Opoho Church: Liturgy and Reflections for Advent 3 15 December 2019

Call to Worship 

Come to this place, you who are weary;

peace is waiting for you and all that you bring.

We are here seeking respite from the expectations and demands of this season and this life.

Come to this place, you who long for a safe haven;

hope is here, God’s presence wrapped around you in love.

We are here with some hesitation,

yet also with a longing to know holiness

in the depth of our being.

Come to this place, you who are resilient;

by grace the Creator of all is with you.

We are here, waiting, alert, ready,

for the joy that is the Christ Child.  

Prayer of Confession

Holy God, we come before you today in a time of prayer – prayer of ourselves and for others.

We admit that it can be a confusing time for us in Advent, and especially this year. Our readings from scripture refuse to allow us to dwell in joy alone.  The cross is always alongside, birth and death companions in the journey - and it is hard. In the midst of this time of anticipation and loveliness and innocence of a new born, we encounter pain and loneliness and hard times.  We would love to talk just about joy today for there is much to celebrate and yet, especially for some of us, the sadness of this time is overwhelming.  Forgive us when we forget that you are a God of both valleys and mountains, that in Jesus you know both the delight and despair that is this your world.  Be with those who mourn we pray and hear, alongside the lament, the peace and joy that we find in Jesus, the child who fills our cradle of waiting.

We bring our confessions and our hope for the ourselves and the world.

We have sometimes failed to be aware of the vulnerable and the helpless, caught up as we are in our own bubbles of preparation and anticipation.  Forgive us when we close the shutters on life outside our immediate rooms and help us to see the joy and despair that walk hand in hand through our world. 

We pray for the families of those who lost their lives on Whaakari / White Island, for those still in critical care and   for those who will live but have a long and painful journey of healing ahead of them. 

In a time of silence we bring our confusion to you – our regret at things not well done, the embarrassment of being honest before God, our joy in new life as we cry for loss.

silence

Hear our prayers, Loving God and in your mercy grant us peace we pray.      ....we say together  Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…

First Reading Isaiah 35:1-2a, 5-6a
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.

Reader: Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church

People: Thanks be to God

Reflection: The Gifts that Jesus Gave  Abby Smith

Hello, my baby boy, just born, tiny and wrinkly and damp.  Look at your little perfect hands, your tiny wee nose.  I carried you inside me and now you are born.  I have never felt so much love in all my life.  Thank you so much, my baby, for teaching me what Love really is.

We remain seated to sing:

He came singing love and he lived singing love: he died singing love. 

He arose in silence. For the love to go on we must make it our song: 

you and I be the singers

We came over the hills, we left our sheep.  We never leave our sheep!  We saw angels and so we came.  We were afraid, but still we came, to see this child, this saviour.  The Lord himself sent us, so we came.  We did not believe easily.  We did not understand.  But now we see – this baby has shown us what Faith really is.

We sing: He came singing faith….

We brought gifts but he gave us more in return.  We read the stars, we knew he will be the King of Kin0067s.  We brought our gifts but he gave us more.  Now we know him the Prince of Peace.  All our troubles and worries have gone.  We will not go back to conflict and doubt.  This baby has taught us what Peace really is.

We sing: He came singing peace….

We have lived here in the stable for a long time.  We carry heavy loads, we haul the ploughs.  We eat what they give us, we go where they take us, we work, we eat, we die.  This baby, born in our dark prison, is like light.  He shines, saying to us who live in the dark, there is green grass and water and sunshine and freedom for us somewhere.  We did not know what hope was.  This baby has shown us what Hope really is.

We sing: He came singing hope…

I’m not important, just a carpenter.  The baby isn’t mine, not really.  I don’t understand why there are shepherds and kings and donkeys in here.  Mary smiles that secret smile, and I’m lost and I don’t understand.  But up there in the sky a bright star shines, telling me to trust in God.  And I do.  Suddenly a great joy rises up in me, I could dance, I could shout, but I stand here silent and happy.  I did not know what joy could be.  This baby has shown me what Joy really is.

Carol

Isaac Watt  17^th – 18^th C  WOV 224

Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her king;

let every heart prepare a room and heaven and nature sing,

and heaven and nature sing, and heaven, and heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the world, the Saviour reigns! Let all their songs employ;

while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains repeat the sounding joy,

repeat the sounding joy, repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

Christ rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove

the glories of God’s righteousness and wonders of God’s love,

and wonders of God’s love and wonders, and wonders of God’s love.

Gospel Reading  Luke 1:46b-55
"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."

            Reader: This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ

People:  Praise to Christ the Word

Reflection Mary’s Gift

A contemporary reading: “God did not wait” by Madeline L'Engle

God did not wait till the world was ready, till...the nations were at peace.

God came when the heavens were unsteady,and prisoners cried out for release.

God did not wait for the perfect time, God came when the need was deep and great.

God dined with sinners in all their grime, turned water into wine. God did not wait

till hearts were pure. In joy God came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.

To a world like ours of anguished shame God came, and God's light would not go out.

God came to a world that did not mesh, to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.

In the mystery of the Word made flesh the maker of the stars was born.

I wonder if we will ever truly understand the gift that was Mary’s acceptance of her role as the mother of Jesus – I wonder what might have happened if she had refused, as she may well have wanted to do.  I wonder if she argued with God, suggesting others who might have been more suited or that this could wait for a better time.  She had no power, no voice, not status, how could she possibly be strong enough for this, this disgrace, this complex burden of joy and pain that was about to be laid on her.

Yet we know that she does accept and not grudgingly as we might have expected –  it is like she has a window on the world that allows miracles, that accepts the desperate need that the world is in and she embraces this gift of new birth, a baby to change the way of the world, and her life forever.  What courage she possessed and what trust she had in God to be with her and to work through her in not just her unplanned pregnancy but in the birth and the years ahead.  For through this girl, a child was born that would bring joy to a despairing world, that would in most disorderly and unexpected manner, teach us how to live in hope even when life was hard, that would show a peace that permeated all the despair the world could throw at us, that would bring a love that turned aside even death.  Who would have thought that the courage of the young woman was such an amazing gift to the world?

Last words from Madeline:

We cannot wait till the world is sane

to raise our songs with joyful voice,

for to share our grief, to touch our pain,

God came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession O Come  Abby Smith

O Come All Ye Faithful

And all you doubters, all you worriers, all you skeptics

Come all you who don’t care, all you who are too busy, all you who hate,

All you who are too certain, all you who question everything, all you burnt and damaged,

O Come

Joyful and Triumphant

And fearful and defeated, disgusted and disheartened,

Wandering sad and unsure, devastated and lost, eyes down, head down

            Dark and broken and burdened with sorrow

O Come

Come Ye, O Come Ye to Bethlehem

Come to Dunedin, to New York, to the North pole, to a stranger’s home

            To a dismal hotel room, to prison, to refugee camps

  To soup kitchens, to brothels, to slums, to banks, to 

  schools

O Come

Come And Behold Him

Come and ignore him, come and look away, hide your broken heart

Despise him, defile him, plot his death, put him in a cage, pretend he is not there

Call him by the wrong name, misunderstand him, misrepresent him

O Come

Born the King of Angels

Born the king of children, of refugees, of beggars, of criminals, of addicts

King of wicked despots, of ordinary con men, of prostitutes,

King of broken-hearted nobodies, of money grubbers, of tax collectors

O Come

O Come Let Us Adore Him

O Come Let Us Adore Him

O Come Let Us Adore Him

            Let us return his love with all our hearts

  Let us love every child as if he and she could save

  the world

  Let us love the Christ Child like our own babies in

  our arms

O Come Let Us Adore Him

Christ the Lord

Margaret Garland & Abby Smith