The Celebration of the Gospel
December 9, 2018 — Second Sunday of Advent
Prepare a way for God; make a straight path for the Beloved.
— Luke 3.4
______We Gather as the Body of Christ_____
GREETING
PRELUDE Thou Who Was Rich Beyond All Splendor — French Carol, arr: Stephen Nielson
[As we listen to the music we quiet our minds and bodies,
listen for our hearts’ deepest desires,
and become present to the Holy One who is lovingly present for us.
You may light a votive candle in prayer
any time during the prelude, hymns, offering, Peace, communion or postlude.]
CALL TO WORSHIP
God, we are waiting, watching and hoping.
Come to us, and save us, and bring us peace.
1. Listen to the voice in the wilderness, crying out: “Prepare the way.”
Valleys will be filled, and the mountains all made low. Everyone will see God’s grace.
2. God has sent a savior to set us free from fear, free to serve God faithfully.
Go, proclaim this grace by forgiving people’s sin. Light will lead us into peace.
LIGHTING THE ADVENT CANDLE Malachi 3.1-4
[God sends a messenger to prepare us for God to come among us. But it will not all be easy. God is coming to purify us.]
See, I will send my messenger,
who will prepare the way before me.
Then suddenly the One you are seeking will come to the temple;
the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,”
says God Almighty.
But who can endure the day of that coming?
Who can stand when the Messenger appears?
For God’s chosen will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap,
and will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver;
and will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.
Then God will have people who will bring offerings in righteousness,
and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to God,
as in days gone by, as in former years.
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RESPONSE
Leader: God of love, purify us in the refining fire of your Spirit.
Set us free from all that does not help us serve you.
Remove from us all that is not love.
By your Spirit living in us, help us prepare a way for your coming.
* SONG People Look East — Blue hymnal # 202
________We Attend to the Word__________
(10:30) CHILDREN’S TIME
(10:30) THE WORD IN SONG Every Valley — John Ness Beck
PRAYER
As we prepare our homes for the holidays let us also prepare our hearts. Let every decoration, card, and cookie be an act of readiness for your coming. God of love, help us prepare a room for Christ to be born in us this holy season. Speak the Word to us that will make room in our hearts for love. Amen.
NEW TESTAMENT Philippians 1.6, 9-11
[God will continue a process that God has already begun in us: that our love will increasingly overflow so that we may be pure on the day of Christ’s coming.]
I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.
This is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
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* CANTICLE Luke 1.68-79
[God has fulfilled the Covenant to save us from all that we fear and to establish a new realm of peace, and has chosen us to bring that realm, in the form of forgiveness, to all people.]
Blessed are you, the Most High God of Israel,
for you have visited your people and redeemed them.
You have raised up a mighty savior for us
in the house of your servant David,
as you spoke through the mouth of your holy prophets from of old,
that we would be saved from our enemies
and from the power of all our foes.
Thus you have shown us the mercy you promised to our ancestors,
and have remembered your holy covenant,
the oath that you swore to Sarah and Abraham,
to rescue us from the hands of our enemies,
that we might serve you without fear,
in holiness and justice,
in your presence all our days.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before our God to prepare the ways of the Promised One,
to give knowledge of salvation to God’s 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.
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GOSPEL Luke 3.1-6
[John the Baptist is like Isaiah’s “voice crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord!’” The message in Isaiah was a word of hope to people who were in exile: a broad, smooth road through the wilderness, on which God would come to bring them home!]
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
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SERMON Make some room
SONG Prepare Your Way in Me — Steve G-H
Prepare your way in me, Lord, prepare your way in me.
1. Make my rough places smooth, the crooked make straight, my Lord.
2. Lay your hand at my root, that I may bear fruit, my Lord.
3. Come and empty my heart of all things but you, my Lord.
4. Guide my feet in your way; fill me with your peace, my Lord.
THE PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
[Anyone who wishes may share a prayer at the microphone.]
SHARING THE PEACE OF CHRIST
_________We Share at Christ’s Table _______
OFFERING OUR GIFTS Nun Komm, Der Heiden Heiland — Johann Michael Bach
* COMMUNION SONG Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent — Blue hymnal #626 v. 1-
THE GREAT THANKSGIVING
Beloved, God is with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to God.
Let us give thanks to the Faithful One, our God.
It is good to give God thanks and praise.
We thank you, God, for in the beginning in the darkness and void,
you brought forth light. You prepared Creation for us.
With the light of love, in the image of love, you created us.
In the darkness and chaos of our brokenness, you have sent us a savior
who has set us free from all that diminishes life.
You judge the forces of oppression and set all your beloved free.
You prepare for us a way toward justice,
and walk with us on that path, and guide our feet in the way of peace.
We long for such peace in our lives.
So at your invitation we come to this table you have prepared for us
to feast in celebration of our freedom, and to sing your praise:
[Sung]
Holy, holy, holy One, God of love and God of might,
heav’n and earth are glorious with your presence and your light.
Gloria in excelsis Deo! Gloria in excelsis Deo!
Blessed is the one who comes in your name,
and blessed is Jesus, your Christ, who embodied your love.
He made room for the poor and outcast,
and held a sacred space for those who were broken.
He died and rose again,
and promised to prepare a place for us.
In his love he showed us how to live, and prepared a way for us to follow.
[The Blessing and Covenant…]
Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”
As often as we break this bread and share this cup
we remember his death and resurrection until he comes again.
Remembering these, your mighty acts in Jesus Christ,
we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving
as a living and holy sacrifice, in union with Christ’s offering for us,
as we proclaim the mystery of our faith:
Dying, Christ destroyed our death. Rising, Christ restores our life.
Christ will come again in love. Alleluia! Gloria!
Gloria in excelsis Deo! Gloria in excelsis Deo!
Pour out your Holy Spirit on these gifts of bread and cup,
that they may be for us the body and blood of Christ.
Pour out your Holy Spirit on us,
that we may be for the world the Body of Christ.
In this meal prepare in us a place for your love,
that we may go before you, conveying the forgiveness of sin.
Amen. Amen. Joyfully praise the Holy Trinity.
Honor, thanks and glory be sung to you eternally.
Gloria in excelsis Deo! Gloria in excelsis Deo!
THE PRAYER OF JESUS
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, and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
SHARING THE HOLY MEAL [Everyone is welcome at the table of Christ’s self-giving love.
The bread is wheat-, soy- and dairy free. We dip the bread in the juice.]
PRAYER OF BLESSING
Gracious God, we thank you for this mystery in which you have given yourself to us. In this meal you have prepared a way into our hearts, and a way for us to bear you into the world.
Leader: And you, children, will be called the prophets of the Most High;
for you will go before our God to prepare the ways of the Promised One,
to give knowledge of salvation to God’s 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.
____ We Are Sent in Ministry to the World___
THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD
* SONG O Little Town of Bethlehem — Blue hymnal #230
* THE BLESSING AND SENDING FORTH
RESPONSE Please stand and sing to your neighbors:
May the grace and peace of Christ be with you my friends.
Go and share the love of God, love that never ends.
POSTLUDE Watchman, Tell Us Of The Night – Jakob Hintze, arr: Mark Hayes
[During the postlude there are people ready to pray with you at the candles in the corners.]