts that are fitting for a king.

And so part of the tension that we experience in Advent is that we are living under imperfect,

flawed, sometimes good, but sometimes evil, sometimes wicked leadership.

And so that's part of the longing that we feel.

It's not wrong to want good leaders.

It's part of how God designed us.

It's part of how he made us.

And yet we often live in a world where we suffer under leadership that is at best imperfect

and at worst wicked or evil.

And so part of what we're looking forward to, part of what we're longing for in Advent

is we're longing for a king.

We're longing for a good and true and righteous king that will do what is right and rule in

ways that are right.

And so this is part of the prophecy.

This is what we see in the Old Testament that talks about Jesus.

It talks about him as this king.

In Isaiah chapter 9, it says,

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

And so we are celebrating the coming of a king when we look back to Jesus' first coming.

And we are anticipating the final coming and reign of a king when we look to his second coming.

And so that's where we're going to be in the Psalms this morning.

Last week we were in Psalm 13.

It was a psalm of lament.

I promise you we're not going to be in lament for all of Advent.

And so we're not going to say how long every single psalm.

And a royal psalm would have been a song sung by the Old Testament people of Israel to the king.

We should talk to God.

God gave his people models of how they should pray about their leaders, about their kings.

Real prayers about real kings, but they're also prayers of longing.

Because we're going to see in this psalm that there are things that are fulfilled in a man.

They have to be fulfilled in someone who's greater.

And so we're in Psalm 72.

Remember that this is God's word.

And God tells us,

Verse 5.

God told us to,

Verse 8.

May he have dominion from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.

May desert tribes bow down before him and his enemies lick the dust.

May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render him tribute.

May the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts.

May all kings fall down before him.

All nations serve him.

Verse 12.

Verse 15.

And may people blossom in the cities like the grass of the field.

May his name endure forever.

His fame continue as long as the sun.

May people be blessed in him.

All nations call him blessed.

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things.

Verse 19.

May the prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.

Amen.

Please pray with me as we come to this portion of God's word.

Dear Father in heaven, we thank you for your word that gives us life.

And so we ask that you would do that now.

That you would send your word to do what you did at the beginning of creation where you brought something out of nothing.

And you brought dead things to life.

We ask that you would do that for us.

That you would take the parts of us that are hard and hardened.

That are numb.

That are confused.

That you'd send your word.

And you'd give us life.

We ask this in the name of your son.

Amen.

So I want us to ask one, maybe two questions as we look at this psalm.

First, what sort of world is Jesus meant to bring?

I think what kind of king is he supposed to be?

What kind of king is he meant to be?

And another way of asking that question would be,

why, let's say that you are someone who has questions or doubts about Christianity.

Why should you desperately want Christianity to be true?

What sort of world, what sort of kingdom is Jesus supposed to bring?

And why would you desperately want that kingdom, even if you don't believe in it?

What is so good and so wonderful about Jesus as our king?

We talked last week about the importance of repetition in the psalms and really in the Bible in general.

And we saw in Psalm 13 that the phrase, how long, was repeated four times as a way of underscoring and highlighting what was so important to the psalmist.

And so did you notice this time, were you watching for what was repeated over and over?

In the first couple of verses we see justice and righteousness repeated over and over.

We see justice in verses 1 and 2 twice and then righteousness occurs three times in a row, verses 1, 2, and 3.

And so we find out that this king, what the greatest part of his kingdom is going to be, the very foundation,

what comes before what we'll see later, what comes before prosperity, what comes before compassion,

what comes before his defense of the poor.

And this king is going to do all of those things.

But what comes before all of them is his justice and his righteousness.

That there is nothing that can stand except on those foundations.

And so that is what is most important for this king that is going to come,

that he would be a just king and a righteous king.

Now when we talk about justice, when the Bible thinks about justice,

it's pretty similar to what we would think about in our world.

If you're familiar with the famous images of Lady Justice,

what is it that she always has besides the scales?

She always has a blindfold.

Because she is not going to give preference to the poor or the rich.

She's not going to look and treat someone differently than another person.

And so this is why later we're going to see that this king is a defender of the poor.

He's not someone that in this situation gives preference to the rich, to the powerful.

Now there are other situations where someone in power might be tempted to give preference

to someone who is poor or defenseless, but that's not usually the case.

And especially in the ancient world, it would have been the temptation for any leader or ruler

to give a preference to someone who is powerful, who had influence.

And so we find out that this ruler, the foundation of everything comes

and the ability for him to bring true justice.

He's able to look and see everything as it is without giving preference or bias.

But that justice, that looking at everything without preference or bias

is also governed by righteousness.

And this righteousness in the Old Testament and the New Testament

would have been simply the things that God loves.

The king in the Old Testament would have been someone who was supposed to learn everything

they could about God and his ways.

In fact, we're told at one point in the Old Testament that the king is supposed to write

down his own copy of God's law by hand so that he knows it so well.

And then he's meant to represent God to his people.

And so this is someone who's not just just, but they're in line with everything God's in line with.

They love everything that God loves.

They understand the way that God has made the world, and they want the world to continue in that way.

And that's the foundation for everything that they do.

And that's where the house here of this king is built.

The foundation is going to be justice and righteousness.

And then we see that this is not something that is clinical or cold.

It's not justice or righteousness that holds us at a distance.

But it's justice and righteousness that bears fruit.

And we immediately see the kind of fruit that it bears.

Verse 3, the mountains are going to bear prosperity for the people and the hills.

So the first thing that's going to come when God's ways are followed

is that God's people are going to see this king doing over and over.

Verse 4, he's going to defend the cause of the poor of the people.

He's going to deliver the needy and crush the oppressor.

So this justice that's going to come, this righteousness,

it's going to lead to blessing for God's people.

That's going to be the natural fruit, the natural result of justice and righteousness.

But it's also going to lead to people who are otherwise oppressed.

They're going to be protected instead.

People who are poor and needy are going to be provided for.

And there's going to be a double side.

There's always two sides to the defending of the poor,

and that's the crushing of the oppressor.

And so this is not just a warm and kind king,

but this is a king who's willing to do what has to be done to destroy evil.

So while he loves righteousness, and that means prosperity,

the promoting of everything that God loves,

it also means that he hates wickedness.

And so this is the foundation.

This is the kind of king that God's people are praying for.

This is the kind of king that we'll see in a minute is going to find his ultimate fulfillment only in Jesus.

Because that's the only person who's going to be able to do what we see in verses 5 and 11.

Well, let's stop here for a second.

We see several things right off the bat.

First, it is right and good for us to pray for our leaders.

While this psalm finds its fulfillment in Jesus,

it was given to God's people to pray for their actual kings in actual space and actual time.

So this was something that they would have prayed in their worship services,

asking God to actually bless the king that was there with them now.

There's a lot of talk all the time in the Christian world about politics and what we should do about it.

And there are people on one side who will throw stones at people on the other.

Some people believe that politics is something we need to rush into.

Other people believe politics is something we need to stay away from.

Here, I'm just going to stick with what this psalm says.

We need good leaders.

We need leaders who love justice and righteousness.

And it's not wrong for us to long for that.

It's not wrong for us to want that.

God has given us a psalm in his word where we do just that.

And so it's appropriate for us to pray for the people that God puts over us.

We see the same thing in the New Testament.

I believe it's in 1 Timothy 2.

Paul tells the church that they should be praying for the people who have leadership over them.

But secondly, I want you to imagine the best leader that you can think of.

It might be a parent who always knows exactly how to settle disputes.

Never prefers one child over the other but has wisdom about how to divide and encourage but also how to punish.

It could be a CEO or a leader who knows how to put his people ahead of him.

Who does what we see in verse 4.

He defends the cause of the poor and needy.

Delivers the oppressor.

I think of Jim Senegal.

He's the former CEO of Costco.

And he was famous for accepting a salary that was exponentially lower than that of other CEOs who had a status similar to his.

If you compared him to other stores that were similar in size, he made a salary that was probably three or four times less.

And on top of that, he became known for paying his employees a higher rate than anyone else in their whole industry.

And I'm going to head in an opposite direction than what I usually do with an illustration.

This king in verses 1 through 4 is going to make Jim Senegal seem very, very boring.

He's going to make the greatest parent, the greatest human leader that we can think of seem just commonplace.

Maybe even not quite up to the standard.

And so another way of saying it is this.

Think of a good and righteous leader that's a person.

And then think this.

How much greater and better must God be as a king?

If we can see and find human examples of kingship that are good and just and right,

and that's what the psalmist is praying for here,

how much greater must Jesus be as a king?

If he is the king of kings and lord of lords,

how much more just?

How much more righteous?

How much wiser?

If Jim Senegal can bring prosperity to Costco,

how much prosperity can this king bring?

How much more?

And so as we look at good kings, at good rulers,

we can say, how much more will Jesus be than that?

And as we look at bad kings and bad rulers,

we can long for Jesus knowing that he's going to come

and do what we see here in verses 1 through 4.

Now, I said that this was a prayer for real kings

that also looked towards the ultimate king,

and that's what we're going to see in verses 5 through 11.

We see that this is going to be a king not just founding his rule

and reign in righteousness and justice,

but he's going to be a king everywhere, all the time, over everyone.

That's basically the summary of verses 5 through 11.

He's going to rule while the sun endures and as long as the moon,

also known as a really long time,

throughout all generations, also known as forever.

He's going to have dominion from sea to sea

and from the river to the ends of the earth, verse 9,

also known as everywhere.

These images we have of desert tribes coming down before him,

these kings of Tarshish and the coastlands,

this is the known world.

This is what the psalmist knows.

And so he's saying,

as far away as I know, people are going to come to this king.

We see that.

We saw that in our New Testament reading today,

that when the Magi are coming,

they are coming to worship God as a king,

worshiping Jesus,

and they are coming from far away.

And so they're just a small taste,

they're just a small sampling

of what is going to ultimately be fulfilled in this greatest king.

Just as the Magi came from a far away land,

everyone is going to come to this king from every land.

He's going to rule forever,

and he is going to rule over everyone.

And so that's where we see that this is a king

who cannot be seen and found in an earthly man.

This is how we see and know that this king is coming,

and it's going to be more than just a good CEO,

a good ruler, a good president,

a good father, a good mother.

This is going to be an even greater king.

Now, if you think that this sounds a little far-fetched,

so we just think about this on the face, right?

Jesus is someone who came,

we celebrate him in the past.

It would be tempting to think,

okay, this sounds a little bit strange, Matthew.

You believe that this man who came as a baby 2,000 years ago

is also going to come back and return to the earth,

and he's going to fulfill our hopes for good leadership.

And so I'll ask you a question.

Which requires greater faith?

To believe that Jesus is going to come back

and be our great king and restore everything?

Does that require greater faith?

Or does it require greater faith to believe

what many people believe today,

that somehow we as people are going to be able

to create this kind of world?

Which is there more evidence of?

Is there more evidence of our capacity as human beings

to create a perfect world of justice and righteousness?

Or is there more evidence that Jesus could come back

and create a perfect world of justice and righteousness?

I'll make a bold claim.

There is no proof that we as human beings

are going to be able to create a world

of perfect justice and righteousness.

There's no proof in the history of the world.

There's no proof right now.

There's no proof that we can look to.

However, we do have reason to hope in Jesus as our king.

What we're celebrating in Advent

is that Jesus actually came as an actual man 2,000 years ago.

That he lived a perfect life on this earth.

That he then died the death that we should have died.

That he died.

And after that, he rose from the dead.

And that's not a pie-in-the-sky belief.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15

that there were hundreds of witnesses

who saw Jesus after he rose from the dead.

And he was writing this at a time

where many of those witnesses would have been still alive.

And so the point is,

if you don't believe me right now in the first century,

you should go ask some of those people.

So this psalm presents to us

the greatest and not just the greatest,

but the only fulfillment of a longing

that God has put in our hearts.

And that is the longing for true justice

and true righteousness.

For a king that is actually going to

put his people above himself.

And Jesus is our best and greatest hope for that.

In his coming, in his first coming

that we celebrate at Advent,

in his death and his resurrection,

he put down what we could call earnest money.

He made a down payment.

He did enough to show us

that he was not just serious,

but he had the ability to do

what he now promises us he will do.

If someone can rise again from the dead,

then I don't have a problem believing their claim.

That they're going to come back again.

That is the down payment, the earnest money,

the proof that God has given us.

That this is where we are going to find

the fulfillment of our longing

for a true and perfect king.

It's in Jesus.

Now there's a distrust that we have of authority.

There's a dislike that we have of it.

That's for multiple reasons.

So some of it's for good reason, right?

Some of us have experienced,

probably all of us have experienced

bad authority, imperfect authority.

Whether it's rulers or parents

or teachers or officials of any sort,

we've encountered someone

who cared more about their own needs

than our needs.

So there are right reasons

that we distrust authority.

There's also wrong reasons, right?

We're sinful people,

and so we don't like even a good authority.

We don't like someone telling us

what we need to do.

We don't like someone telling us

that we're wrong.

So there's good and bad reasons

for distrusting authority.

What this psalm is telling us

is that there is going to be a king

who is only a life-giving authority.

That this king is going to be

someone who will have no good reason

not to trust and love.

This will be someone who puts,

as we talked about in Philippians,

others' interests ahead of his own.

But one of my favorite definitions

of perfect authority

comes from a man who puts it like this.

The greatest authority,

the greatest leader,

is someone who cares more about you,

not just more than...

They don't just care more about you

than they care about themselves.

They care more about you

than you care about yourself.

They don't just care more about you

than about themselves.

They care more about you

than you know how to care for yourself.

And this is what the just

and righteous king does

because he wants righteousness

and justice for you

even when you don't.

He wants everything good

that God has for his people

even when we don't.

And so that's what we see in this king.

We see not just that he's going to rule

everywhere over everything,

but then we see he's going to be

a different kind of king

in verses 12 through 14.

He's going to be a king

who delivers the needy and the poor.

He's going to have pity

on the weak and the needy.

He's going to deliver

from oppression and violence.

You notice that 4

at the beginning of verse 12?

That's telling us

this is the reason

he's going to be the king

over everything

and the king everywhere.

Now if we naturally think

of someone who's going to be

the king everywhere

over everything,

we might think of someone

like Alexander the Great,

someone who has great military skill

or prowess,

someone who's a large personality.

You might say he's going to rule

everything over everywhere

because he's unstoppable.

Or he's going to rule

over everything everywhere

because of his strength

of personality.

But here we have

a very different 4.

He's going to rule

over everything everywhere

because, wait for it,

he delivers the needy

when he calls.

And the poor,

he has pity on the weak.

In other words,

what's going to take this king

and thrust him

to the greatest place

and give him

the ultimate authority

is not going to be

his strength of personality.

It's not going to be

his military prowess.

It's going to be

because he's going to save

the people who are crushed.

That's what we saw

in Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

It's Christ's humility.

That's the reason

that God gives him

the name that's above

every other name.

But it's also what we see

in the story of Advent.

We have a king

who comes and is born

in a manger

rather than a palace.

We have a king

who doesn't come

and conquer his enemies,

but he lets them

kill him instead.

When he rides into the city

that he's supposed

to be a king over,

he doesn't come

on a war horse.

Instead,

he comes on a donkey.

And so this is what

Paul tells us about

in 1 Corinthians.

He says that the gospel

is foolishness.

And what he means

is that,

as one person has put it,

he means that Jesus

takes an instrument

of torture

and he turns it

into an instrument

of salvation.

And so this greatest king,

this great authority

that we long for

is going to be

the great king

for reasons different

than any other king.

He's going to be

the great king

because of his deliverance

of the needy.

That's how he's going

to bring about

his justice

and his righteousness.

That's what's going

to bring prosperity.

And so while this is

a psalm

that is about

an earthly king,

it looks for its

fulfillment

in a heavenly king.

And so as we look

through in verses

1 through 4,

first we see

that this king

needs justice

and righteousness,

righteousness,

but he's also a king

that takes the penalty

of justice

and righteousness

on himself.

That while he upholds

justice and righteousness,

the way that he does it

is by dying,

by taking the penalty

of justice

and righteousness.

And so he's a righteous king

who gives us

his righteousness.

He's a king,

in verse 4,

who crushes his enemies,

but he's also a king

who lets his enemies

crush him.

For the sake

of his people.

And in verse 17,

we see an echo,

if you're familiar

with the Bible,

an echo of what we saw

in Genesis.

It says,

May his name

endure forever.

His fame continue

as long as the sun.

May people be blessed

in him,

and all nations

call him blessed.

How are all nations

supposed to be blessed

in this king?

This is the promise

that was given

to Abraham,

that all nations

would be blessed

through him.

And the reason

the way

that all nations

were going to be blessed

through Abraham

was because Abraham's line

was going to lead

to King David,

who was then going

to lead to Jesus.

And so Jesus

was going to be a blessing

to all the nations

because he was going

to invite not just

the Jews,

but everyone else

to be a part

of his kingdom.

And so that's the promise.

That's the promise

that this psalm

holds out for us.

that Jesus is willing

to take the punishment

of justice for anyone

from any nation

who is willing

to come and join him,

willing to admit

that they need him,

that they need deliverance,

that we need a king

of justice

where we're not just.

We need a king

who doesn't come

showing his might

through force,

but through his willingness

to die.

And so what kind of king

is Jesus going to be?

He's going to be a king

who brings blessing

to all peoples,

to all people

who are willing

to trust in him.

And why should we

desperately want

Christianity to be true?

Why should we desperately

want Jesus to be the king

even if we don't believe

right now that he is?

We can desperately want

Jesus to be king

because he is the only one

who is going to be able

to bring justice

and righteousness

on the earth.

He's the only one

who is capable

of fulfilling

everything that we long for

in our leaders,

in our world.

And so what does this

have to do with

Christmas and Advent?

One of my favorite stories

is the Chronicles of Narnia

and I know it's a little bit

of a cliche, I'm sorry.

I promise to only use

Narnia illustrations

very sparingly.

But growing up,

my dad would read them

to my brothers and I

and if you're familiar

with the Lion and the Witch

and the Wardrobe,

you know that they are

living at a time

where the white witch

is in control over Narnia.

And there's something

of a resistance that goes on.

The trees talk to each other

and you know that the beavers

are standing very strong

against the white witch

and her rule.

And one thing that's interesting

is the fact that they are

able to keep hope

and stay strong.

They've lived under

the white witch's rule

for a long time

and so how is it that they

are able to keep believing

even when there's a time

that's described as

always winter

but never Christmas?

Well, it's because

there's a prophecy.

And if you remember

the prophecy,

you know that what the beavers

hold on to,

what they cling to

is the knowledge

that one day

there is going to be

two sons of Adam

and two daughters of Eve

on the thrones

at Caer Paravel.

And they know

that when that happens

that is going to be

the time

when the white witch's

spell is over

when it's broken.

When she has power

no more.

And so even as they're

living in a world

where it feels like

it's always winter

and never Christmas

that prophecy

is what keeps them going.

It's what keeps them hoping.

Because they know

one day

Aslan is going to come back.

One day they are going

to sit on the thrones

and everything

will be made right.

And as they go

through the book

there comes a time

when they know

that those prophecy

has not been fulfilled.

Those people are not

sitting on the thrones yet.

And yet in this world

where it's always winter

and never Christmas

they run into

most surprisingly of all

Father Christmas.

And so they know

that the spell

is beginning to break.

The thrones are not

filled yet.

But Aslan is on the move.

And so what we do

when we look back

to Jesus' first coming

is we celebrate the fact

that the spell

is beginning to be broken.

That's what Paul

refers to as

the fullness of time.

But it's not over yet

but we have hope

because we look forward

to the time

when the great

and ultimate king

will come again.

And so as we see

the spell beginning

to break

we still have hope.

we can keep hoping

and longing

knowing that one day

the king

is going to come back.

He's going to come back

and make everything right.

And so that is how

we live with hope

between Jesus' two comings.

And that's how we live

in Advent.

Looking back.

Celebrating what God

has done.

And looking and longing

for the true king.

we're going to end

with the hymn

Jesus Shall Reign

and what you may not

know about this hymn

is that it is

drawn directly

from Psalm 72

but takes it

and applies it

to Jesus.

And so we're going to sing

that song to him now.

Before we do

please pray with me.

Dear Father in heaven

we thank you

that you are the true

and great king

and that you are

coming again.

we ask that you

would help us

to believe

and to hope

in you.

We ask this

in the name of your son.

Amen.