Worship Leader: Paul Whiteley, LLWL Music Director: Tim Hallman, B.Mus.,B.Ed.
FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT – LOVE
DECEMBER 22, 2024
“The Coming of Love”
Welcome / Announcements / Celebrations
Land Acknowledgement
Lighting the Christ Candle
Lighting the Advent Candles
One: Love, in the midst of apathy- hate is not the
opposite of love, apathy is. (light first candle)
All: When apathy sets in, love is a choice. Love is a
verb. Love is less what we feel, more what we do.
An act of love. A labour of love. (light second candle)
One: We come choosing love when apathy is easier,
Choosing love when it means it may come with pain. (light pink candle)
All: Let us pray for Emmanuel, for love that resists
apathy, for wisdom to choose the way of love
even when it is woven together with pain and sorrow. (light new candle)
Call To Worship:
One: The Advent candle shines with light,
All: the same light that shines in us, the light of your love.
One: the darkest day of the year, the longest night, your light shines into the world.
All: And it shines in our hearts. Bring to life your holy presence in us as we worship now and as we live each moment. Christ, be born in us, now and always. Amen.
Steve Garnaas-Holmes, from unfoldinglight.net, 2009
Opening Hymn: VU 7 “Hope Is a Star” (vs. 1–4)
Opening Prayer:
All: We give thanks, God, and welcome your presence.
One: Blessed are you, and blessed is the fruit of your faith,
for God is alive in you.
All: As we hear the Word
something deep within us leaps for joy,
for God within us rejoices.
One: Blessed are you who believe that there will be a fulfillment
of what God has spoken.
All: God, you are coming into our lives in new ways.
In trust, we open the womb of our hearts to you.
Come, God of love, be born in us today.
Steve Garnaas-Holmes, from unfoldinglight.net, 2009
Passing of the Peace
Anthem
Scriptures:
Micah 5:2–5a “The One to Come”
Luke 1:39–45 “Mary Visits Elizabeth”
Hymn: VU 59 “Joy to the World”
Reflection: “The Coming of Love”
“He will shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord … They will dwell secure … he will become one of peace.” – Micah 5:4–5
“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. – Luke 1:41
One set of readings is followed by most churches, Catholic and Protestant, in North America and around the world. The list includes key stories from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Gospels and the Epistles in a three-year cycle. This list is what worship professionals call the “lectionary”, which really just means the assigned readings, and it is more like a generic product with some assembly required, like furniture from Ikea or Canadian Tire, rather than something unique that fits exactly what a worship leader or a congregation need. I try to follow the lectionary, because it helps connect my choices with those of other worship leaders and the stories we hear at Lyn with those heard at other United churches. Sometimes I hear complaints about the lectionary, or even have complaints of my own. One complaint I have often heard is about Advent, and the treatment of pregnancy in Advent. The lectionary is a bit like a certain kind of television show, where one episode a character has just realized that she’s pregnant and in the next episode they are ready to have the baby in a loud, dramatic scene.
And so in this fourth Sunday of Advent, the last Sunday before Christmas, young Mary finds out that she is pregnant – from an angel, as one does. She goes from Nazareth in the North to visit her cousin Elizabeth in the South; her husband Zechariah had received a similarly angelic birth announcement when Elizabeth, in old age, became pregnant with the baby we later know as John the Baptist. So Advent is a season of waiting, but this year we have less than three days from the meeting of these women mid-pregnancy to the dramatic birth of Jesus in a stable. I’m not an expert, but I don’t really think this is how pregnancy works.
That said, this is one of the few scenes presented in the gospels where a woman actually has a conversation with another woman. And the conversation is important – the author of Luke’s gospel uses this talk to establish the relationship between Elizabeth’s son – John the Baptist – and Mary’s son – Jesus of Nazareth. Now when we meet these two as adults, later in the Gospels, we are not told that they are related in any way, not even as distant cousins. Of course it is possible for people to meet as adults without realizing that they are, in fact, distant cousins, and that is one way of reading the two Gospel stories. But in Luke, where Mary is a more important character than in any of the other gospels, perhaps the most important thing is the relationship established between John and Jesus through Mary and Elizabeth. Mary and Elizabeth know each other, and although they are at different stages of life, they share a connection and a sense of call. They know that their lives make a difference through the sons the angels have told them they will bear.
The relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus is one of the more carefully constructed in the New Testament. It is good to remember that John, even more than Jesus, is an historical figure. We can read about Yohannon – John – outside of the bible, and the movement for renewal, based in the desert, which we know as his ministry is now a well-established piece of the historical record. And so when the writers of the gospels set down a generation after Jesus’ death to tell his stories, one of the stories they had to settle is this relationship with John. And what they say, after all is said and done, is that John’s movement comes before Jesus’ movement and is based on the same values. In that movement in the desert to promote the renewal and rebirth of the Jewish people – that movement in Jesus’ day, before his death and the destruction of the temple a generation later – Jesus recognizes the value of John’s movement by seeking baptism, and John recognizes Jesus role as the Messiah, the chosen one, who will bring about deeper and more lasting change. And after the Temple in Jerusalem is destroyed in the great revolt in Judea, it is the Jesus movement that is able to carry those values on.
But perhaps the importance of this story of two women’s pregnancies is less in its lesson about the theology of repentance and destiny than it is in the hopes and fears of two mothers to be. We are told that the baby in Elizabeth’s womb “leapt for joy”, which is probably a poetic turn of phrase for an unborn baby kicking in the womb. Now some might see a tension between the holy moment connecting the most blessed people – Jesus Christ and John the Baptist – with something as ordinary as pregnancy with all its reminders of our lives as bodily organisms. But for me, the real message of this passage is pretty much the opposite to that.
When the baby in Elizabeth’s womb “leaps for Joy”, we are reminded that God, and love, come to us in our bodily existence, in our lives as human animals. The mystery that theology calls “incarnation” is the weird and wonderful reality that the transcendent, the divine, the holy, is present among us in the flesh – the carne that is the root word of incarnation. Love comes in the body; love is body; and it is in our genetic, physical and bodily connections and relationships that we are most reminded of love in all its forms.
So on Christmas this week we will celebrate the miracle of Jesus’ birth, the miracle of incarnation. This is the miracle of God with us, that God is among us, that God’s love is in us, that God’s love is us. This is truly a mystery, told in many ways through many stories. Let us live this miracle this week. Amen.
Paul Whiteley
Invitation For Offering
Offering Hymn: VU 542 “We Give You but Your Own”
Offering Prayer
Prepare Our Hearts for Prayers: VU 8 “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming”
Prayers Of People / Lord’s Prayer
God of love, you promise your presence, and you pledge to us your mercy and grace. Open our eyes to see the dawning of your light within us and among us. Open our hearts to your Word, that we might trust in what you have spoken to us. Speak to us again, that we may live in the light of your coming.
Gracious God, your angel spoke to Mary long ago, calling her your Beloved, and showing her your blessing that grew within her. Speak to us now; call us as your Beloved, and help us see the blessing that grows within us. Grant us open hearts and minds, that as the scriptures are read and your good news proclaimed we may hear with joy what you are saying to us today.
Steve Garnaas-Holmes, from unfoldinglight.net, 2009
Closing Hymn: MV 120 “My Soul Cries Out”
Benediction
God of light and healing, we thank you for the blessed mystery that you give yourself to us. You have come to dwell with us, and within us. Blessed, transformed, and sustained by your presence, we go into the world in your name to bring good news to the poor, to set the captives free, and to proclaim your grace. Send us in the power of your Spirit, with the blessing and the company of your Son, our Chief, Jesus Christ, who is present among us, now and to eternal life. Amen.
Steve Garnaas-Holmes, from unfoldinglight.net, 2009
Choral Blessing: “Go Now in Peace”
"A Village Church With A Heart For The World"
Christ United Church
12 Perth St., Lyn, ON, K0E 1M0
(613)498-0281 (Phone) (613)498-2589 (Fax)
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