Sunday, December 3 – Advent 1

Happy new year!

You can join the service, live or later, via YouTube. The stream begins at about 9:45 am, and the service begins at 10 am. You will also be able to watch or re-watch the stream on YouTube at any later time.

The order of service is available here. You might like to have it handy while joining the stream, as it includes the readings, all of the responses, and the words to the hymns–it makes it easier to join more fully into participating via the live-stream. It also includes particular prayers you might like to use while those physically present are receiving the Eucharist.

Today is the first Sunday of our new year, the First Sunday of Advent. Sundays and Seasons offers this reflection on the what we do as gather to worship together: Stir up your power, and come! The psalmist’s plea in Psalm 80.2 has become familiar to us in the Advent prayers. Isaiah wants God to rip the heavens open. Both cry out for an apparently distant, angry God to show up, to save, to restore. When we hear Jesus describing the coming of the Son of Man with stars falling from heaven, it can sound dire and horrible, not like anything we would ever hope for. But when we really look at the suffering of people God loves, we can share the hope that God would tear open the heavens and come.