Church Prayers and Intercessions for Easter Day

Bidding: Risen Lord
Response: Be present in these needs

Lord, without your resurrection our faith would be empty and without hope. But you are alive, and we rejoice, dance and wonder in the mystery of your presence among us.
We pray for your church: free us from the shackles of guilt and legalism, and help us to proclaim the message of healing and forgiveness for which you died.
Risen Lord, Be present in these needs

Lord, your friends and disciples must have been utterly bereft at your death, with all their hope and purpose broken. Then you appeared to them in your risen form giving rise to more puzzlement and for some doubt. So we pray now for those who are puzzled about you and doubt that you lived and died for them.
Risen Lord, Be present in these needs

Lord, you rose again to bring new life and hope to all but many face the keen disappointment of broken hopes; lives damaged by broken relationships and broken trust; people with broken hearts; people in despair; bodies broken by torture; and spirits broken by injustice. So we pray for all subject to such brokenness that they will find new hope in you and that we may be willing messengers of such hope.
Risen Lord, Be present in these needs

We pray, Lord for broken communities, especially in countries of the Middle East, and we ask your forgiveness for our own apathy, and our desire to wash our hands of involvement in the plight of others. We pray that the power obessed leaders in parts of the world will ease off their pressure on their own peoples and on the wider world. We give thanks for those who have the courage to take steps towards peace in places of conflict, praying for them and all the agencies who behind the scenes work with communities to build new lives.
Risen Lord, Be present in these needs

Risen Lord, surround with your presence and peace those who doubt their own worth, those who are mentally or physically ill, their families, their friends and the medical staff who care for them. We name silently to you now those known to us who suffer at this time ...............................................................................................
Risen Lord, Be present in these needs

On this Easter Day we thank and praise you for the gift of eternal life through the resurrection of Jesus. We rejoice with all the saints in glory and pray for our loved ones who have died that, free from sorrow and pain, they may be at peace with you in your everlasting kingdom, for Jesus Christ is the light of the world, a light which no darkness can quench.
We commend to your everlasting love those who have died and light a candle as a symbol of the light of Christ which eternally shines and brings hope.
Today we remember those on our hearts this Eastertide.
You turn our darkness into light; in your light we shall see light.
Merciful Father accept these prayers for the sake of your Son, our risen Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen