Christmas Eve Service will be held at Bethesda United Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth at 7pm on December 24, 2025
Worship
Service for December 21, 2025
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit
rejoices in God my savior.
P: With Mary, our spirit rejoice, and we sing
God’s praise.
L: In remembrance of God’s great mercy,
P: we pray for the day when sorrow and
sighing will come to an end and everlasting peace reign in the Kingdom of God.
Lighting of the Advent Candles
L: Today, we come face to face with the
scandal of Advent: Mary, the unmarried mother; God Incarnate growing in Mary’s
womb as a vulnerable baby; Joseph contemplating leaving Mary because of her
pregnancy; God’s love at work in ways that society and propriety could not
understand; God calling Mary and Joseph to faithfulness despite the fear of
disgrace.
P: With Mary and Joseph, we choose to wait,
watch, and listen for the way of Love instead of responding in fear to the
world’s judgment.
L: We call this candle Love.
(Light the candle.)
L: We light this candle of Love as a sign of our
faithfulness as we seek, find, and follow Emmanuel, God with us.
Opening Hymn – Of the Father’s Love Begotten #240
Brown
Prayer of Confession
Great God, as we prepare to
behold the birth of Jesus again, we are mindful of how we have failed to
receive the fullness of that gift. The
story points us to Your glory, yet we struggle to join in the song of praise
and thanksgiving. We are distracted and
confused, so focused on things of little significance we overlook the good news
of great joy that You have prepared.
Tell us again that the Savior is born.
Tell us again that we are forgiven.
Tell us again that our lives can be abundant in faith, hope, and love
because of what You have given us in Jesus Christ. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Gabriel, the angel, says to Mary,
“Greetings, favored one! The Lord is
with you.” The Lord is also with you and
me. He has shown us the way of truth and
given us a gift.
P: The gift that God offers is forgiveness
and redemption. In Jesus Christ, we are
forgiven. 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
Come, O Come, Emmanuel…
come to bring peace to those at war with themselves, their families, their
enemies. May those who govern do so with
good will and justice, breaking down barriers, fostering understanding, and
drawing our communities and our nation together in peace and love for one
another.
Come, Holy Healer, to
bring comfort to those in pain, those who grieve, those in need of healing and
restoration. May those who suffer be
assured of Your extravagant grace, comforted by the hope that nothing shall separate
them from Your love.
Come, Strong Deliverer,
to bring compassion to those who are weak and weary, those who stumble through
their days unable to recognize the beauty and meaning of life. May those who are struggling financially,
those suffering under the crushing weight of debt, find Your way out of no
way. Grant them options, O God. Grant them hope.
Come, O Lord and Savior
who goes by many names – Key of David, Radiant Dawn, Root of Jesse, Emmanuel,
come to us again this Christmas. Fill
the world with Your grace and mercy; with Your hope, peace, joy, and love.
Come, Child of
Bethlehem, to those whose names we most adore, our loved ones, our friends and
family members struggling this day…We pray for…
Come, Gracious God,
hear our heart murmurs as we pray in silence for our deep needs and desires
that we cannot say aloud…
Finally,
Lord, with one voice raised to the heavens, we pray,…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 – Away in a Manger Hymn #25/262
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Isaiah
35:1-10
Second Scripture Reading – Luke
1:26-38
Sermon – Angels and Advent: Gabriel and Mary
Gabriel
and Mary
(based
on Luke 1:26-38)
It is the sixth month
of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, and now Gabriel who visited Zechariah in the Temple,
has another mission to complete. This
time Gabriel has been directed to go about ninety miles north of Jerusalem to a
small insignificant village called Nazareth, of no more than about four hundred
people, about the same size as our own village of West Elizabeth. Gabriel’s mission is to visit a young peasant
girl by the name of Mary with news that will upend this young girl’s life and
will change the course of history.
Imagine. for a moment, an event that would change the course of history
happening in our little town of West Elizabeth.
Something small; a divine message, given to a young girl in West
Elizabeth, that would one day change the course of history. In fact, to even make that scene even more
potent and perhaps parallel for us; Nathaniel, one of Jesus’ disciples, said to
Philip, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Gabriel visits Zechariah in the Temple
in the midst of him doing his work, showing up in the routine of his priestly
responsibilities. I imagine Gabriel came
to Mary in the same way; while she was out busy doing her day to day chores;
milking the goats, drawing water from the well, mending some clothes, sweeping
the floor, or collecting vegetables from the garden.
Gabriel
appears to Mary and tells her, in three short verses, that she will conceive
and bear a son, she will name him Jesus, he will be great and called the Son of
the Most High and the Son of God, He will ascend the throne of his ancestor
David and rule over Israel forever and finally, of his kingdom there will be no
end.
Wow! That’s a lot for a young girl to take in, in
one brief moment. No wonder she had a
lot to ponder about. One minute she is
just minding her own business; drawing water from the well, weeding the garden,
washing dishes, or maybe playing a childhood game, and the next she is told
that she is about to become pregnant through God’s Spirit, with the King of
Israel!”
In
those days, marriage involved a two-stage process. First was the engagement or betrothal, which
worked much as it does today, except that these engagements were legally
binding. You didn’t enter into an
engagement with someone casually. Often,
the match was negotiated as a contract between families, often when the
bride-to-be and/or the groom-to-be were just children. In the eyes of the community, a betroth legally
bound the couple, but the marriage wasn’t completed until the woman moved from
her parent’s home to that of her husband.
Luke tells us that Mary was a virgin or
young woman of marriable age. The Greek
word is parthena. The Old
Testament parallel is from Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself will give
you a sign. Look, the young woman is
with child and shall bear a son, and she shall name him Emmanuel.” The Hebrew word for “young woman” or “virgin”
is almah, which can be translated as a married or unmarried young
woman.
Besides
that, Luke also tells us that she is from the ancestral line of David. Another significant reminder how Jesus’ story
connects to the history of Israel and the promises God made to the people. Through the prophets, God promises David that
from his family line, God will raise up a son whose throne will be established
forever. At this moment in history, when
Gabriel comes to Mary, although Israel had seen many kings come and go from the
throne, a Davidic line to the throne had not been in place for almost 600
years. But Isaiah had promised the
people of Israel that God would raise up a king from David’s lineage. Amidst exiles and occupations, this had been
the hope and prayer of the people for centuries.
Now, Gabriel appears to a teenage girl
that this prayer of the people is about to be answered, through her. And that she would fulfill the role of a new
king’s mother.
In order for us to fully grasp the
situation and kind of put it into perspective; nearly 600 years have come and
gone since King Henry VIII (for example) was king of England and an angel came
from heaven to a young girl here in West Elizabeth whose ancestry could be
traced all the way back to King Henry VIII although there would be, of course,
many branches far removed from one another to get there and then told that she
would be the mother of the next King of England and that this kingdom would
reign over the world forever. That is
about as absurd as it gets, right? And
yet, that’s about as close as it gets to the story here.
So, thinking of that scenario, Gabriel
startles Mary, in the midst of her everyday life, by appearing to her and declaring,
“Greetings, favored one! The Lord is
with you.” What does it mean to be
“favored” by God? Some theologians
suggest that Mary was in some way extraordinary, perhaps because of her
upbringing, her upright piety, or her blameless character. Catholics believe it was her virginity that
made her favored. Their tradition holds
that even Mary was of virgin birth through Ann, her mother. And that although scripture lists brothers
and sisters to Jesus that Mary remained a virgin throughout her life. There is no scriptural basis for this, but it
is how some have answered the question about what it means to be “favored” by
God. Other theologians go the opposite
route suggesting that what made Mary “favored” was exactly because she is
ordinary, of humble circumstances, like most of us. Because, aren’t we all “favored” by God? God loves each and every one of us. God’s love extends even “to the least of
these”, as often said in scripture.
I think that view fits much better with
the rest of Luke’s and Matthew’s gospels who focused on how Jesus made a point
of reaching out to everyone, even to those who were considered refuse by the
rest of society; to the outcasts, to the widow, orphan, and poor. Mary is a peasant girl in an out-of-the-way
village that is regarded within the region of Galilee as unimportant. Later on in his writing, Luke makes a point
of making his readers know that Jesus declared that he had come to bring “good
news to the poor”. That includes lepers
whom Jesus encounters and sightless persons who are reduced to begging by the
side of the road, and women who are suffering from years of hemorrhaging or
being bent over in pain. But in the
wider Roman world, the early church found enormous appeal among women and
slaves, two huge groups of people who occupied the lower rungs of their
society. They flocked to the message
that their lives were of equal value and importance with those who were rich
and powerful – that, within the body of Christ, there were no distinctions
between male and female, slave and free, Jew or Greek. Could that message be part of what Luke is
implanting already at the beginning of the Gospel? Is Mary favored precisely because God’s good
news – the radically countercultural news of the gospel – is that the least and
the last are to be treated as full members of the beloved community?
I believe that God’s message to Mary
reminds us that we are all bound up, as ordinary as we are, in the mysterious
work of God in the world. God chooses
us, and in the choosing makes us favored.
God knows who you are – the good, the bad, and the ugly – and still
calls you by name. You are favored, you
are loved, not because of who you are, but because of whose you are?
There are times of doubt and
uncertainty when all of us need to hear that message. We need to hear God’s messengers tell us,
“Don’t be afraid. You belong to God. You matter.”
As the prophet Isaiah wrote; “Do not
fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name. you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be
with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you… You are
precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.” (Isaiah 43:1-2a, 4)
As a well brought up Jewish girl, I’d
like to think that Mary also makes the connection between Gabriel’s words to
her and Isaiah’s words to Israel. And,
at this time, I’d like you to know that these words are true for you as
well. The One who formed you has called
you by name. You belong to God and you
are favored. You are precious. You are honored. You are loved.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Dear
Magnificent Lord, You blessed Joseph and Mary by making them the earthly
parents of Your only Son, Jesus Christ.
You bless us, as well, with that same gift – Your Son, and indeed, with
the gift of life itself. Out of all
these blessings, we give You back these offerings today. Knowing that Your promises will be fulfilled,
we pledge our lives to You in anticipation of the coming of the One who brings
us peace. AMEN
Closing
Hymn – Hark! The Herald Angels Sing Hymn #31/277
Benediction –
Go with the
love of God, who extends grace and mercy to us all. Go with the light and joy of the Holy Spirit,
who prepares us for the coming of our Lord.
Go with the peace of the Christ Child, who comes to partner with us to
bring about the kin-dom that will never end.
And go with the hope of all the generations before us that sought the
promises of God. Go in service to the
Lord. AMEN.
Postlude
