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Service of Word
and Prayer for the 2nd Sunday of Christmas |
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The grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit
be with you all. And also with you. |
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Psalm 147:
12-20 (today’s Responsorial Psalm) 12 Praise
the Lord, O Jerusalem! |
Oration for the Second Sunday of Christmas
Almighty God, you have filled all the earth with the
light of your incarnate Word. By your grace empower us to reflect our light in
all that we do, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Gospel: Reading: John 1:1-9
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All
things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into
being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and
the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines
in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He
came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He
himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The
true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the
world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his
own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to
all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become
children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the
will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory,
the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 15 (John
testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes
after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) 16 From
his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The
law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus
Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only
Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
Sermon
(added at the end of the document)
Thanks and Offertory
The Prayers of the Church:
(from the Celebrate)
·
For continued progress on vaccines and
therapeutics for the virus. Hear us, O God.
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For our bishops, Susan and Michael and all in
authority in the church.
Hear us, O God. |
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·
For the congregation
of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in London and their pastor tea, Pr. Steve
Johnston and Sr. Jean Widmeyer. Hear us, O God. * for peace and calm in our town of Aylmer. Hear us, O God. |
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·
For all the needs and prayers we hold in our hearts…
(a
time of silent prayer)… Hear us, O God.
The
Lord’s Prayer
Let us pray as Jesus taught us:
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 and ever. Amen.
Ephesians 1:3-14
(today’s second reading)
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places, 4 just as he chose us in Christ before
the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5 He
destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the
good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious
grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In him
we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses,
according to the riches of his grace 8 that he lavished on us.
With all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the
mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in
Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up
all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11 In
Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined
according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his
counsel and will, 12 so that we, who were the first to set our
hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In
him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised
Holy Spirit; 14 this is the pledge of our inheritance
toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.
Benediction
and Sending
The Lord bless us and keep us.
The Lord make his face shine on us and
be gracious to us.
The Lord look upon us with favor and
give us peace.
Amen.
Go in peace. Share the Good News. Thanks be to God
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And the Word became flesh and lived
among us ·
We have heard this verse so often that we hardly
think of it at all. I evokes visions of the stable, Mary, Joseph, and the
shepherds… none of whom are mentioned in the beginning of John’s Gospel. Yet,
it is far, far more than that. ·
Jesus is not mentioned by name here. John the
Evangelist calls him “the Word.” Were we to look in the Book of Genesis, we’d
see that God creates, but uses nothing, either as a tool or as raw material.
There are creation stories outside of the Christian tradition in which the
Creator uses things to make the world and all that is in it, using maybe a
previous world, a song, the body of a dead god or something else. The God of
the Hebrew and Christian scriptures (and the Muslim scriptures for that
matter) creates by speaking a word: Then
God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (Gen.
1:3) ·
This Word is powerful and creative: All things came into being through him,
and without him not one thing came into being. Where Matthew and
Luke begin their Gospels with the birth of Jesus and maybe his Jewish
genealogy, John goes back to the beginning of all things and places Jesus in
the middle of that creative action. ·
John’s focus switches back and forth between Jesus
and John the Baptizer. This pulls the story forward, closer to time and the
events of those reading and hearing this Gospel. Still John returns to the
beginning of Jesus’ life in this world, saying that Jesus was not recognized
for who he really was and how recognizing him makes a huge difference to
those who do. ·
Then come the words that breaks open everything: And the Word became flesh and lived
among us. We might say ‘Okay, Jesus was born; we know that.’
There are two important phrases here to take special note of. ·
“Flesh”
as it’s used here does not mean simply ‘Jesus took a body.’ The word we
translate as ‘flesh’
means the body and everything the body implies. For lack of a better way to
say it, it is ‘flesh-y flesh’, like “the world, the flesh, and the devil.”
It’s flesh with all that it implies, even the idea of “sinful” flesh. In
that, Jesus redeems all that it means to be human, leaving out nothing. God
even knows our suffering and frustration since that is part of fleshly existence. ·
In the original language, the second odd phrase - and lived among us – says
something more like “he pitched his tent among us.” John uses the same terms
used in the Hebrew Bible to speak of the setting up the Tent of Meeting
during the Exodus. This was the tent that housed the Ark of the Covenant and
was the place in the Hebrew’s camp where the presence of God was most
apparent and most known. Using those terms, John is saying that the one who
lived among his people and manifested himself in the Tent of meeting was
again pitching his tent among his people in a very material way. ·
In his birth, Jesus was not just visiting and
disguising himself as a ‘local.’ He was becoming one of us and remaining
forever one of us. It is not possible to separate the Word of God who had
become flesh from Jesus of Nazareth. They have become identical, even though
Jesus walked among us in his own body for only a few years. ·
Our celebration of Christmas, a celebration I
think we all love, is the beginning of listening once again to the teachings
of Jesus. It is also the revelation of the person of Jesus, Word of God and
Son of Man, the personification of grace... and that is what saves. And the Word became flesh and lived
among us |
(The
first reading is included for the sake of being complete.)
First Reading: Jeremiah 31:7-14
7 For
thus says the Lord:
Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,
and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;
proclaim, give praise, and say,
“Save, O Lord, your people,
the remnant of Israel.”
8 See, I am
going to bring them from the land of the north,
and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,
among them the blind and the lame,
those with child and those in labor, together;
a great company, they shall return here.
9 With weeping
they shall come,
and with consolations I will lead them back,
I will let them walk by brooks of water,
in a straight path in which they shall not stumble;
for I have become a father to Israel,
and Ephraim is my firstborn.
10 Hear
the word of the Lord, O nations,
and declare it in the coastlands far away;
say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him,
and will keep him as a shepherd a flock.”
11 For
the Lord has ransomed Jacob,
and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.
12 They shall
come and sing aloud on the height of Zion,
and they shall be radiant over the goodness of
the Lord,
over the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and over the young of the flock and the herd;
their life shall become like a watered garden,
and they shall never languish again.
13 Then shall
the young women rejoice in the dance,
and the young men and the old shall be merry.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.
14 I will give
the priests their fill of fatness,
and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty,
says the Lord.
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