Call To Worship

Take this moment sign and space

Take my friends around

Here among us make the place

Where your love is found me

(Iona Abbey Music book pg 122)

Call to Worship:

One:  Anticipation!

All:   Expectant Hope!

One:  Invitation!

All:   Advent!

One:  Again, still, always we are encouraged by God to seek.

All:   We seek the ways of God, steadfast in love and faithfulness.

One:  With hope, with community and with light we will not seek in vain.

Advent Candle Lighting

Well, it's evening come again
To lead night by the hand
Nowhere birds are calling
Slow snow is falling

And it's evening come again
Behind the hills glowing brown
The night takes another day 
The darkness takes its turn
 

We look for the light to light the path in the night.

 And it's evening come again

Hope is the lantern that burns in the darkness. Showing us the path forward even in though it seems at times the night is long and the path hard. Hope leads us forward.

We light this candle in hope that God’s promise is there even in the dark to touch us with hope for the light of a new day.

Song (182) Stay with us through the night,

stay with us through the dark,

stay with us blessed promise

till light brings hope again

Prayer

God who is as a lantern in the light of our lives, the promise of your son, fills us with hope.  For in the hope the light will always dispel the darkness. Be with us through the long advent night that we may prepare the way of your Son.  May we be a light in wilderness that bring hope to the fellow traveller

Amen 

Now think all that you have to do, all that will happen over the next month and a bit. 

Clean, Decorate, the house, and the tables and the tree. Clean   Lights outside should have done it when it was warm. (I did smartest thing I have done this season)   Hot chocolate, and something to eat.   Clean. Bake cookies, short bread fruit cake.   Clean. Make the gift list, check the gift list revise the gift list.  Shop.  Find the parking space.  Forgot the gift list. Shop.  Find the parking space. Shop again. Get home coffee, eat the Christmas baking.  Bake again for what you ate.   Clean.    Wrap. Clean.  have the family over. Clean   Cook the meal, turkey veg, salad pie.  Clean.      And then there is Christmas morning, breakfast, clean, open presents, clean, go visiting, have visitors, then its take down the decorations, house the tables and the tree and clean.  Cleaning in April still finding needles of tree. 

Take a breath, but the paper in the typewriter of life, and go go go.

Ah January.  What is the song? Sound of Silence 

In the past when Westfield had its Christmas programing in the evening. There is a moment   when you are alone before the public arrive, There are no cars, there is just the warmth of the candles and lamps shining through the windows, a calmness and oasis in the go go go of Christmas. 

And you realize it is not Christmas, not yet, it is Advent

Advent is about preparing

Its about building again the relationship with God

Today’s Gospel is another apocalyptic style.  Speaking of being ready.    The gospel reminds us about continuing being in right relation with God and ourselves and the world around us. 

What I have been reminded of is that in all the go go , we need to stop stop stop and be in the moment. 

I heard a reflection on how we need to embrace advent to let it bring us to Christmas,   They reflected on Mary’s time with her cousin Elizabeth. It was a long visit a slow visit. A time of getting ready for what was going to happen. 

We need to embrace advent for what it is or what it can be a slow time,  to reflect on what Christmas shall mean or does mean in our lives. 

I spent some time looking and pondering what would be the best song to capture the mood of this time before Christmas.   

Ron Sexsmith song Maybe this Christmas.    Not a song about Christmas but of what we might hope it will be, a song of expectation, of advent waiting.

Maybe this Christmas will mean something more

Maybe this year love will appear deeper than ever before

And maybe forgiveness will ask us to call someone we love, someone we've lost For reasons we can't quite recall

maybe this Christmas Maybe there'll be an open door

Maybe the star that shone before will shine once more 

Maybe this Christmas will find us at last

In Heavenly peace Gratefully For the love we've been shown in the past Maybe this Christmas

Maybe this advent We can will mean something more as we renew our relationships with God,

Maybe this advent we can work at deepening our relationships, maybe we can join the Christmas conspiracy which is a move from the commercial to a view of this time as relationship.

Maybe this advent will find us at last in heavenly hope grateful for the love we’ve been shown in the past and now and the hope of relationships to come.   

We may not know the time or the place where God will touch our lives, but in this time of Advent hope we prepare to accept that gift of love promised to us by the one who has called us from our very beginning to be in a relationship of love,  a relationship which reminds us that we are not alone. 

Offering

We give thee but thy own.   The work of the Church continues and there are three ways you can continue to support that work.   Consider using PAR, use the donate button on our Web Site or drop your gift at the Manse.   Let us make our offering and give thanks.       

  One: Praise God who from all Blessing flow

   Prayer With joy and thanksgiving we celebrate this opportunity to share. Your promises are more real to us, O god, when we participate in the outreach our gifts make possible. Lead us, we pray, to do what is right with these offerings and with the time and talents you entrust to us. Amen. 

Sending Forth and Blessing.

One:  Go out to the world in hope with a new outlook; God is lighting a lantern in the wilderness to guide us forward. 

All:   We will take the promises of God to a needy world; share good news with friends and co-workers.

One:  God will direct your paths during the week ahead and provide all that you need to face its choices.

Blessing

One:  May God the one who brings us comfort surround you, May Christ our Joy walk with you. May the Continued presence of The Holy Spirit illuminate our path and keep us safe until we can gather again in community. Amen 

VU 4

God of all places present unseen

Voice in our silence song in our mist

Send us your people knowing and sure

Called to spread the word.

amen amen amen