CALL TO WORSHIP | Michelle Blake
One of the essential paradoxes of Advent: that while we wait for God, we are with God all along.
And that while we need to be reassured of God’s arrival, or the arrival of our homecoming, we are already home.
While we wait, we have to trust, to have faith, but it is God’s grace that gives us that faith
As with all spiritual knowledge, two things are true, and equally true, at once.
The mind can’t grasp paradox; it is the knowledge of the soul.
OPENING HYMN | O Come, All Ye Faithful – Pentatonix
MINUTE FOR MISSION AND RESPONSIVE CHORUS
There are so many exciting ways that God is working through each of us and in this community. As we consider our receiving and our giving to the works of ministry in this place and in the world, may we remember to whom we belong.
Through all our living, we our fruits must give.
Good works of service are for offering.
When we are giving, or when receiving,
We belong to God.
We belong to God.
We belong to God.
We belong to God.
HEBREW READING | Isaiah 11:6-9
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant shall play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put its hand on the viper’s nest. They will not hurt or destroy my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
THEME READING | Edward Hicks
Edward Hicks, painted this rhyming paraphrase of Isaiah on many of his paintings, taken from a contemporaneous prayer book
The wolf shall with the lambkin dwell in peace,
His grim carniv’rous nature then shall cease;
The leopard with the harmless kid lay down,
And not one savage beast be seen to frown;
The lion and the calf shall forward move,
A little child shall lead them on in love;
When man is moved and led by sovereign grace,
To seek that state of everlasting peace.
SERMON
“Candles of Peace for Tempest-tossed Days”
By Rev. Don Ludwig
Click here to read Don’s Sermon.
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
- Naming Joys & Concerns
- Pastoral Prayer/Corporate Prayer
CORPORATE PRAYER | An Advent Prayer for Peace
God of Advent,
May we recognize God-in-us and give generous expression to this wonderful gift we all share. May we recognize and actively acknowledge the presence of the sacred in places we are reluctant to look:
— in the stables of our own lives
— among the downtrodden in our society
— in refugees
— in people who are different from us.
May we discover peace within us and make peace throughout our world, whomever we meet, wherever we go. Amen.
