Worship
Service for December 24, 2024
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Children of God, we are gathered with
hearts full of anticipation, our time of waiting and watching has brought us to
this moment.
P: We arrive with assurance, knowing that
God-with-us is here, ever present surrounding us with grace and mercy.
L: As we gather tonight, we remember the
promised gifts of the Messiah.
P: In the lighting of five candles, we set
our gaze upon beacons that sustain us through sleepless night and restless
days.
L: We bear this light together.
Hymn #249 O Come, All Ye Faithful
Lighting
of the Advent Candles
L: We first candle we lit at the beginning of
Advent is for Hope.
The second candle is
for Peace.
The third candle is for
Joy.
And the fourth candle
is for Love.
(Light the candles.)
Lighting of the Christ
Candle
L: The white candle is the Christ Candle.
This candle represents Christ as the center of our lives and the central figure
in the story of God’s redemptive relationship with us.
Let us pray:
O God of all Wisdom,
Source of Infinite Love and Light, we celebrate tonight the birth of hope made
new, grateful for the faithfulness of Your love. We rejoice in Your unending presence, ever
alive in the world. Your peace, powerful
and still, quiets the fiercest storms.
With hearts emboldened, we rest in the hope that never fades – For You
are with us, nearer than our breath, even now.
You, O God, are our hope, our peace, our joy, and our love. You are our all-in-all. AMEN!
First Reading – Micah
5:2-5a
Hymn #250 O Little Town of Bethlehem
Children’s Message
L: With the Holy Spirit as our guide, we join
the shepherds in testifying to God’s timeless, unending faithfulness in the
shadowiest of days.
P: And the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid for
see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is
born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”
Second Reading – Isaiah 51:1-6
Prayer of Confession
Gracious God, who promised to
send a Redeemer to Your people, we confess that we have not trusted Your
promise, but have busied ourselves with activities which obstruct its fulfillment. We give presents, but fail to be present with
one another. We socialize with friends,
but fail to welcome the stranger in our midst.
We create commotion, and refuse to receive Your peace. Forgive us, God, for our busyness and our
lack of trust. Teach us to wait with
expectant patience for the fulfillment of Your promise to us. (Silent prayers are
offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: This is the good news in the birth of the newborn
babe. We can stand before God, not
through our own goodness, but through God’s great kindness and gift to us.
P: Let us rejoice and be glad, for God comes
to us!
Third Reading – Luke 2:1-14
Hymn #262 Away
in a Manger
Fourth Reading – Luke 2:15-20
Hymn #270 Joy
to the World
Sermon The
Word Made Flesh
The
Word Made Flesh
(based
on Luke 2:1-20)
And so, after a long journey through Advent,
we come to Bethlehem, the place where great drama unfolds. The people of Mexico celebrate a tradition
called Las Posadas, it is a 400 year old celebration that takes place over nine
days from December 16-24, during which time a child dressed as an angel leads a
group of people, both children and adults, but mostly children, through the
streets of town. The group goes door to
door like carolers. Indeed, the group
normally does sing Christmas songs, and they read Scripture and even receive treats
from the welcoming homes, but they carry with them pictures of Mary and Joseph. They stop at selected homes to ask for
lodging for Mary and Joseph. At each
location, the inhabitants quietly reply, “no posadas,” which means “no shelter”,
and close the door. Finally, at that year’s
designated home or church, they welcome the group of young pilgrims, to much
celebration.
As Joseph knocked on doors, looking for
a room, a guest room, a shelter of any kind somewhere in this little town of
Bethlehem, the city of David, what must have been going through his mind? Did he feel the urgency in his very bones or
the weight of Mary’s condition on his shoulders? And what of Mary? Was she anxious knowing the promised child
would be born soon? Had the process of
childbirth begun? Or were they both
serene, calm, unbothered, trusting completely in God’s providence that day or
night? Scripture doesn’t tell us. The narration is rather vague, “And while
they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and
wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no
place (no posadas) for them in the inn.”
Scripture doesn’t tell us even that
Joseph actually went from home to home.
They don’t tell us that Mary rode a donkey on her journey into
town. They don’t tell us that animals
were even present that night. Nor does
it tell us that the event occurred during winter in the midst of falling snow
or that they sheltered in a barn that we’ve created for our Nativity Scenes. But, our imaginations over the years have
created a wonderful dramatic diorama.
Many Biblical and Historical Scholars believe
that what Mary and Joseph experienced in Bethlehem may have been closer to
being put up in a relative’s living room than a stable or a section of the house
that was also shelter for the animals when the weather was bad. Some even believe that Mary and Joseph were
put up in a small cave, dug from the rock that surrounds Bethlehem which also
served families as extra spaces for their living quarters. After all, given what we know about Jewish
culture in the first century, we would suppose that Joseph would, at least, attempt
to stay with a relative, and it would have been unconscionable for him to be
turned away in a time of obvious need.
Such a breach of hospitality seems totally out of bounds given this
culture.
Whatever the case, however, our time is
now short! Mary and Joseph have arrived in
the city of David! The place of ancient
King David’s birth. Through our advent
journey, we’ve arrived with them. Have
we prepared? Have we made room in our
lives and in our hearts for this coming miracle? Perhaps we have made room; perhaps we are
ready. But maybe there are places within
ourselves, at least in some of us, where we hesitate, or perhaps like Augustine
of Hippo, pray, “Lord, make me good, but not just yet!”
Even the apostle Paul lamented that he
often found himself not doing the very good he knew he ought to do, but doing
the very thing he shouldn’t.
Thomas Merton, Catholic monk and author
known for his deep contemplative faith meditated on Christ’s unwelcome arrival
and wrote this:
“Into this world, this demented inn, in
which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ comes uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it,
because he is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, his place is with
those others for whom there is no room
His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power
because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied
the status of persons, tortured, exterminated.
With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this
world. He is mysteriously present in
those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst.”
Whether or not Joseph and Mary were
turned away from home after home, the birth of Jesus is a birth displaced by
the crowds from the census. Thomas
Merton sees Christ’s birth among those for whom there was no room as a sign of
Christ’s mission – his divine solidarity with the beloved poor of God.
There is a sign, the angels said to the
shepherds, that this baby is found “wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a
manger. “Why lies in his such mean estate?”
the well-known carol “What Child is this?” asks. He is born to bring comfort to the afflicted,
and his presence will afflict the comfortable.
Even if we are ready, our hearts open, Christ still arrives in stark
contrast to what the world would expect or desire for a mighty king, a
Savior. He comes humbly, on the margins
of the Roman Empire, without a guest room, resting on a bed of straw, small and
vulnerable. Not in crib in a palace, gilded
with gold, attended by servants, waited on by midwives, surrounded by the royal
household. No, he comes humbly. Attended instead by shepherds, who themselves
live as ostracized workers, taking the lowliest of positions, watching sheep by
night, smelling of the sheep they tend.
It’s a gig for the youngest in the family just like David, the one
considered worthless, left out, left over, just….left. If you remember from your Old Testament
lessons, Jesse who was David’s father, didn’t even bother recognizing that he
had a youngest son until Samuel pressed him for yet another son to consider as
king, heir to the throne of Saul.
This miraculous, dramatic, yet humble
origins for the Incarnate Word of God has inspired contemplation and
celebration for thousands of years, perhaps every year since the wondrous birth
took place. As the shepherds found the
babe with his parents, they reported to Mary and Joseph all the angels had told
them, and “Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” The shepherds went away, glorifying God and
sharing what they had seen and heard.
Luke’s characterization of Mary is
extremely rich. She speaks to an angel,
breaks into a prophetic song when visiting her cousin Elizabeth, and here
ponders and contemplates. Some scholars
have come to believe that, for Luke, and perhaps for us now, Mary, the mother
of Jesus is the original disciple. She
has pondered Christ; she has praised God for what he is doing through this
Incarnation, and she ponders them anew as they unfold in her baby boy’s birth,
life, death, and resurrection.
Martin Luther, the great Reformation Theologian,
wrote:
“The dear Virgin is occupied with no insignificant
thoughts: they come from the first commandment, “You should love God”, and she
sums up the way God rules in one short text, a joyful song for all the
lowly. She is a good painter and singer;
she sketches God well and sings of Him better than anyone, for she names God
the one who helps the lowly and crushes all that is great and proud. This song lacks nothing; it is well sung, and
needs only people who can say yes to it and wait. But such people are few.”
Like Mary, we are called to ponder this
child, to say yes to him, and wait. “May
he be born in us,” we pray. “God’s will be done.” In answer to our prayer, it shall be as Isaiah
foretold, “for to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” Like every child, this is a great gift. But greater still, this child has come to be
in solidarity with us lowly ones, and to redeem us so that we might be called
sons and daughters of God, as well, heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven.
So, in answer to the coming Child of
God, we lift our hearts in praise this night alongside the voices of the
angels, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to all.”
AMEN.
Offering
Candle Lighting and
Instructions, Lighting from the Christ Candle, Spreading the Light
Please rise:
Hymn #253 Silent Night
Benediction
Postlude
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