Worship
Service for December 11, 2022
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: God’s love has been made known among us,
for God has sent Christ into the world that all might live.
P: If God so loved us, we also ought to love
one another.
L: No one has ever seen God, but if we love
one another, God abides in us.
P: Let us worship God and seek to love as God
has loved us.
Lighting of the Advent
Wreath
Today we light the third
Advent candle, we’ll call it the Angels’ candle. This candle is offered in honor of the angels
who told the good news to the shepherds, “Glory to God in the highest and on
earth, peace and goodwill to all.” The
angels sang with joy so that all who could hear were filled with joy. In honor of all the angels who continue to proclaim
the good news of joy, we light this candle.
Prayer:
Dear God, You surround
us with Your angel of love so that we are able to live a life filled with
joy. Thank You for these angels, and
help us to become angels of love for others.
AMEN.
Opening Hymn – Angels from the Realms of Glory Hymn #22/259
Prayer of Confession
O Holy God, our very waiting
in Advent is itself a confession: If we are waiting for Emmanuel, we are not
yet with You; if we are waiting for Jesus, we need a Savior; if we are waiting
for Messiah, the proud are still powerful, the mighty are still exalted, the
hungry stand unheard at the door; if we are waiting for Your incarnation in
human form, we confess that we have not known You in our sister, we have not
loved You in our brother, we have not served You in our neighbor. In this time of great meaning, in the
stillness of Advent love and light, hear our deepest confession; heal us and
make us new through the good tidings of Your presence in our lives. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: This is the good news in Jesus
Christ. We stand before God, not through
our own goodness, but through God’s great kindness to us. Rejoice and be glad, for God comes to you!
P: Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
God of Advent waiting and watching; hopeful and full of
love, we have come to You this day with hearts that are heavy, with concerns
for family and friends; for world situations; for struggles at home, in our community,
state, and nation. We sometimes feel
powerless to affect any changes. So, we
withdraw into ourselves, quick to criticize and slow to change our own
behavior. Today, You have called us to
prepare ourselves, to wait with anticipation. You remind us that Christ is the one who will
bring messages of peace and love, joy and hope. He will help us to become
faithful disciples and servants. But we
have much work to do. Our preparation
needs to focus on our own attitudes and our own actions. We need to clean our spiritual houses of the
cobwebs of hate, greed, apathy, suspicion. We need to focus more on Your absolute love
and forgiveness. And then, as we turn
our lives to You, offering names and situations in prayers for Your healing
mercies, help us to remember that our own healing is also vital, that our own
healing is necessary, that our own healing, helps heal others. Enable us to be strong and confident workers
for You in this world.
Holy Lord, heal our hearts, heal our wounds, and heal our
souls.
We thank You for all that You’ve done for us in the
past. Hear our heartfelt pleas for those
we love….We remember….
And now in this moment of silence, hear our unspoken
prayers.
Gracious God, we thank
You for this day, for one another, and for our opportunities to worship You as
we prayer together saying…Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy
name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be
done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give
us this day our daily bread. Forgive us
our debts as we forgive our debtors. And
lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and
the glory, forever. AMEN.
Hymn – What
Child Is This? Hymn #53/281
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Isaiah
35:1-10
Second Scripture Reading – Luke
1:46-55
Sermon –
Patience
Rewarded
(based
on Isaiah 35:1-10, Luke 1:45-56)
If you’ve been out
doing any kind of shopping, you have probably found yourself standing in long
lines. It doesn’t really seem to me that
the past couple of years of Covid isolation has reduced the number of shoppers
out this year. In fact, in some cases,
I’ve stood in longer lines than I have in a number of years. The same is true regardless of whether it is
food shopping, Christmas shopping, or at the post office. And when it comes to calling something that
used to be called Customer Service – I don’t know what they think they call it
today – because time literally stops, from their perspective. The occasional reminder that a representative
will answer shortly is generally laughable and doesn’t make the wait any
easier.
So, what do most people do when they
wait? How do you keep yourself occupied,
when half and hour or 45 minutes seem like a whole day has gone by? Having a smart phone can prove helpful, at
least while waiting in a line at the store or the post office. At least you can check Facebook, emails, etc…
And if the line is really long you can open up a book or an article in a Kindle
application.
But what if you’re waiting…not for the
line to go down or for the representative on the phone to suddenly appear, but
what if you’re waiting for God to act?
To do something?
As we’ve mentioned in previous weeks,
this season of Advent is by definition a season of waiting. We pray and even sang last week, “O come, o
come, Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel.”
Every year we sing these words of expectation, while waiting for
Emmanuel to be fully revealed to us, not as a baby wrapped in swaddling
clothes, but as the real deal, the returning king. We sing, “Desire of nations bind all people
in one heart and mind” and “bid envy, strife and discord cease.” Today, as we do nearly every Sunday, offer
prayers of peace, longing for a time when the world will be filled with
heaven’s idea of peace.
I think the season of Advent can be
very frustrating, because there are so many signs of Christmas surrounding us…and
yet…nothing really seems to change. It’s
so easy for the message of Advent and Christmas to bet lost in the shuffle of
finding just the right gifts during Holiday shopping, finishing up decorating
and baking, all the added activities, company parties, friendly get-togethers,
family gatherings. It’s exhausting. But our Advent candles that we light each
Sunday symbolize our desire to experience something else. They symbolize our desire to experience hope,
joy, peace, and love. However, we need
to wait until that moment of longing inside of us gives way to the deeper
meaning of Christmas – beyond the sparkling lights and the shimmering
glitter. Perhaps they are there too, to
heighten our senses in waiting for it to come.
But, what exactly is “it”? What
exactly is that deeper meaning of Christmas that our longing gives way to?
I think it is when our patience is
rewarded; when hope, joy, peace, and love are fully realized in us through
God’s unconditional gift of mercy, and grace.
When we can see our lives and the lives of those around us through God’s
eyes. I think that is the deeper meaning
of Christmas and what is rewarded in our patience at Advent.
I remember when I was a child, looking
longingly at the Christmas tree, sizing up the packages under the tree,
wondering what might be in them for me.
As I grew older, I learned that Christmas was not only about receiving,
but also about giving. We give because
God gives to us. So, while it’s not easy
to wait, the reward for waiting is often greater than we can imagine. That’s especially true if what lies beneath
the tree is a new ______ and not a pair of socks!
On this third Sunday of Advent we read
from Isaiah and from the gospel according to Luke. In each of these readings there is a long
list of wonderful things that are coming for those who wait. That our patience will ultimately be rewarded. But, it is not easy to wait.
In recent years I’ve begun learning
about how the way we perceive time changes as we grow older. When you’re a child, times goes by so very
slowly. These next two weeks are going
to be agony and will seem like an eternity to a six year old, but for someone
who has been on life’s journey for a number of decades the next two weeks are
going to go by in flash. When I look
back over my life, it seems like it was just yesterday that I was leading youth
groups to Alaska or Mexico, but then I realize that their children are getting
involved in the same youth groups I use to lead. I look at their Facebook posts and see posts
of their kids growing up and wonder, where did the time go?
We live in the time between advents. The first advent of Christ’s birth that we celebrate
anew each Christmas and the advent of Christ’s return which we anticipate in
the future, what we currently hope for and wait for. How are we to live in this time between
advents? In one of his letters to the church,
Peter writes in 2 Peter chapter 3 that we “ought to lead lives of holiness and
godliness” as we wait for the Day of the Lord.
During this period of waiting, he encourages us to “strive to be found
by Him at peace, without spot or blemish.” And to be thankful, that’s God’s
patience is our salvation.
As we strive for that peace, perhaps
the words of the Psalmist will help guide us in the time of waiting:
“Let me hear what God the Lord will
speak, for He will speak peace to His people, to His faithful, to those who
turn to Him in their hearts. Surely God’s
salvation is at hand for those who fear Him, that His glory may dwell in our land”
(Psalm 85:8-9)
We live in difficult times, when fear
of the other causes us to withdraw and huddle behind closed doors. We may feel like throwing our hands up in
frustration. We may be growing restless,
and wish that the end would come quickly so our misery might end. That is an understandable feeling, but I don’t
think it is the message of Advent. I don’t
think THAT is the theology of waiting that our Advent should be about. The in-between times, although they can be difficult,
should be filled with joyful anticipation.
Here
is how Isaiah saw that anticipation; we wait for the eyes of the blind to be
opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame to leap like the deer, and the
tongue of the speechless sing for joy. Or
how Mary, Christ’s own mother put it; her God, her salvation, has shown
strength with his arm, scattered the proud, brought down the powerful, lifted
up the lowly, and has filled the hungry with good things.
If
there is to be peace on earth and goodwill for all, then it needs to start with
those of us who know, appreciate, and acknowledge this Advent season of
waiting. As we seek to be faithful in
this time between the first and the second Advents, may each of us find our
place to contribute to the peace of God on earth as it exists in heaven.
Thanks
be to God. AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Loving God, as a thankful
response to these gifts that we offer this morning, we also offer our beliefs,
our commitments, and our whole lives, that we may hasten the time when no one
will hurt or destroy on all God’s holy mountain. In Jesus’ name we pray. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – Hark! The Herald Angels Sing Hymn
#31/277
Benediction –
Postlude
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