Next Sunday, January 4, 2026 we will have a joint worship service at Olivet Presbyterian Church, West Elizabeth at 9:45am.
Worship
Service for December 28, 2025
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Restore us, O God!
P: Let Your face shine, that we may be saved.
L: O Lord of hosts, how long will You be
angry with Your people’s prayers?
P: You have fed us with the bread of tears,
and given us tears to drink in full measure.
L: But Your hand is upon the One at Your
right hand, the One whom You made strong.
P: Through Him You give us life, and we will
call on His name forever.
Opening Hymn – Sing We Now of Christmas #275
Brown
Prayer of Confession
Almighty God, Your Son has
come to us, but we are still not a people of peace, a people that share hope
with the world, a people whose joy exudes from us to light the way of others, nor
a people whose love embraces all.
Sometimes Lord, we glorify violence, dominate and demean, waging war
with enemies and investing in self-defense before giving non-violent strategies
a chance. Lord, forgive us. Help us work towards Your peaceable kin-dom,
where swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. Sometimes, the darkness of the world
overshadows our hope in You for the future.
Lord, forgive us. Help us shatter
the darkness and bring light to the world.
Sometimes Lord, our joy is snuffed out by the realities of sadness and
pain. Lord, forgive us. Let our joy break through and shine brightly
in all circumstances. And sometimes, we
only love those who think like us, act like us, and look like us. Lord, forgive us for being less than loving
towards others, help us show Your all-encompassing love to the world. (Silent prayers are offered). AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: The angel tells Joseph that the child
forming in Mary’s womb is to be called Jesus, “Call him Jesus,” the angels
says, “For he will save the people from their sins.” From his birth through his resurrection, from
age to age, Jesus is about salvation.
This is our good news!
P: In the name of 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, Lord Jesus. Bring
your presence; bring your peace; bring your
light. Comfort the sick, soothe the sorrowful, bind
up the wounded.
Calm our spirits. Ease
our burdens. Mend our hearts. Come, Lord Jesus.
Come, Lord Jesus. Bring
your justice; bring your righteousness; bring
your goodness. Reorder our priorities. Direct our efforts.
Strengthen our resolve. Break down
walls. Dismantle oppression. Overthrow tyrants.
Come, Lord
Jesus.
Come, Lord Jesus. Bring your love; bring your compassion; bring
your mercy. Heal our divisions. Seek out
the lost. Restore the guilt-ridden.
Widen our embrace.
Teach us generosity. Show us how to forgive.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Come, Lord Jesus. Bring
your passions; bring your fire; bring your steadfastness. Inspire our witness. Motivate our mission.
Energize your church. Open our minds. Extend our hands. Overcome our lethargy. Come, Lord Jesus.
Come, Lord Jesus. Bring
your hope; your tenderness; your promise.
Build up our common
life. Hold us in our frustrations. Brighten our darkness. Release us. Renew us. Redeem us. Come, Lord
Jesus.
Come, Lord Jesus, hear
our cries; hear our whispers; hear our prayers.
Today we pray for….
Come, Lord Jesus, into
our hearts, into our souls, into our minds to hear the prayers that we cannot
say aloud in this time of silence…
Come,
Lord Jesus, who taught us to pray, 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 – Once
in Royal David’s City Hymn #49/286
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
80:1-7, 17-19
Second Scripture Reading – Matthew
1:18-25
Sermon – Angels and Advent: Angel Dreams and Joseph
Angel
Dreams and Joseph
(based
on Matthew 1:18-25)
As I mentioned on Christmas Eve, we’re
returning this Sunday to an earlier account in our Christmas Story that we
skipped due to the weather a couple of weeks ago.
If you noticed this morning’s gospel reading
didn’t start at the beginning of Matthew, but rather in verse 18. So, what about those previous 17 verses. Well, if you’ve ever sat down to read
Matthew, his gospel begins with a list of genealogy. For those of you who are into genealogy, this
can be kind of exciting and interesting, but for those of us who aren’t, it is
really BORING! Even for those who like
genealogy, reading the list of other people’s ancestors isn’t all that exciting. However, reading a list of your own ancestors
can be really cool. And that’s how
Matthew opens up his gospel, listing the names of Jesus’ ancestors all the way
back to Abraham. And he does it for a
reason. He wants to arouse his reader’s
interest regarding the central character of his writing. As I’ve mentioned before, Matthew was writing
to a Jewish audience. However, they are
no longer part of the synagogue – they have apparently been expelled and have
had to set up their own worship spaces.
These followers of Christ are now the product of two cultures caught
between two movements of faith that are growing steadily apart from one
another.
For at least three decades since
Christ’s death and resurrection, followers of Jesus were regarded as one of the
various groups within Judaism. By the
time Matthew writes, after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD (now commonly
referred to as CE, the Common Era), Christians and Jews are beginning to define
themselves against each other rather than emphasizing their shared beliefs. As the group of non-Jewish or Gentile
believers grew, the previously Jewish followers found themselves as a
diminishing group within Christianity.
They struggled with questions of how and whether their faith practices
should become part of an emerging faith that welcomed those from outside the
tradition, and how to balance the demands of the old and the new. For example, would male Gentiles have to
become circumcised? Should everyone have to follow the old dietary restrictions
and laws? Had the old religious laws of
Israel been rendered moot? Would they
have to give up all their previous beliefs, history, and traditions to remain
part of the expanding Christian movement.
For Matthew, the answer to these questions is no and he begins his
gospel with a genealogy to clearly root Jesus’ story in Israel’s story. Interestingly, this will continue to be an
issue for the church for the next several hundred years, even today; continued
debates occur over the new thing that God is doing, the new way God is teaching
us to be the body of Christ in the world.
Matthew’s list of genealogy would be
fascinating to his readers. They would
not see these names as merely a list to briefly scan through. Instead, each name would recall a vibrant
story within the history of Israel. They
would be reminded of the good, the bad, and the ugly of their shared history,
and how God had been faithful to them through it all. And now Jesus is the last person to be added
to this list, the son of Joseph and Mary.
Most genealogies in the Bible don’t mention women’s names, but this
includes quite a few who were pivotal in the history of Israel, and hearing
Mary’s name mentioned as an addition to this genealogy, the reader’s are sure
to be filled with anticipation to hear her and Joseph’s own fascinating story.
Starting his gospel in this manner,
Matthew lays down the history that Jesus is not merely the son of Mary and
Joseph, his is the son of David, whose kingdom will never end. Matthew wants us to know that everything in
the history of God’s interaction with the Jewish people has been building toward
this very moment.
And so, Matthew tells the story of
Joseph, an ancestor of David, and Joseph’s incredible encounter with an angel. We discover the Joseph is a righteous man,
meaning he meticulously keeps all the laws of Israel. Unlike Zechariah and Elizabeth, who have been
given “good news” by God’s messenger, Joseph receives a terrible blow. His betrothed is pregnant and he is not the
father. We’re not told about the
conversation that Mary and Joseph have, but we can probably imagine that Joseph
is confused and hurt. An angel doesn’t
come and forewarn him about what Mary will say.
Nope, he hears this news from Mary, herself. He can’t help but feel brokenhearted and
betrayed. How could she have done
this? We might wonder if Mary told him
that an angel came and visited her and told her these things. But doesn’t that sound kind of outlandish? Does she tell him that the Holy Spirit
“overshadowed” her (however Joseph may have interpreted that) and that’s how
she became pregnant? I mean, seriously,
if you were in Joseph’s place, would you believe her? Do they have a conversation about him
breaking the marriage contract? Does
Mary dare hope that Joseph keeps his promise?
We don’t know. What we do know is
that this news has weighed heavily on Joseph and he fitfully ponders what is
the best thing to do. The commandments
are clear regarding infidelity; the wife is to be dismissed for this.
Although we often concentrate on the
letter of the law, there is also something called the spirit of the law, as
well. In the scriptures, God uses the
words of the prophet Hosea to explain it this way, “I desire steadfast love,
and not sacrifice.” In Greek, that
Hebrew word for steadfast love, translates as mercy. God desires mercy, not sacrifice. And mercy is a dimension of love, a way that
love manifests itself toward others.
If the heart of the Law is love, then
showing mercy is even more important to the fulfillment of the Law than
enforcing punishments for breaking the rules.
And in Joseph’s inner argument, that’s what he ends up doing here. In difficult times of decision, Joseph offers
us a way forward – show mercy. After
careful and thoughtful deliberation, Joseph compassionately concludes that he
must divorce Mary, quietly, so as to spare her any public disgrace. I’m not exactly sure how he thinks that will
go, she will still bear a child without a father and will still be considered
an outcast and will most definitely find some form of public disgrace, in the
end.
However, he wrestles with all this in
his sleep. I know that when I am faced
with a difficult challenge, my dream cycle helps me work through things. Whether I am conscious of it or not, by
morning – or in some cases, several mornings later, I’ve come to a better
conclusion – often times a completely different direction than what I’d been
thinking of doing during my waking hours.
And that’s what happens here. As
Joseph fitfully drifts off to sleep, an “angel of the Lord” appears to him in a
dream. Joseph’s life is about to be
interrupted in a way he never anticipated.
The angel calls Joseph by name and he reminds Joseph of his heritage,
“Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife,” the angel says, “for the child
conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”
What Mary begged Joseph to believe is true! “She will bear a son, and you are to name him
Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” In his dream, the angel explains Mary’s
pregnancy and reassures Joseph that his is now part of God’s larger plan. And miraculously, upon waking, Joseph, like
Mary, never questions again this message and makes plans to embrace Mary as his
own.
Matthew then writes that all this took
place to fulfill what had been spoken about by the prophets. He does this multiple times throughout the
gospel. Matthew wants us to see that
Isaiah’s words speak not only to Israel’s past, but also to its present
situation. God is with us. Even though Jesus has yet to be born, God is
with Joseph through the presence of an angel, just as God had been with
Joseph’s ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Tamar, Rehab, Ruth and
Boaz, David and Bathsheba. And God will
be with Joseph and Mary through their waiting, through the birth of their
child, through the parental challenges ahead, through the threats on their
child’s life. God will guide them,
instruct them, lead them, and protect them as the world awaits Emmanuel, God
with us.
Joseph sets an example for us, as
well. Joseph becomes an example of what
it means to be a faithful disciple. He
discovers that being righteous sometimes requires struggling with complex moral
decisions and problems, seeking and listening for the voice of God, and then
responding to what God is calling us to do.
Sometimes that work is messy and difficult. Sometimes following God’s voice and call
threatens those in power, those who believe they understand the rules and
insist on enforcing them to the letter.
There are times when we, like Joseph, will have to struggle with how to
proceed when conflict arises within us between our own religious traditions and
the rules, and the Spirit of God calling us to new and uncertain ways of living
or relating to others. Sometimes those
conflicts are personal in nature with what we expect and what we are given. But, when we wrestle with life’s difficulties,
the angels come to us in dreams giving us messages, “Do not be afraid. Don’t be afraid about what other people might
say. Don’t be afraid about whatever
difficulties may lie ahead. Don’t be
afraid to carry out the mission that God is asking you to perform.” God is with you. God will keep you. God will see you through.
Thanks
be to God. AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
O God,
with faith, hope and love, we offer these gifts in Christmas joy. Use them, even as You use us, to accomplish
Your purposes in Jesus Christ, our Emmanuel, God With Us. AMEN
Closing
Hymn – Go! Tell it On the Mountain Hymn
#29/258
Benediction –
Let us go
trusting in Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, the Hope for all Humanity, the
Joy of the World, and the Love come down from Heaven, who has, this day and all days, come to us. AMEN.
Postlude
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