We Would Keep Lent

Lord, bring us close to your cross that we might know how you loved us and gave yourself for us.

We would keep Lent, Lord, in a way that is pleasing to you. As we follow you from the garden to Calvary, do not let us follow afar off, lest we deny you. Help us watch and pray with you that we may not fall into temptation.

Enlighten us that we may see by faith that you knelt in prayer for us, that you, the Holy One, were judged a criminal by unholy people for us, that you suffered the whiplashes of angry sinners as our sinless Savior, that you stumbled under the cross as our Suffering Servant, that you died as the Lamb of God in our stead and for our sake.

Lord Jesus, through it all help us hear in your prayer the single purpose for which you endured pain and death: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Amen

(from the Lutheran Book of Prayer)

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