I first posted this a few years ago as morning prayers for the Christmas season and have used it ever since during the Christmas season. I always love to reread its words as i celebrate the birth of Christ. Hope you will too.
nativity – Lu Lan China
God of joy and celebration
God of love and mercy
God of peace and righteousness
We sing aloud and dance with the angels.
The ruler of all worlds, the shepherd of creation
Jesus Christ has entered our world
Our Saviour Christ has come into the world,
Not in power, not in might, but in the tenderness of love,
He comes as the promise of life hidden in a mother’s womb.
In this season of God with us we celebrate with the angels
We are graced by the wonder of God’s presence
We are filled with the tenderness of Christ’s love,
(Pause to light Advent and Christ candles)
Love and faithfulness meet together,
Righteousness and peace kiss each other,
Faithfulness springs forth from the earth
Shout aloud Hallelujah! God’s faithfulness comes down from heaven
God has kept his promise, the Saviour has been born and a new world begun .
In this season of God with us we rejoice for God’s salvation has come
The redeemer of all creation has come to earth
And we catch glimpses of God’s Messiah healed world
Shout aloud Hallelujah! God’s faithfulness comes down from heaven
God has kept his promise, the Saviour has been born and a new world begun .
This is the time we believe once more that perfect love casts out fear
That generosity transforms scarcity into abundance
That righteousness overcomes oppression with justice
Shout aloud Hallelujah! God’s faithfulness comes down from heaven
God has kept his promise, the Saviour has been born and a new world begun .
We are graced by Christ’s presence and filled with his love
May we become bearers of God’s light,
And go out to transform our troubled world.
Shout aloud Hallelujah! God’s faithfulness comes down from heaven
God has kept his promise, the Saviour has been born and a new world begun .
Scriptures of the day from the daily lectionary
The whole earth shouts with joy to God
The world declares God’s praise.
Praise to the compassionate and gracious One,
Who sent the son to dwell among us.
Praise to the incarnate One, Jesus Christ our Redeemer
Who fulfills God’s covenant of love and compassion to all humankind
Praise to the indwelling one, the Holy Spirit the giver of life
Who proclaims God’s mercy and justice throughout the earth
Praise to the three in One
Praise to the One in Three
Praise to God on high
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. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
Jesus you come
In the voice of the poor
In the hurting of the sick
In the anguish of the oppressed
Open our eyes that we may see you
Jesus you come
In the weakness of the vulnerable
In the questions of the doubting
In the fears of the dying
Open our ears that we might hear you
Jesus you come
In the celebration of the saints
In the generosity of the faithful
In the compassion of the caring
Open our hearts that we might embrace you
Almighty God whose great love and compassion came into our world in the person of your incarnate son, Jesus Christ, plant in every heart your concern and care for all humankind. May the light of Christ ignite our hearts and shine out brightly from our lives, proclaiming your salvation to all the earth.
May the light of God shine on us,
May the love of Christ shine in us,
May the life of the Spirit shine through us.
This day and evermore
Amen
Nativity with Joseph by Wayne Fort
Make room,
Let Christ be born
In the quiet and the innermost spaces
Of your hearts.
Make room,
Let Christ be born,
In the streets and in the ghettos,
In the famines and the plagues and in the wars.
Make room,
Let Christ be born
Not far away in distant ages,
But in every heart and place
Where love and faith are found.
Let Christ be born
And find in us his Bethlehem.
Homesick for a place we’ve never been
I’ve never been a very patient person, and so I find the season of advent quite a challenge. It’s supposed to be the season of waiting, of longing, of anticipating the joy and the warmth and the light of Christmas. But I confess that the day after Thanksgiving, I’m ready to listen to Christmas music. There’s something so wonderfully evocative about “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” – whether it’s sung by Frank Sinatra or Chrissie Hynde – that I can’t wait until December 25th to hear it. Such songs conjure up images of sipping cocoa by a roaring fire, surrounded by my loved ones, while snow falls gently to the ground outside, perhaps with the sound of carolers carrying in the night air. But that image is a fiction: I’ve never experienced that perfect (for me) combination of the warmth of home at Christmas. And all I have to do is turn on the BBC World Service to be reminded that for millions of people around the world – and more than a few in my neighborhood – that image is not merely fiction: it is unimaginable.
Because the truth is that pain and evil and disease and hunger and war and suffering do not take a break for the holy-days. For every family buying a turkey, there is another getting low on food stamps. For every family wrapping presents, there’s another wrapping dressings on open wounds. For every family overwhelmed with joy, there are dozens more overwhelmed with pain. British rocker Chris Rea sings a song in which a little girl is distraught after watching the news, and says to her papa, “Tell me there’s a heaven. Tell me that it’s true. Tell me there’s a reason why I’m seeing what I do.” At the end of the song, after watching those same images on the screen, Rea sings, “And I’m watching them, in tears of pain. And I’m watching them suffer. Don’t tell that little girl…tell me.” Tell me there’s a heaven. Tell me that it’s true. Tell me that one day there will be an end to the tears, to the sorrow, to the suffering.
At Christmas we celebrate the incarnation – this scandalous belief that God took on flesh and moved into the neighborhood with us 2,000 years ago. That the kingdom of heaven came with the person of Jesus, “joy of heaven, to earth come down,” as we sing in the beloved carol. And Jesus did do heavenly, remarkable things. He healed the sick. Fed the hungry. Even raised the dead. But not all of them. Just a few, truth be told. And 2,000 years on, people are still sick, still hungry, still die. We live in a world filled with pain, and suffering and injustice, a world awash with tears. So what exactly are we waiting for this advent season?
Yes, we wait for Christmas – the reminder that the kingdom of heaven has come with the birth of Jesus: but not in its fullness. Not yet. So we also wait for the second advent: the return of the King. For the day that Jesus revealed to John, who described it thus: “Then I saw a new heaven, and a new earth… And I heard a loud voice from the throne say, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people… He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death,or mourning, or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away… Behold! I am making all things new!’”
This is the home we’ve never known, but for which we yearn. This is the vision of a world none of us have ever seen, but which we dream of. A world of peace and justice and a place of unending joy: not just for a few days at Christmas, but for all eternity. A vision for which many have not been content to wait without working for those things this side of eternity. A dream Nelson Mandela shared with Martin Luther King Jr. A dream of which Irish rockers U2 sang in their song about Aung San Suu Kyi, “You’re packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been. A place that has to be believed to be seen.”
Perhaps you’ll join me in singing this advent song while we wait: working to come home together.
Come, Lord, and tarry not; bring the long looked for day;
O why these years of waiting here, these ages of decay?
Come, for Thy saints still wait; daily ascends their sigh;
The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come”; doest Thou not hear the cry?
O come and make all things new! Come and make all things new!
Build up this ruined earth, come and make all things new.
Come, for creation groans, impatient of Thy stay,
Worn out with these long years of ill, these ages of delay.
Come, for love waxes cold, its steps are faint and slow;
Faith now is lost in unbelief, hope’s lamp burns dim and low.
O come and make all things new! Come and make all things new!
Build up this ruined earth, come and make all things new.
~ Horatius Bonar
Bio
Sean Gladding is a member of Common Life in Lexington, Kentucky, where he and his family are learning to love God and their neighbors as themselves. He is the author of The Story of God, the Story of Us and TEN: Words of Life for an Addicted, Compulsive, Cynical, Divided and Worn-out Culture.
Welcome home
After reading an excerpt from the referenced book by Alfred Edersheim, it brought home to rest in my own heart what I haven’t been able to pin point pertaining to where I am at this point in life.
I grew up a military brat- so the nomad is in my blood and until I married, I never stopped moving around- I know my mom was the same- but where ever we moved, our house or where she was – always was home- it was the feel, the smells, the decor, the plants but mainly the love. Where our fondest memories are, lay the thoughts of home –
When Joseph and Mary left to register w the census – I wonder, did they feel the sense of home or homelessness or were they at peace just to be together? To fulfill that which was foretold they traveled far to find a home in which they weren’t sure about. Out of trust and love Mary follows her husband, their fate and the baby’s fate is truly given over to faith.
Which brings me to what has been on my heart of late; even while outcast or a stranger in a place- how are you ever truly at home?
Then Angel came to the shepherds who are set apart from everyone else- and made them know they were special- showed them the way-
As a farmer, I know the spiritual struggle and balancing of “keeping the Lords day sacred”– I can imagine how others looked at them who had to work to keep the special sheep up to par-
I’ve learned to overdo the day before so that minimal is done on the Sabbath- and what can’t be avoided is prayed over and done to His Glory with thanks- but for an Angel to appear before them- in the middle of their watch to show them the way, this told them the way was the way home for them- even though they were outcast- they now have a home –
I think the saying “you can’t go home again” falls just short of the truth really. If we stop looking hard enough and look within we’ll see home never really left US
And though Joseph was a carpenter, and Mary was a child of God bearing the Son of God and man. Together they gave our Father a home. He in turn gave us a home in Him-
So I say to all, whose nests are empty , who have roamed to and fro searching, who are unsure of where their journey has taken them, and who just can’t make out their surroundings or are surrounded by everything alien – stop for a moment and look , listen- the signs say it all where ever we are. Welcome Home-
~~~
Reference- Alfred Edersheim
From “The Life and Times of Jesus the Masiah”
Book II chapter 6 line 20-23states:
A passage in the Mishnah20 leads to the conclusion, that the flocks, which pastured there, were destined for Temple-sacrifices,21 and, accordingly, that the shepherds, who watched over them, were not ordinary shepherds. (**21. In fact the Mishnah (Baba K. vii. 7) expressly forbids the keeping of flocks throughout the land of Israel, except in the wilderness – and the only flocks otherwise kept, would be those for the Temple-services (Baba K. 80 a)
The latter were under the ban of Rabbinism,22 on account of their necessary isolation from religious ordinances, and their manner of life, which rendered strict legal observance unlikely, if not absolutely impossible. The same Mishnic passage also leads us to infer, that these flocks lay out all the year round, since they are spoken of as in the fields thirty days before the Passover – that is, in the month of February, when in Palestine the average rainfall is nearly greatest.23 Thus, Jewish tradition in some dim manner apprehended the first revelation of the Messiah from that Migdal Eder, where shepherds watched the Temple-flocks all the year round. Of the deep symbolic significance of such a coincidence, it is needless to speak.
Bio
I have a small farm with my husband in NE Fla., where we grow lavender as well as an array of four legged and feathered babies- I am a writer and photographer – and I have a passion for cooking. As an artist my outdoor kitchen is my favourite pallet in which to create. Though it’s not much by worldly standards, I know, through it all, I have been truly blessed by our Father.
As we move towards Christmas i am very aware of the fact that I am part of a global family of God’s people
Christmas candles photo by Christine Sine
Right now I am thousands of miles from home. I am thousands of miles from my children. And, although I am listening to Christmas music, the celebration of Christ’s birth feels very far off and far away.
The coming of a little baby in a manger, the coming of the King of Glory masked in the trappings of human flesh, these things feel so distant to me right now. The normal hustle and bustle of the holiday season is far from my reality. The normal family activities that surround Christmas feel painfully aloof.
My present reality looks so different from that, and yet it is right now that I have experienced the coming of the Savior in a more powerful way than I have at any other season of my life.
Christmas may feel far off, but the waiting of Advent, well, that is something I know. Waiting surrounds me. Waiting for a baby born long ago just doesn’t resonate with me right now – no matter how significant that birth was for the world and has been in my own life. What does resonate is waiting for God to act in the present. Waiting for God to step into my here and now. Waiting for the powerful return of a King who will raise the living and the dead into new life.
As I write this I am at the National Institute of Health where my husband is undergoing an intense treatment for advanced cancer. We are in the midst of a very tangible waiting – waiting to see if our deepest hopes will become a reality or our deepest fears. We are waiting to see how his body will handle this treatment. Waiting to know whether this cancer will be the way in which God calls him to Himself or just another twist in our journey. And we are very tangibly waiting for the day when we can go home and be reunited with our children (who are currently being spoiled by grandparents and aunts and uncles so that I can be here with my husband).
There has never been a time in my life when I have felt such a desperate need for God to come, to act, to save. At Christmas I am reminded that he has come, that he has acted, that he has saved. But, in Advent I am called to remember an even deeper truth and one that I need so desperately at this season. I am called to remember that God IS COME and is coming.
As I place all of my waiting at the thrown of a currently active King, as I place all of my broken fears at the feet of God Emmanuel, He is present. He is with me as the nurse starts the infusion of chemo drugs that drip ever so slowly into my husbands chest. He is with me as I walk the quiet halls at night and cry. He is with me in every care package, email, text, and phone call from friends and family carrying us through this. Though this season is filled with waiting it is also filled with coming – the coming of Christ through every nurse, through every friend, through every sign of love sent from on high.
This year Advent and Christmas are not about the distant, long ago, coming of a baby King. For me, this year, it is about the active current coming of a loving Savior – God Emmanuel – the God who IS with us.
Rejoicing in the journey,
Bethany
Bio
Bethany Stedman is a woman learning to trust. She is married to a loving husband who happens to have an aggressive cancer. She is mother to a daughter with severe special needs and a son who keeps her laughing at every turn. She is a woman who is learning early how to bow to a God who is sovereign and good. She blogs about life with God and all of the ups and downs that entails at www.bethstedman.com.
A couple of days ago I posted a link to this photo from the Huffington post article Muslim “Last Supper” Photo Offers Interfaith Tribute to Da Vinci’s Masterpiece.
The organizer Fatima Ali commented
“For this year’s photo, we wanted to do something that, in its own humble way, aimed to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western cultural and religious norms. We looked up the painting, assigned each person a character, and meticulously tried to mimic the image, while also making it our own.”
The pictured group enjoyed the process of putting a different spin on the the iconic artwork. “Most of the people pictured in this photo have been active members of the Islamic Center at NYU, and I think one of the greatest values we all have shared is this overwhelming sense of community and religious unity,” Ali said. “I don’t mean just Muslim unity or Muslim community, I mean on a more universal level, being respectful and considerate of all faiths and religious communities.”
Not surprisingly, the photo elicited a varied response from Christians. Some are delighted by this depiction of Christ and his followers with faces that look more authentic than the white faces we usually see. Others are appalled by Muslims depicting what they view as a sacred Christian event.
Today, I am looking at this photo as I read through the meditations in Monastery Journey to Christmas by Brother Victor-Antoine D’Avila-Latourrette. He writes: Jesus is the Prince of Peace whose face the whole world longs to see. And I would add – longs to come home to. That desire, that longing to see the authentic face of God and to come home to a community into which all the peoples of the world are invited is what I sense in the photo above. I think that in the hearts of all humankind there is a deep ache for the coming of a saviour who will lead us home together. As Brother Victor says:
Christ, the Messiah, the Key of David, comes to unlock for all, Jews and gentiles alike, the doors of the kingdom of God. He alone possesses the keys and it will be he who invites all, be they just or sinners, into his eternal banquet. No one shall be excluded. This is precisely the good news of the Gospel he will proclaim one day.
The great O Antiphon developed during the church’s early centuries speaks of this longing. On December 19th, we read:
O Root of Jesse sign of peace,
Before whom all the nations stand in awe;
Kings stand silent in your presence;
The nations bow down in worship before you.
O come and set us free;
Delay no longer in your love.
As I look out at my seemingly dead Seattle garden, covered in frost and snow, I can fully appreciate this image. Winter seems to have destroyed all life, yet hidden in the earth, the roots still live, growing stronger, reaching deeper ready to emerge in the coming spring. For the Jewish people there was a long winter of centuries before Jesse’s Root, sprouted forth with the coming of Christ, the Messiah.
When Christ first appears he is like the first sprouts of spring growth – weak, vulnerable, tiny compared to the tree that will grow. This is the Christ whose remembrance we celebrate at Christmas. Yet in that tiny shoot is the hope and promise of what is to come – a tree that will spread over all the earth, a saviour for the whole world whose power and scope is far greater than any of us could ever imagine. This is the Christ for whose coming we wait with joyful anticipation. This is the Christ who fills our hearts with longing for the future.
This tender shoot, this vulnerable child whose very birth reveals the upside down nature of God’s kingdom is an ensign for the nations, a flag towards which all people will be drawn and that includes the Muslims. The word we translate as “nations” had a very different meaning for the Jews. “Gentiles” were everyone who was not Jewish. It encompassed all peoples outside Israel, opening God’s promise of salvation to all cultures and countries. The new kingdom Christ ushered in is open to the entire world. Christ the Messiah, the tiny Branch which will become a mighty tree will break down walls and barriers between all people.
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