Worship
Service for December 5, 2021
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Prelude
Announcements:
·
You can join us for in-person worship at Olivet
Presbyterian Church in West Elizabeth, PA at 9:45 or at Bethesda United Presbyterian
Church in Elizabeth, PA at 11:15.
·
Bible Study – Brown Bag and Bible, will meet
this Wednesday at 12:30pm for our new study of Hosea.
Christ Be Our Light - Choir
Call to Worship
L: The Light shines in the darkness,
P: but the darkness has not overcome it.
L: During Advent our weary souls seek God’s
daily strength.
P: The Lord gives strength to the weary and
increases the power of the weak.
L: We grow weary when fear overshadows faith.
P: The Lord gives strength to the weary and
increases the power of the weak.
L: We grow weary when destructive actions
erupt in the world around us.
P: The Lord gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
L: For all of us feeling weary this Advent
season:
P: Grant that we might have the peace of
Christ as we wait, the love of Christ as we act, and the grace of Christ as we
speak.
Lighting of the Advent
Candle
Opening Hymn – O Come, O Come Emmanuel #9/245
Prayer of Confession
Lord of
mercy and peace, open our hearts to receive Your words of hope. We live far too much in darkness and
fear. We have let the fears invade the
very center of our lives and find ourselves changing, moving from Your light to
the darkness of despair. It seems that
this world and its people are more pleased to fight and destroy than they are
to have peace and harmony. We become
part of that crowd when we wallow in anger, resentment, apathy, and greed. Forgive us, patient and merciful God. Help us be people who will look at the ways
in which we have blocked Your presence; ways in which we have truly failed to
be Your people. Give us courage and strength
to change our lives, that Your peace may become a reality in this world, right
now, this day. For we offer this prayer
in the name of Jesus. (Silent prayers
are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Though the darkness seems so deep, do not
fear. God is with us. Turn your lives to God. God’s love is being poured out for you , now
and always.
P: Let us rejoice and be glad, for God comes
to us in love!
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
Choral Anthem:
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 receive this “shoot” which shall arise from the stump of
Jesse. You remind us that this 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 – Of
the Father’s Love Begotten #309/240
Scripture Reading(s):
OT – Malachi 3:1-4
NT – Luke 3:1-6
Sermon – Prepare the Way (based on Luke 3:1-6)
During this time period in
history, kings were a dime a dozen; practically every town/city, region, tribe
or nation had a king, a ruler, a tetrarch, or a governor. Looking back at history it’s difficult to
even understand who was in charge of what.
However, we know that the custom had become that when any of these
important people were going to visit a city, he would send before him someone
to herald his coming, someone to announce that he would be arriving soon. This custom helped establish the importance
of the person coming. The herald would
go around the city, and go before the leaders of the city, telling them all,
“The king (or the tetrarch or the governor) is coming. He will be here any day.” This herald also served as a city
inspector. He would go around the city
and make a list of things that needed to be fixed, updated or prepared. He would tell them, “Clean up your city. Sweep your streets. Get rid of all the riff raff lying
around. Round up any criminals to make
the city safe. Fix the roads; make them
smooth and straight. Make sure the town
is gleaming. Make sure the city is fit
for your ruler to ride through.” It was
an embarrassment for that city, and the people of the city, if they were not
prepared when the important person like the king did arrive. It was also an insult to the ruler if they
had not prepared properly for his arrival.
If he came, and they were not prepared, he might execute some judgment
and punishment upon the city and its leaders.
As we look at this section of
Luke, this is exactly what we see going on…in a slightly different way. The herald “the one who will pronounce the
King’s coming” is none other than John the Baptist. And the one who is coming is Jesus, the King
of heaven and earth. And John has come
to prepare the way.
A north-south ridge of
mountains divides Israel. The western slope receives the bulk of the rain
blowing east from the Mediterranean, but the eastern slope is much drier,
receiving less than 12 inches a year in the southern parts east of Jerusalem
and Hebron. It is in this where John
grew up and lived. John would spend his
time in the desolate Judean mountains east of the ridge and roam the deserted
arid plains of Jordan north of the Dead Sea.
This area was his home. He is
pictured as a strange and lonely man who had learned to live off the land –
eating locusts and wild honey.
There in the wilderness God
had become John’s companion, his confidant, his teacher. In the desert, John came to know God better
than people, and when God fully owned his heart and allegiance, John was
ready.
What does this kind of desert
hermit life do to a person? It produces
someone who really doesn't care what "civilized" people think about
him. John didn't structure his life in relation to societal norms and
expectations, so when he burst upon the scene as a desert preacher, his words
were unrefined, blunt, and uncompromising.
I’ve often wondered why God
would use such an eccentric man for such a crucial role? I picture John the Baptist as sort of the
character Woody Harrelson plays in the movie 2012: an odd, eccentric believer
who owns his own radio show out in the wilds of Yosemite National Park –
wearing whatever clothes were closest when he woke up that day, unshaven,
speaking over the airwaves truth to people’s doubt and cynicism, having long
known what was coming.
This is how I picture John the
Baptist, but perhaps a bit more gruff, a bit more crazy, a bit more
unrefined. Why would God use someone
like that? I think it’s because the ordinary
wouldn't do, so God fashioned John to be very different.
This itinerant preacher began
to confront sin noisily. He probably
wouldn't have attracted too much attention if he hadn't publicly rebuked King
Herod Antipas, who ruled Galilee at the time, for divorcing his first wife and
marrying Herodias, his niece and his brother Philip's former wife. Because soon after doing this, John's bold
preaching drew a tremendous crowd from Jerusalem and the other towns of Judea. His message was this: the kingdom of God is
at hand, the Messiah is coming soon, and you're not ready. You are sinful and corrupt. You must repent of your sins and be forgiven.
John, being
so different, uses three very specific and somewhat new words to the hearers of
this message. The first word he uses is
“Repentance" which is metanoia in Greek, and it means "a change of
mind, turning about, conversion."
Repentance is much more than a sense of guilt. Repentance is more than sorrow for getting
caught or for doing something wrong.
Repentance is an actual change of mind, an action, a step away from a
sinful pattern or habit or act. It is
change. God's call to action to
repentance isn't one of guilt or sorrow, but one of change. That was John's message: repent! Change!
The second important word he
uses is "forgiveness," Greek aphesis, which means “to be released
from captivity, or to be pardoned; a cancellation of an obligation, punishment,
or guilt.” John insisted that everyone,
both the rulers and the commoners were guilty of sin and needed to repent and
find forgiveness in God. Or, in other
words, change and be set free.
But the biggest difference
from all others that were preaching somewhat the same message as John was
preaching is that he didn't leave them there; he offered God’s forgiveness in a
radical way, which brings us to the third important word.
And that word is
"baptism", in Greek baptisma, which means to "dip,
immerse." The Community at Qumran,
was a community of hermit priests in the desert territory; they practiced
repeated ritual washings, which is probably where John picked up the practice
adding the First Century idea of Jewish proselyte baptism, a ritual bath by
which a Gentile convert to Judaism was cleansed from moral and religious
impurity.
The difference is that John
preached to Jews not Gentiles. When John
called on people to be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins, he called
them to submit to the same kind of cleansing bath required of Gentile
converts. In other words, John wanted
the Jews to really understand the importance of their repentance and God’s
forgiveness; what they were doing, why they were doing it, and to understand
the fullness of their cleansing, as if they knew nothing of their faith and
needed to be completely reborn. Jesus
would pick up on this same theme in his own ministry.
As I mentioned in the
beginning of the sermon, John was a herald.
He was the city inspector, getting the city and the people ready for
their King. He was, as Luke 3 tells us;
"A voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
'Prepare the way for the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
And every mountain and hill shall be made low.
The crooked shall be made straight,
And the rough ways made smooth.
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God' "
What a clear image of major
road work to prepare the King's highway -- straightening the curves, as well as
cutting and filling in so that the road might be level and easy to travel upon.
On a recent trip back to the
Philadelphia area, we stopped at one of the rest areas and eating lunch watched
a video of how the first major superhighway and toll road across Pennsylvania –
the PA Turnpike – was created. The old
route used to wind, dip, and climb as it crossed the rugged mountainous terrain
of central PA. Hundreds of feet were
sliced through mountains, then that rock and dirt used to fill deep gorges and
canyons to make the highway smoother and straighter from a rough and crooked
way. Even today, the PA Turnpike is
undergoing impressive improvements to become one of the most impressive
engineering projects in PA, straightening out the road even more where it can
and making it wider and smoother.
In a similar way, God is
seeking to prepare you and me. To cut
through the mountains of our pride, to fill up the valleys of our despair, to
straighten our crooked ways, and make us fit for the King himself to travel
upon. For God desires us to be ready
followers free of obstacles that destroy our confidence and ability to serve
Him, so that others will be able to see in us “the salvation of God”.
Prepare the way of the Lord –
major roadwork could be ahead for us as our advent journey continues.
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 – What Child Is This? #53/281
Benediction
Friends, be a people of
hope. Let hope live in your heart and
share the hope of Christ with all you meet.
Share hope by noticing someone else’s humanity. Share hope by listening to someone’s
story. Share hope by praying for our
world. In this advent season, we need to
see, feel, and share hope. As you go
from this service, go out into the wonder of God’s creation and share hope with
those you meet. Amen.
Postlude
