Texts: Micah 5:2-5a; Psalm 80:1-7; Hebrews 10:5-10;
Luke 1:39-55
Call to Worship
We come to glorify God,
to rejoice in the One who saves us.
God comes, so we might believe,
so we might be blessed.
Our hearts leap for joy!
For God is coming to us in a child.
God comes for those who hunger for hope,
for those who thirst for grace.
Holy is the One who comes in God's name,
who fulfills every promise of God.
God comes to walk with those who follow in
faith,
to bring peace to a shattered world.
Prayer of the Day
Holy
God,
scattering
the proud,
you
look with favor
on
those the world ignores.
For
you,
we
wait for the One
who
will feed us;
for
you,
we
wait for the One
who
stands with us
in
our loneliness and pain.
For
you, we wait.
Jesus
Christ,
born
in a backwater town:
in
you,
God
fills the hunger
of
our hearts;
in
you,
God
lifts us
from
our hopelessness;
in
you,
all
the promises come true.
For
you, we wait.
Holy
Spirit,
Hallower
of God's people:
from
you comes faith,
so we might believe;
from
you comes belief,
so we might be blessed;
from
you come all blessings,
so we might give them away.
For
you, we wait.
God
in Community, Holy in One,
for
you, we wait, even as we pray:
(The Lord’s Prayer)
Call to Reconciliation
Every
notion we have about power, success, wealth and achievement, God takes and
tosses out the window. More importantly,
God comes to us, to upset our idea that we must save ourselves. In Jesus, God comes to us, removing our sin,
our failures, our expectations, so we might have life. Please join me as we pray together, saying,
Unison Prayer for
Forgiveness
We confess we are not the people you hope us
to be, Advent God. The very ones you
favor? All too often, we ignore them, or
worse fill them with ridicule. The ones
you knock off their pedestals? We continue
to admire them, seeking to emulate their ways.
The drumbeat for more and more? We
give into the rhythm so easily, we risk being sent away empty.
Forgive us, Mighty God who comes in the weakness
of a baby. Look with grace upon us, so
we might see your love shining down. We could
live secure in your hope, we could be the ones of peace for our world, we could
learn to do your will, if we but welcome Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior,
into our hearts and into our lives.
Silence is kept
Assurance of Pardon
God passes the heirloom of mercy down
from generation to generation, always
loving,
always forgiving, always calling us to
new life.
As we open our hearts to God, we are filled
with the joy that was sung at the
Birth,
with the Hope that walked among us,
with the Grace which is always with us.
Thanks be to God, we are forgiven! Amen.
Prayer of Dedication/Offering
In
these moments, God who comes, remind us of those who are yearning to be lifted
to their feet, those who hunger for hope, those who look for peace, and may our
gifts be used to serve them. In Jesus’
name, we pray. Amen.
Great Prayer of
Thanksgiving
May
salvation’s Rock be with you!
May that foundation be
with you!
As
God approaches, let us lift our hearts in hope.
God comes to strengthen
them with grace.
May
our songs tell of God’s love which never ends.
We will sing of God’s
faithfulness which lasts forever.
With
patience, with gentleness,
you
entered the emptiness of chaos,
God
of wonder and awe,
spreading
the rich soil of creation
from
which sprang flowers and fields,
vegetables
and trees, our ancestors in life.
You
looked with favor upon them,
doing
wondrous things for them.
But
they wandered far from you,
losing
themselves in the maze of thoughts
crafted
by temptation and death.
You
would not give up on them,
time
after time sending prophets
with
words of welcome and hope,
but
they could not do your will.
So
you sent Christ into the world,
filled
with the Holy Spirit,
exclaiming
with a living cry
of
our salvation for all time.
With
all those who trusted in what was unseen,
and
those who believed the best would come,
we
join our voices in singing your Advent praise:
Holy, holy, holy, God of holiness and peace.
All creation waits for your purpose to
be revealed.
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is the One who comes to do your
will.
Hosanna in the highest!
You
are holy, God of unending glory,
and
blessed is Jesus Christ, Hope of the world.
He
came with haste, leaving your side
to
set out on his journey for us.
The
joy of your heart,
he
come to proclaim your love;
the
Word of your hope,
he
came to call us home;
the
fruit of your grace,
he
was born to offer himself
for
our salvation and freedom
from
the power of sin,
making
us your holy people
by
his death and resurrection.
As
we prepare to celebrate his birth,
as
we remember the gift of his resurrection,
we
would tell of that mystery we call faith:
P: Christ
was born, that we might see
hope in the flesh;
Christ lived, that we might hear
grace spoken aloud;
Christ died, that we might feel
the breaking of God's heart;
Christ is risen, that we might know
that the promises are true;
Christ will come again, that we
might be blessed as God's children.
Pour
out your Spirit
upon
the gifts of this Table
and
upon your children
who
gather for your feast.
In
this place, we are filled
with
the strength of hope,
so
we may serve those
who
hunger for goodness and grace.
Restored
by the Cup of life,
we
can dare to go out
to
empty ourselves for those
who
wander the streets of life,
unnoticed
by the rest of the world.
And
when our journey has ended,
when
your Advent has come to gather us home,
we
will join with Elizabeth and Mary,
with
Joseph and John the Baptist,
with
our sisters and brothers from all time,
forever
singing our joy to you,
God
in Community, Holy in One. Amen.
Sending
O
come, Child of the covenant,
to
lead us to the heirs of the promises made long ago.
We will go with you to
those who have been forgotten,
to lift all those
knocked down by life to their feet.
O
Come, salvation’s servant,
to
show us the way to the joy of this season.
We will go with you to
welcome the outsider,
and to throw our arms
around those whose hearts are broken.
O
Come, Lover of the lowly,
to
fill our hands with the shawls of grace and peace.
We will go to wrap them
around those who grieve,
to place them on the
shoulders of those damaged by violence.
(c)
Thom M. Shuman
