December 10, 2023
2nd Sunday in Advent
Gathering
MUSICAL OFFERING
ANNOUNCEMENTS
· Please join us in Calvin Hall following worship today for a time of fellowship.
· Our Annual meeting will be following worship today. On the agenda is the election of elders, reports for this last year, and hopes for moving forward.
· The Gathering Place will meet on Thurs. Dec. 14. This will be the last meeting until we reconvene Jan. 11.
· Pulse Articles are Due December 15th
· Office is closed December 22nd– January 4th
PRAYER REQUESTS
· JoAnn Grimm and Joan Boyd residents of Fieldstone in DeWitt.
· Joan Pinkston, on hospice.
· Ellen and Keith Miller who struggle with health issues.
· For our brothers and sisters in Israel and Palestine and Ukraine.
PRELUDE
Advent Candle Lighting
Reader 1: O God, we light the second candle of Advent.
Reader 2: We seek your comfort. You come both mighty and tender. Prepare our hearts to be transformed by you.
Reader 1: Isaiah announced God’s coming to a people exiled in a broken and parched wilderness. He declared that God’s redemption would make a highway in the desert and change the rough places into a plain. God would come as a shepherd—feeding, leading, and cradling the weary flock. This Advent, we seek such a God.
Saving God, look upon your world and heal your land and your people. Prepare us to be changed. This Advent, teach us to be tender and just, as you are. Amen.
*CALL TO WORSHIP
In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.
In our town, on our street, at our door, open the way for God’s truth to enter.
Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low.
Barriers shall be removed and potholes filled so God’s word can arrive here.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.
Then our joy in Christ will shine forth in love.
Come builders of hope. Come proclaimers of God’s goodness,
Let us worship and prepare for the coming of our Lord. Amen.
*GATHERING PRAYER
Lord God, there are all kinds of messengers in our world today. Sometimes the barrage of these “messages” make our head spin and our hearts falter. Help us this day to hear your words of love and truth that strengthen our steps along your path of goodness, love and grace. Amen.
*HYMN O Come, O Come Emmanuel #9
(You may be seated.)
CALL TO CONFESSION
John the Baptist called the people of Jerusalem to hear a word of truth that was new and revolutionary. It remains radical in our lives even yet, and we are newly called to hear it and live it into our everyday world. Let us come before our Father in Heaven to confess our reluctance and our failings, as well as our desire to do better. Please pray with me.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Loving God, we wonder; would we have gone out to the Jordan River to hear the madman who ate locusts and wild honey? Would we have heard his words and taken them into our hearts? Would we have accepted his truth and gone into the waters of baptism? Would we have watched for that one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit? There are so many voices today calling for us to come and hear their version of truth. We often feel confused about John’s call to us. Forgive us for those moments when we have dusted aside your call, when we have ignored opportunities to be messengers of your love. Help us to grow in our ability to feel your hand leading us along the way. Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
“Comfort, Comfort my people, says your God.” As we open ourselves to acknowledge our failings, we are welcomed and received; we are comforted and assured; we are forgiven and redeemed. This is the good news of Christ our Lord. Praise be to God, Almighty.
Song of Praise: Gloria Patri #579
PASSING THE PEACE
May the peace of Christ be with you.
And also with you.
INTERLUDE
Word
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
Eternal Source of Life, be with us this morning as we seek to hear the words that were cried out in the wilderness. May our hearts prepare the way of the Lord and make straight his paths. Enable us to sing with joy the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Amen.
SCRIPTURE LESSONS
Isaiah 40: 1 – 11
40 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. 3 A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord[]; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. 5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” 6 A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?” “All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. 7 The grass withers and the flowers fall because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.” 9 You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good news to Jerusalem,[ lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!” 10 See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and he rules with a mighty arm. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. 11 He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.
Mark 1: 1 – 8
1 The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, 2 as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way”— 3 “a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’” 4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
SERMON Prepare the Way
Tammy went through about 12 years of swirling down to the bottom of the pit. During that time, she went from being a wife and mother with a good job to losing it all and sleeping on the couch of a drinking pal. Later she would tell people that one drink was never enough and too much all at the same time. When people suggested that she needed to get some help with her drinking, she scoffed at them. She didn’t have a problem, she would proclaim. She could stop anytime she wanted. The issue was that she didn’t want to stop. She finally hit bottom when her friend was killed in a drunk driving accident. Then even the couch where she had been sleeping was gone. The trauma of that loss, the recognition that she could just as easily been the one behind the wheel that night, plus her own homelessness drove her into treatment. It was there that she was finally able to admit that she had no control over her addiction. It was there that the concept of God (She didn’t like the Higher Power vagueness) was a first step towards sobriety.
Tammy didn’t want to admit her weakness. She bought into the Hollywood lie that being strong and capable and in control was the very definition of good. Weak, she believed, was to be pitied and even despised.
Think about it. Who do we revere and celebrate in our society? Isn’t it those who have faced adversity and loss but who rose victorious in the end. Martin Luther King, a victim of Jim Crow who rose up to lead a movement for civil rights. Nelson Mandela who was imprisoned for his stance on apartheid and then became president of South Africa. Abraham Lincoln who lost elections and had personal tragedies, and even after becoming president was vilified by so many, but he held the nation together and abolished slavery.
We love the story of the kid who gets bullied, but who then does amazing things that benefit our world. Isn’t that Clark Kent and Super Man rolled up in one?
The Israelites who now sat in exile in Babylon had used everything at their disposal to resist the Babylonian army. They plotted, tried to make alliances with neighboring countries. They used all their military muscle. They tried to appease the aggressors. They resisted at every turn, all to no avail. The enemy toyed with them for many years, and then steam rolled into town, crushing the city, their beloved temple, and the people’s way of life. Any who had the capacity to lead a resistance was marched off to Babylon where they were no longer a threat.
So what’s a son and daughter of Abraham to think? Hadn’t God promised to always be with them? Where was God when they needed him? How could the Lord have allowed this to happen? Of course the prophets had been telling them that this was God’s punishment for the way they had abused the poor and turned their back on God’s call for justice. But this? This was too much—sort of like swatting the mosquito on your forehead with a sledge hammer!
They logically made the assumption that their God had abandoned them, and by golly, they would just abandon God, too!
That was the scene when 2nd Isaiah began his prophesy in this chapter. He speaks in God’s voice. God who is engaged in a heavenly council meeting. God tells his subordinates that it is time to comfort the people who are suffering so much. They’ve served their time. They’ve paid the penalty for their sins. “So now heavenly beings, prepare the way of the Lord. Construct a smooth and rapid highway so God’s glory can once more be revealed, so the people will see it and be comforted.”
The prophet asks, what he should cry out. Are not people fragile and short lived? They wither when God merely blows on them. And then God responds that while the grass might wither, God’s word lasts forever, and that word is life. That word is good news. That word is hope for God’s people. Cry that. Cry, Here is your God. God who will shepherd his flock, feed and care for his people.
So here’s the thing. God is finally able to comfort the people because they have finally relinquished the illusion that they have a power on their own. Just like Tammy who admits she is powerless to change her situation, the Israelites admit that they, too, are completely powerless. They have sinned. They have attempted to strong arm their situation without God’s help. Their pride and arrogance was what held God back, just as much as their sinfulness and injustice.
Isn’t that what gets us in trouble so often? We don’t want to admit our own powerlessness.
And I think there’s a lot of that in John the Baptist’s story, as well. The people of Judea, the followers of God, had fallen into a rut. They went to temple to make their sacrifices. They followed the feast days and the fasting traditions. They observed the Sabbath and dietary laws, and in all of that they assumed themselves good.
Society had a form and structure around how to treat the poor. Hand them a coin or two when they begged at the temple gate. That was all that was needed. Don’t worry about why they were so poor. Don’t question the rules that created their poverty. Don’t hand their hearts and souls over to a God who might demand more of them.
Weren’t they holding tight to their perceived power? Weren’t they attempting to manage things on their own? They came out to the Jordon in the same way our grandparents went to the travelling revival shows. It looked like good entertainment, a curiosity. They wanted to see what everyone was talking about. After all, John held all the symbols of a prophet. He was located out in the wilderness. That was the historic birth place of faith. His dress and diet put him on track with Elijah and Elisha. Was he a prophet! Let’s go see!
John called them on their mixed up motive for coming. In Matthew and Luke he calls them a brood of vipers. Mark is more polite. He doesn’t engage in name calling. But he does work to disabuse his listeners from assuming that he is the main act. He’s the one who prepares the way, Mark tells us, using text from our Isaiah reading. John himself issues his call which is to ask the people to repent and to rededicate themselves to God in baptism. The one who comes after him will baptize them with the Holy Spirit. John tells them that he is not worthy to remove the sandals from this more powerful one. That’s the task of the lowliest servant, but John tells them that even this is above his pay grade.
There’s another aspect of what Joh the Baptist is doing that bears mentioning. Baptism was not a common ritual in Judaism. Sure there are lots of places in the Old Testament where God instructs people to be cleansed of their sins by washing ritually. But the ritual as John is practicing it was reserved for gentiles who wanted to be a part of the faith of Yahweh but who weren’t excited about undergoing circumcision. This type of ritual was a means for stepping into the outer fringes of the Jewish faith.
In essence John is asking his listeners to let go of their privileged position as sons and daughters of Abraham in order to admit their need of God , to repent of their sins. They enter the water in a very vulnerable state and because they acknowledge and admit that, they are enabled to take on a new relationship with God. They are dependent. They are beholden. They are listening and following because they know they don’t have the power on their own.
And I think that is the essence of Advent. To admit to ourselves and to God that we are like grass (to use the words of 2nd Isaiah.) Our power, our strength, our ability to discern right from wrong is missing. We need God. We need a Savior. We need a moral compass that is beyond us. We need a strength that is above our own.
So we wait, trusting that God who is eternal and all-powerful, all-wise is not only present with us, but also at the same time, coming once more into our world. If we can acknowledge our need, then the highway through the wilderness is paved, and God’s arrival is eminent.
Tammy was able to conquer her compulsions and the demons that kept her turning to the bottle, and then emptying it. She did it by admitting that she wasn’t in control. She wasn’t strong enough. She wasn’t on top of her life. She needed help.
Don’t we all have our own areas where we just can’t manage? Be it an addiction like Tammy or just a self-doubt, a problem with anger, a difficult personal relationship, an issue with anxiety or depression or a loneliness that just won’t go away. We need God, and the more we can recognize and admit that need, the more we will be able to sing and rejoice when God sends his Christ into our hearts this Christmas.
Here we are, Lord. We can’t do it on our own. We need you. Thank you, Lord. Amen.
PASTORAL PRAYER
*HYMN On Jordan’s Bank the Baptist’s Cry #10
(You may be seated)
LORD’S PRAYER
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;
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, now and
forever. Amen.
OFFERING OUR GIFTS TO GOD
*DOXOLOGY Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow #592
PRAYER OF DEDICATION
*HYMN Be Known to Us in Breaking Bread #505
(You may be seated)
INVITATION TO THE LORD’S TABLE
GREAT PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
Prepare the Way of the Lord.
We come to your table Lord, to receive your many gifts that we might, indeed, have the tools to prepare your way.
Repent, turn from your sins and walk in the paths of righteousness.
In the gift of bread, your body broken, and in the cup, your blood poured out, give us the courage and the power to follow you, Loving Lord. Amen
RECEIVING THE BREAD AND THE CUP
COMMUNION PRAYER.
*HYMN Joy to the World #40
(You may be seated.)
Sending Forth
*CHARGE & BLESSING
POSTLUDE
* Sections of the service preceded with * are times to stand if you are able to do so.
Bold text is to be read together aloud as a congregation
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