20151206 Order of Worship
Prelude
Welcome/Announcements
Call to
Worship
Lift up
your hearts, people of God,
for the
Lord has looked favorably upon us
and is
sending us his beloved son.
He is raising up for us a mighty savior
in the house of his servant David.
God is
showing the mercy promised to our ancestors,
and has
remembered his holy covenant,
the oath he
swore to our ancestors Abraham and Sarah,
that we
might serve him without fear.
We go before the Lord, following John the Baptist,
to prepare the way of the Lord.
Come, let
us worship God
and listen
to the voice crying out in the wilderness.
Call to
Confession
Saints, let
us trust in God's love for us and confess our sin, confident in God's mercy.
Confession
Refining God,
you have sent us prophets and we have not
listened.
We have not always determined what is best
or made way for your reign in our lives,
our church, and our society.
Forgive us, we pray,
and renew your covenant within us,
for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Assurance
of Pardon
Friends, I
am confident of this: if we repent, God is sure to forgive us. The One who began a good work in us will
bring it to completion. In the name of
Jesus Christ we have been forgiven. Glory to God! Amen.
Hymn of
Praise – UMH #166 All Praise to Thee, for
Thou, O King Divine
All praise
to thee, for thou, O King divine,
Didst yield
the glory that of right was thine,
That in our
darkened hearts thy grace might shine:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou cam’st
to us, in lowliness of though;
By thee the
outcast and the poor were sought,
And by thy
death was God’s salvation wrought:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Please Pass
the Peace of Christ -- Grateful for the promise of joy and of peace, let us
share that peace with one another.
Let every
tongue confess with on accord
In heaven
and earth that Jesus Christ is Lord:
And God the
Father be by all adored:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
A Time with
Young Disciples
First
Reading – Malachi 3:1-4
See, I am sending my messenger to
prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his
temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming,
says the Lord of hosts. But who
can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
For he is like a refiner’s fire and
like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of
silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold
and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord
in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem
will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of
old and as in former years.
Response
This is the
Word of God for the people of God, to which God's people respond:
Thanks be to God.
Hymn – Rejoice Give Thanks verses 1&2,
Brian Wren
Refrain:
Rejoice, give thanks for God is near
us,
Loving, true, and kind,
And the peace of God in Jesus Christ
Will guard our heart and mind.
1. Turn on the porch light,
Dazzle the dark night.
God is coming soon.
God is coming soon
Through someone, somehow,
Next year, here and now,
Midnight, morning, noon.
So don’t be tempted or distracted
By the daily grind,
And the peace of God in Jesus Christ
Will guard our heart and mind.
Refrain
2. Just like a snowplow,
Scraping a road now,
Prophets clear the way.
Prophets clear away
Our shame and sadness,
Blame and business,
Calling us to pray.
In love’s great furnace we’ll be
burnished,
Rescued and refined,
And the peace of God in Jesus Christ
Will guard our heart and mind.
Refrain
Lighting the Advent Candle
(Begin with the first candle lit.)
The Gospel
of Luke speaks about God's messenger:
In the
fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius,…
the word of
God came to John son of Zechariah…
He went
into all the region around the Jordan,
proclaiming
a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Luke 3:1-3)
God comes
to us through particular people,
in
particular places and times in the past, and here and now.
Our second
candle reminds us to look for the light of God in God's messengers today.
(Light the second candle.)
Living
Christ, give us faith to trust you and hope to follow you.
We trust you, we love you, we praise you. Amen.
Hymn – Rejoice, Give Thanks, verse 3
Refrain
3. Here is a newsbreak
Healing our heartache:
Christ will bring us home!
Christ will bring us home,
Where no one’s outcast,
And we’ll have at last
Freedom and shalom.
In hope we’re living, let thanksgiving
All our fears unwind,
And the peace of God in Jesus Christ
Will guard our heart and mind.
Refrain
Sharing Joys and Concerns
Pastoral Prayer
Lord’s Prayer
Hymn – UMH
#209 Blessed Be the God of Israel (to
tune AURELIA #545 – 3 verses)
1
Blessed be the God of Israel who comes to set us free,
who visits and redeems us, and grants us liberty.
The prophets spoke of mercy, of freedom and release;
God shall fulfill the promise to bring our people peace.
who visits and redeems us, and grants us liberty.
The prophets spoke of mercy, of freedom and release;
God shall fulfill the promise to bring our people peace.
2
Now from the house of David a child of grace is given;
a Savior comes among us to raise us up to heaven.
Before him goes the herald, forerunner in the way,
the prophet of salvation, the harbinger of day.
a Savior comes among us to raise us up to heaven.
Before him goes the herald, forerunner in the way,
the prophet of salvation, the harbinger of day.
3
On prisoners of darkness the sun begins to rise,
the dawning of forgiveness upon the sinner's eyes,
to guide the feet of pilgrims along the paths of peace;
O bless our God and Savior with songs that never cease!
the dawning of forgiveness upon the sinner's eyes,
to guide the feet of pilgrims along the paths of peace;
O bless our God and Savior with songs that never cease!
Second
Reading – Luke 1:68-79
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a mighty savior for us
in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,
and has remembered his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,
to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies,
might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness
before him all our days.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
by the forgiveness of their sins.
By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a mighty savior for us
in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,
and has remembered his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,
to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies,
might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness
before him all our days.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
by the forgiveness of their sins.
By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Response
This is the
Word of God for the people of God, to which God's people respond:
Thanks be to God.
Choral
Anthem – The Yearning
Sermon
Today
we continue our journey through Advent. As
I was preparing for this week I was struck by the idea of our wilderness places
being the places where we are prepared for God’s coming. The lectionary readings for today include two
passages from Luke—the one we read this morning where Zechariah gives praise
and prophesy at John’s birth, and the one that comes in chapter 3, telling the
beginning of John’s ministry of preaching and baptism. In that reading we are told that God’s word
came to John while he is in the wilderness, and what he learned in the
wilderness sent him into the world to try and change it as he had been changed.
John
isn’t the only one who heard from God in the wilderness. The Bible is full of wilderness stories. Abram became Abraham in the wilderness. Moses and the Israelites heard from God in
their sojourn through the wilderness.
Jonah heard from God in the wilderness of a whale’s stomach. Saul, a persecutor of Christ followers,
became Paul only after a wilderness experience.
And even Jesus spent time being prepared for his ministry in the middle
of the wilderness.
Today’s
gospel reading comes at the end of what I think is one of Zechariah’s
wilderness places. But before we go on,
let’s take a moment to remember a little about who Zechariah is. Zechariah is a member of the house of Levi
and thus a temple priest. His wife,
Elizabeth, is a member of the house of Aaron.
THE Aaron. Brother of Moses. The one who led the Israelites into the Promised
Land. Zechariah and Elizabeth are pretty
important people—they are part of the Joneses everyone is always trying to keep
up with. And so life is pretty good for
them.
But
though their life is pretty good, it’s not perfect. They have no children, and because of their
respective ages, it looks like children are a dream they’re going to have to
forego. Though our society now often
views the gift of children and family differently, children for the Jews of
Zechariah’s time were a sign of God’s blessing and a promise of continued
lineage, and so the absence of children must have loomed large in both his and
Elizabeth’s minds. Though Luke tells us
that they were both righteous and blameless before God, it’s not difficult to
imagine that their minds whirled with the kinds of questions we often ask
ourselves when we’re hurting and uncertain: What have they done wrong? Why has God denied them this blessing? What does the future look like without
children to care for them in their old age?
And
so, one day, as Zechariah is performing his rituals in the temple, the angel Gabriel
appears to tell him that Elizabeth is expecting. And Zechariah doesn’t react the way you’d
expect a priest, someone who has spent his entire life steeped in the impossible
promises of God, to react. But Zechariah
is human after all, and maybe a little skeptical. Maybe he’d had a rough day. I don’t know, maybe his breakfast hummus was
burned. Or maybe he’s just hesitant to
believe, after such heartache, that his dream is finally coming true and their
time in the wilderness is over. But for
whatever reason, he questions the angel.
And in response Gabriel renders him mute until the child is born.
We
don’t really know why mutism is the sentence, maybe Zechariah needs time to just
stop talking and listen to God, but for whatever reason, for nine months
Zechariah doesn’t speak. The child is
born and it comes time for him to be circumcised, to be welcomed into the
Jewish faith, and everyone is astonished when Elizabeth announces the child is
not to be named after his father, but is to be named John. And that is such an unusual thing that they
check with Zechariah to see if she’s pulling one over on them. And the minute he agrees he’s able to talk,
his voice cries out from his wilderness, from a place he thought would never be
fruitful, and he praises God.
Now
Zechariah doesn’t do what I would do—he doesn’t thank God that his wilderness
time is over or give thanks for anything in his own personal life. Instead Zechariah sings—he sings a song is
based on a Jewish hymn “the poor of the Lord”—praising the goodness of God,
giving thanks for God’s unending promises, and for the mighty things that God
is going to do on behalf of God’s people.
And then he turns to look at his son and speaks words of blessing and
prophesy over him, “You child, you will go before the Lord and prepare his way,
helping people find forgiveness and salvation in God’s mercy, preparing them
for the One who will put an end to fear and death and teach peace that passes
all we can understand.”
Zechariah
comes out of the wilderness with clarity and praise. And that made me wonder about our own wilderness
places. We all carry them. We all carry dreams that we aren’t sure will
ever come true, wounds that haven’t quite healed, people who have hurt or
disappointed us. And though we carry
them around, we hope that someday the dreams will become realities, prayers will
be answered, and the hurts will be healed.
We hope that these wilderness places are what will be burned away in Malachi’s
“refining fire.”
What
if these wilderness places are for us, like they were for Zechariah, and John,
and Jonah, and the Israelites, and Paul, places of growth? Because we know God is loving and merciful, I
don’t think our wilderness places are a time of divine “time-out” where we
stand with our nose in a desolate corner to think about what we’ve done. But at the same time, we don’t always know
how we end up in the wilderness. We’re given
(sometimes plagued with) the gift of free will, and so sometimes, through
action or inaction or ignorance, we put ourselves there. Sometimes other people put us there. Sometimes, through no fault of our own, we
simply find ourselves without bearings and disoriented in a place or situation
we’re entirely unprepared for.
Regardless
of how we arrive there, being in the wilderness provides us with the
opportunity to find strength in God, to learn to depend on something outside of
ourselves. And that’s so hard, but I
think our Malachi reading from this morning can help us here. Malachi receives these words from God, “Who
is prepared for the coming of God’s messenger?”
We know that on our own we are not.
So we are gifted with refining fire and fuller’s soap.
Now let’s pause for a moment. We know fire, but what is fuller’s soap? Made from plant ashes, fuller’s soap was used
by cloth makers to clean new cloth after the fibers had been beaten into a
constant, even, and desirable condition.[1] If you were not all that excited about the
refining fire of life, I bet you’re even less excited about the fuller’s soap
of life.
Nevertheless, these
words from God are in fact a promise.
“The refining is not waiting for us to feel good about it. God’s promise is sure, and it is good news. We will be re-formed in God’s image, and it
will be good. No matter how we feel
about it. No matter what we may be
afraid of now. When we are refined and
purified as God promises, it will be good.”[2] And this is the sort of promise that we just
have to sit with and think about. We tend
to spend a lot of time, money, and energy trying to forget our need for
refining and our wilderness wanderings.
But I think it’s possible that only when we embrace our wilderness
places, when we learn to cry out, “God, come and prepare your way in me, here,
even in this place!”, accepting the ways in which God works with us to heal us,
that we’ll ever be able to leave the wilderness behind. I think maybe this is the kind of thing
Zechariah was thinking about during his nine months of silence.
And so, as we sit in
this in-between season—not yet fully celebrating Christmas while the world
around us is covered in glitter and bows—I invite you to find some time
somewhere to “prepare the way of the Lord” in your own wilderness places. We all have them. Look at them, turn them over in your hands,
and do the hard and painful work of offering them to God. Do this work while we wait, yearning for
God’s firstborn, bringer of mercy and peace, so that you may join in
Zechariah’s song, singing, “May the Lord God of Israel be
blessed indeed! For God’s intervention has begun, and He has moved to rescue
us, the people of God.”
Hymn – TFWS
#2089 Wild and Lone the Prophet’s Voice
1
Wild and lone the prophet's voice
echoes through the desert still,
calling us to make a choice,
bidding us to do God's will:
"Turn from sin and be baptized;
cleanse your heart and mind and soul.
Quitting all the sin you prized,
yield your life to God's control.
echoes through the desert still,
calling us to make a choice,
bidding us to do God's will:
"Turn from sin and be baptized;
cleanse your heart and mind and soul.
Quitting all the sin you prized,
yield your life to God's control.
2
"Bear the fruit repentance sows:
lives of justice, truth, and love.
Trust no other claim than those;
set your heart on things above.
Soon the Lord will come in power,
burning clean the threshing floor:
then will flames the chaff devour;
wheat alone shall fill God's store."
lives of justice, truth, and love.
Trust no other claim than those;
set your heart on things above.
Soon the Lord will come in power,
burning clean the threshing floor:
then will flames the chaff devour;
wheat alone shall fill God's store."
3
With such preaching stark and bold
John proclaimed salvation near,
and his timeless warnings hold
words of hope to all who hear.
So we dare to journey on,
led by faith through ways untrod,
till we come at last like John -
to behold the Lamb of God.
John proclaimed salvation near,
and his timeless warnings hold
words of hope to all who hear.
So we dare to journey on,
led by faith through ways untrod,
till we come at last like John -
to behold the Lamb of God.
We Bring
Our Gifts
Offering
Response – UMH #94 Doxology
Prayer of
Dedication
God of all righteousness,
receive these gifts of gratitude, the offerings of our
lives.
Purify them with your refining fire so that they may
serve your purposes
and shine with your glory; through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.
Holy
Communion
Great
Thanksgiving
The
Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Lift
up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let
us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and
praise.
It
is right, and a good and joyful thing,
always and everywhere to give thanks to
you,
Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth.
You
formed us in your image and breathed into us the breath of life.
When
we turned away, and our love failed, your love remained steadfast.
You
delivered us from captivity, made covenant to be our sovereign God,
and spoke to us through your prophets, who
looked for that day
when justice shall roll down like
waters
and righteousness like an
ever-flowing stream,
when nation shall not lift up sword
against nation,
neither shall they learn war
anymore.
And
so, with your people on earth and all the company of heaven,
we praise your name and join their unending
hymn:
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and
might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of
the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.
Holy
are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ,
whom you sent in the fullness of time to be
a light to the nations.
You
scatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts
and have mercy on those who fear you from
generation to generation.
You
put down the mighty from their thrones and exalt those of low degree.
You
fill the hungry with good things, and the rich you send empty away.
Your
own Son came among us as a servant,
to be Emmanuel, your presence with us.
He
humbled himself in obedience to your will
and freely accepted death on a cross.
By
the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection
you gave birth to your Church,
delivered us from slavery to sin and death,
and made with us a new covenant by water
and the Spirit.
On
the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread,
gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave
it to his disciples, and said:
"Take,
eat; this is my body which is given for you.
Do
this in remembrance of me."
When
the supper was over he took the cup,
gave thanks to you, gave it to his
disciples, and said:
"Drink
from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant,
poured out for you and for many for the
forgiveness of sins.
Do
this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
And
so, in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ,
we
offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving
as a holy and living sacrifice, in union
with Christ's offering for us,
as
we proclaim the mystery of faith.
Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ
will come again.
Pour
out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here,
and on these gifts of bread and wine.
Make
them be for us the body and blood of Christ,
that we may be for the world the body of
Christ, redeemed by his blood.
By
your Spirit make us one with Christ,
one with each other, and one in ministry to
all the world,
until
Christ comes in final victory, and we feast at his heavenly banquet.
Through
your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy Church,
all honor and glory is yours, almighty
Father (God), now and for ever.
Amen.
Receiving
the Bread and Cup
Prayer of
Response
Eternal God, we give you thanks for this holy mystery
In which you have given yourself to us.
By your Spirit, give us patience and perseverance as we wait,
And prepare ourselves and your
world for Christ’s return.
That all may shine with the light of your love. Amen.
Hymn of Sending – UMH #206 I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light
I want to walk as a child of the
light.
I want to follow Jesus.
God sent the stars to give light to
the world.
The star of my life is Jesus.
Refrain
In him there is no darkness at all
The night and the day are both alike
The Lamb is the light of the city of
God.
Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.
Ii want to see the brightness of God.
I want to look at Jesus.
Clear Sun of Righteousness, shine on
my path,
And show me the way to the Father.
Refrain
I’m looking for the coming of Christ.
I want to be with Jesus.
When we have run with patience the
race,
We shall know the joy of Jesus.
Refrain
Benediction
Postlude
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