Reconciling All Things 2018

A service of lessons and carols that invites people to approach Advent and Christmas with songs that sing about both forgiveness and justice, healing and correction, personal serenity and cultural reconciliation, human flourishing and the flourishing of all creation.

For in Jesus Christ all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things,
whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
Colossians 1:19–20

The boldness of Paul’s claim here is arresting: in Jesus, all the fullness of God dwells. Through Jesus, God reconciles to himself all things. The breadth of this vision surpasses human understanding, supplanting any simple or sentimental vision of the meaning of Advent and Christmas, and forever changing the scope and tone of our worship.

This is a vision that invites us to approach Advent and Christmas with songs that sing about both forgiveness and justice, healing and correction, personal serenity and cultural reconciliation, human flourishing and the flourishing of all creation. And it invites us to sing music that ranges from an aching lament that echoes the Spirit’s groaning in all creation, to a majestic song of adoration that echoes angelic praise over the hills of Bethlehem.

It also means that we can engage the world’s deepest terror in our song. The music includes texts and tunes forged in contexts of violence, injustice, and trauma—by text and tune writers who lived in Nazi occupied Germany, in the shadow of the South African apartheid, and in the context of the forced separation of families between North Korea and South Korea.

In a world filled with so much violence, injustice, and trauma, may the Holy Spirit encourage us in this Advent season with the breadth of this vision of reconciliation and equip us to live in this world as instruments of Christ’s reconciling peace.

Reconciling All Things

Organ Prelude:
I. Festive Gloria (Aaron David Miller)
II. Variations on “When the King Shall Come Again” (Michael Burkhardt)
III. Marche Réligieuse (Alexandre Guilmant)
_{[on the theme of the chorus Lift Up Your Heads, O Ye Gates from Handel’s The Messiah]}

Quiet

Choral Introit: Rejoice, Ye Good People from Sechs Sprüche, Op. 79, No. 1: Weinachten (Felix Mendelssohn)

Processional Hymn: Hark, the Glad Sound! The Savior Comes (Lift Up Your Hearts)

Greeting

Pastor: Our help is in the name of the Lord,
All: who made the heavens and the earth.

Pastor: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
All: Amen.

Bidding Prayer

Pastor:   Beloved in Christ, as we await the great festival of Christmas,
            we prepare ourselves so that we may perceive its true meaning.
            We have gathered to hear, in readings from the holy scriptures,
            how the prophets of Israel foretold that God would visit and
            redeem his waiting people. We rehearse again the account of
            the loving purposes of God from the first days of our disobedience
            to the glorious appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.
            We rejoice, in carols and hymns, that the good purpose of God
            is being mightily fulfilled:
            the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed,
            the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up.
            But first, we pray for the world which God so loves;
            for those who have not heard the good news of God,
            or who do not believe it;
            for those who walk in darkness and the shadow of death;
            and for the church in this place and everywhere,
            that it may be freed from all evil and fear,
            and may, in pure joy, lift up the light of the love of God.
            These prayers we humbly offer
            as we meditate on the readings from holy scripture,
            and also now, in the words that our Lord Jesus Christ taught us.

All: 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.
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.

Amen!

I. The Coming of the Messiah and the End of Violence

A Reading from Isaiah 2

Leader: The word of the Lord.
All: Thanks be to God.

Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming (arr. Hugo Distler)

By Gracious Powers (John Ferguson)

II. The Advent of a Redeemer and Justification from Sin

A Reading from Isaiah 40, Zechariah 13, and Romans 5

Leader: The word of the Lord.
All: Thanks be to God.

Sussex Carol (arr. Daniel Powers)

Rise, Shine, You People (arr. Michael Burkhardt)