Begin

    12/24/2012

Christmas Eve

Opening Prayer

Lord, tonight we celebrate the birth of your Son, Jesus Christ. We thank you that you have come to join us in this imperfect world, and despite the trials we face, tonight we celebrate.  We pray that the hope, joy, peace and love of the Christmas Season will carry over into this New Year for all of us. Help us in our individual communities to reveal Jesus to the world every day and to make His Kingdom a reality on earth as it is in Heaven.

Amen

Song

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, let's join together in worshiping God through music and song.

Click on the “Listen” tab for music selections that will help your community enter into God’s presence and reflect on the birth of Jesus.

  

Message

Take a few seconds and enjoy the silence of the moment. Christmas Eve is finally here. Can you feel it? Christmas Eve just seems to have a magical feel to it, doesn’t it? Almost a “real time” sense, as if the events are about to transpire for the first time, and in a sense, perhaps they are. Imagine the sights and sounds of the first Christmas Eve. Imagine what it must have been like for Mary and Joseph. As we face anxieties for the future, so they faced fear as well. Uncertainty overwhelms us from time to time, just as this young couple faced a very uncertain future. But the one significant truth that carried them forward was that something radically new had begun in the birth of Jesus.

The important thing for us to remember is that through Christ, all things are made new each day, as well as each year. The reality of the incarnation is just as true as it was over 2000 years ago. And as our time together comes to a close, let us carry that with us beyond the Christmas Season. As we reflect over the last month of Advent, let us not think of Christmas Eve as the end of our journey, but the beginning. Hope. Love. Joy. Peace. All things new. Beginnings. Emmanuel, God with us. 

Click on the "Read" tab and take a look at Revelation 21:4    

Although this verse refers to the Second Coming of Christ, it's amazing that the essential truths apply to His First Coming as well. Through Christ, our tears are wiped away. Through Christ, there is no more death, for we posses eternal life in Him. Through Christ, our mourning, crying and pain subside, as we trust in Him with every heartache and burden. “the old order of things has passed away.” Jesus Christ has come into the world. In the flash of an instant, in a single moment of time, God broke through our earthly realm and became man. He became one of us and in a short 33 years, He would become the perfect sacrifice for each one of us. The burden of sin was lifted. The seemingly endless process of atoning sacrifice was satisfied. Emmanuel, God with us. He was with us. He is with us. He will be with us. He has come. Advent. Hope. Joy. Peace. Love.

 We conclude Advent with the theme of "love", and out of all the four themes, love seems to be the most powerful. Maybe it is because love is such an all encompassing emotion. It is through love that we find our "hope". It is by loving and being loved that we find "joy". And love will always be the greatest vehicle for "peace" in this world.   
       

There is no greater emotion than love. Love can envelop an eclectic collection of emotions that often contradict each other and leave us either elated or completely confused. Love can conjure a range of feelings from happiness, laughter and contentment, to thoughts of anger, hatred and jealousy. Love can lift us up, and love can bring us crashing to the ground. Love unites and love can also divide. Love can conquer all obstacles of life and love can leave us utterly defeated. Love can find us included among close friends and family or leave us feeling abandoned and lonely. Love can be all, or it can be nothing.

Love also generates peace, a peace and joyful contentment that transforms the very essence of who we are. It can catapult us from the often mundane pace of life to an exciting journey that leaves us confident of accomplishing anything that we face. Love can consume us with peace, and most often that peace comes from being loved, rather than loving. Being loved by others is a confirming indication that we matter. That we are worthy of love. That the make-up of who we are, has caused another being to be moved to this radical and all encompassing emotion: Love.

Click on the "Read" tab and read 1 John 4:10

 In this short verse, we discover a very simple and yet complex and perplexing truth: God loves us. And all that God has done through His Son Jesus Christ, had nothing to do with how much, or how little we love God, but how much He loves us. His love for each one of us is overwhelming and filled with mystery; the same mystery that revolves around the incarnation. A love so massive and without limit, and yet it was contained and confined in the limited vessel of a small child. A love that compelled the God of all that is, all that has been and all that will be, to descend into the darkness of this world and live among us. This is love: Emmanuel, God with us!

           

Closing Prayer

Lord, as we close out time together tonight, let us leave with the unifying hope, joy, love and peace of Christ.  Let us continue to hold onto hope in an increasingly dark world, let us find joy even when it is difficult, let us love unconditionally and let your peace overwhelm us.  Let our lives and communities represent the essence of who you are: Love. Let us love one another, let us love our neighbors as we love ourselves and let us love our enemies with a love that only comes from you. Let us continue to remember that you are with us. Emmanuel, God with us! 

Amen

May the Lord bless you, may he keep you, and may he give you peace! 
Merry Christmas!  

Reflect

Click on the "Reflect" tab for a suggested prayer for your community and selected questions for discussion.

See you next Sunday! 

   

Begin

11/25/2012

God With Us

Opening Prayer

Lord, on this First Sunday of Advent and as we join together reflecting on the birth of your Son, Jesus Christ, we thank you that you have come to join us in this imperfect world. As we begin the Christmas Season, help us to keep our minds singly focused on you and on you alone. Keep us free from the worries, fear and stress that sometime overwhelm us this time of year. 
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit   

Amen

Song

As we begin the season of Advent, we begin by joining  together in worshiping God through music and song!

Click on the “Listen” tab for music selections that will help your community enter into God’s presence.

  

Message

Not everyone is familiar with Advent. Unless you grew up in a liturgical church, you may only have a vague idea of what this time of year is all about. Basically, Advent just marks the beginning of the Church year in most Western Christian denominations and the beginning of the Christmas Season. It begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day, which is the Sunday nearest November 30, and ends on Christmas Eve. The word “Advent” is derived from the Latin word “Adventus” which means "coming" or "arrival." Advent is a spiritual journey centered on themes such as hope, unity, expectation, anticipation, preparation, and reflection on what is, what has been and a longing of what is to come. It’s a time of reflecting on the year that has passed, and looking forward to the future. It’s also a time of repentance and actively making changes in our lives to be more like Christ-like in the culture around us.

 Advent is the celebration of the fulfillment of hope in the birth of Jesus Christ in His First Advent (first coming), and the anticipation of His return in the Second Advent (second coming). This time of year is far more than simply remembering a 2,000 year old event in history, but it’s a celebration of God’s truth, the revelation of God in His Son and all creation being reconciled to God. Advent is taking time to remember the awesome fact that God came into this world in His Son Jesus Christ; being completely God and completely man. It is with that that we also celebrate the Kingdom He inaugurated and the truth that He will one day come again.  

       

Advent is divided into four weeks, beginning on the Sunday of each week. Each week focuses on one of the four themes of Advent: Hope, Love, Joy and Peace, in that order. As we begin our observance of Advent at Naked Sunday, today we focus on Hope and carry that spirit throughout this week until we come together again next Sunday. In the movie, The Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne writes to his friend Red who has been released from prison before him, encouraging him with the words, "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." Let us remember those words as we begin Advent. For hope was fulfilled in the birth of Christ; the best of things, and through him we find our hope. 

  

Click on "Read" and read Isaiah 7:14 


The people of Israel had hope. They hoped for a savior that God had long ago promised them through His prophets, including Isaiah.  For hundreds of years the Israelites held on to the hope of a coming ruler that would emerge from the small and obscure town of Bethlehem. Generation after generation read the words of Isaiah 7:14

among their families and anticipated its fulfillment. A long time would pass as they waited and God remained silent. Hope must have dwindled as each year passed. Can you imagine their cries to God? “When, Lord?  When will you deliver what you’ve promised?” Hope. Time. Waiting. Patience. Silence.

We must admit that we live in a time when hope is not always easy to cling to.  Whether its war, politics, terror, financial crisis, climate change or rumors of the world coming to an end, we seem to be consumed with cultural influences that inspire anything but hope. When troubles and discouragements seem to multiply each day, it becomes easy to lose hope. Hope can seem to become pointless and unrealistic.  Some may say that hope is just an idealistic fantasy in the world in which we live. 

   

But the season of Advent is all about Hope; hope in a God that divinely joined humanity, lived among us in the discouragements of life and meets us even in the most miniscule details of our lives. It’s the same hope that the people of Israel had over 2000 years ago. A hope in a savior that “all nations will honor”, and was fulfilled in Christ Jesus coming into the world. It’s the same hope that He will one day gloriously come again.  So as we begin this celebration of Advent together, let us focus our minds on this hope filled truth:  God came into the world to live among us.  Emmanuel, God with us!  

Click on "Read" and conclude with a reading from Isaiah 9:6-7

Closing Prayer

Lord, as we begin the Season of Advent, we thank you for your Son, Jesus Christ. As we spend this week with our focus on hope, help us to trust in youwith all that we are, all the we need and all that we do. Help us to remember the simple words;
Emmanuel, God with us, and know that they are just as true today as they were over 2000 years ago.

Amen

As you go, go with the peace and contentment that God wants for each of us. Help the culture around you realize that there is reason for hope in this sometimes dark world.   

May the Lord bless you, may he keep you, and may he give you peace!

Reflect

Click on the "Reflection" tab for a suggested prayer for your community and selected questions for discussion.

See you next Sunday as we begin the Second Sunday of Advent and focus our attention on "Love"!