You can watch the readings and main message here, and read the rest of the service which follows. The video link is also embedded further down the page.
Kathy adds just one extra link…..have a listen to ‘Let us be Known’ by The Porters Gate here
Welcome and Acknowledgement
For thousands of years the Dharawal People have walked in this land, on their own country. We pay our respects to their elders past and present, thank them for their continued care of the land and waters and we commit ourselves to listening to their knowing, learning from their wisdom and to working towards reconciliation and justice.
Today is the fourth week of Advent and we reflect on the way we belong to God. Christianity is all about the way we are known and loved by God, no matter who we are or what we have done. God’s love is for everyone.
As a response to that love here at Engadine Uniting we welcome everyone regardless of race, age,
ability, sexuality and gender. As a Christian Community we believe that God reaches out to us in love and acceptance and that our relationships with each other should express love and respect.
Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, wherever you’ve come from, wherever you’re going,
whatever is in your heart – you are welcome here and you are loved.
Opening Prayer / Prayer of Thanksgiving
Jesus, Immanuel, God-with-us,
Thank you for loving us.
Thank you for guiding us.
Thank you for forgiving us.
Thank you for protecting us.
We hear your call to belong to you,
and answer it gladly.
Be with us this day, O God
As we share together.
Come, Lord Jesus, come.
AMEN
I found
Sit, listen and reflect on this beautiful version of O Come O Come Emmanuel by The Piano Guys, thinking of ‘Emmanuel: ‘God with us and how we are known and loved by God as we are waiting this Advent for Christmas Day
O Come O Come Emmanuel – The Piano Guys O Come O Come
Prayer of Confession and Candle lighting – Judy and Bruce
READER 1: Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent, a time when we remember Joseph’s faithful obedience to God.
READER 2: Joseph made a deliberate choice: to go against society’s rules and marry a pregnant woman.
Today, we celebrate his courage, faith, and love.
READER 1: This is an ancient story, one we tell every year, to help us walk the way of love.
This is a journey towards God, a journey towards others
and a journey towards ourselves.
Light all four Advent candles. As the fourth candle is lit say:
READER 2: We light this candle as a symbol of God’s unconditional love.
Let us rejoice and sing! Amen.
Gracious God,
In an act of supreme love, you brought us into existence,
yet we often forget our origins or the fact that our nature is love.
In this disconnected state, we can cause much pain and suffering.
For turning away from loving you,
we are sorry.
For turning away from loving our neighbours,
we are sorry.
For turning away from loving Earth,
we are sorry.
For turning away from loving ourselves,
we are sorry.
In the silence, we bring before you our personal confessions.
Help us to open ourselves to giving and receiving love.
Amen.
Assurance of Forgiveness
With arms outstretched,
you wait for us to return home.
We are loved, we are restored, we are forgiven!
Thanks be to God. Amen.
SONG – Joy to the World
Joy to the world, the Lord is come
Let Earth receive her King
Let every heart prepare Him room
And Heaven and nature sing
And Heaven and nature sing
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing
Joy to the Earth, the Saviour reigns
Let all their songs employ
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy
He rules the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness
And wonders of His love
And wonders of His love
And wonders, wonders, of His love
BIBLE READINGS: Judy and Bruce
Isaiah 7 10-16
10 Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, 11 “Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.”
12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test.”
13 Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you [c] a sign: The virgin [d] will conceive and give birth to a son, and [e] will call him Immanuel. [f] 15 He will be eating curds and honey when
he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, 16 for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. 17 The LORD will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria.”
Romans 1-1-7
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— 2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3 regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life [a] was a descendant of David, 4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power [b] by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 5 Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from [c] faith for his name’s sake. 6 And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
7 To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Matthew 1 18-25
18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about [a] : His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet [b] did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, [c] because he will save his people from their sins.”
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” [d] (which means “God with us”).
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
REFLECTION – Kathy (You can watch Kathy speaking here, or read her words below)
After all the build-up, all the hopes of Israel down through the ages, and the longings of our own time, we come this week to the story of a man and a woman, an unexpected pregnancy and waiting for a baby to be born. God comes to be with us, to become one of us. It is both a birth like any birth and an amazing birth. It is worth reading the first 17 verses of Matthew (which I didn’t subject our readers to today) – the family tree of Jesus. It is a strange list of names, divided into neat groups of fourteen to amplify the message of sacred numbers showing God’s powerful presence. There is a sprinkling of women’s names which is unusual in a genealogy of that time and they are not the names of the great women you might expect – such as Sarah – but somewhat curious if not dubious women. Women who were foreign, who engaged in strange behaviours in order to contribute to the line of Jesus. While scholars are divided as to
what it means I think we can take that Jesus counts as his grandfathers and grandmothers those who struggled to hold on, to belong and to contribute; that God is active in the midst of conflicted and messy lives and that in this Jesus is very much very ordinary, very human as well as of the royal line of King David. It is another way of letting us know that Jesus is indeed fully human and fully divine.
The story of the birth of Jesus is an earthy and troubled story with everyday characters very like
ourselves. Joseph has often been almost left out of the Jesus birth story but in Matthew’s account he is as important as Mary.
Joseph the Carpenter of Nazareth, engaged to Mary finds out she is pregnant. This would have been a huge scandal. How would an unwed mother have fared in 1 st century Galilee? Her parents would most certainly abandon her, she along with her baby become street beggars, or more probably be stoned to death as was the Law.
Today’s reading describes Joseph as faithful to the Law. He knows the Law and obeys the Law. He is now faced with two possible applications of the Law one severe and the other compassionate. He chose the compassionate option and became a model for a major theme to follow in the Gospel. Obeying and interpreting the Law with a focus on compassion. He chose this path not just because he was as Matthew describes him as faithful but because of a dream.
His original plan was to break off the engagement quietly to shield Mary from public disgrace – without embarrassment or trouble for Mary which I guess here means being stoned to death for breaking the Law. God however had other plans and came to Joseph in a dream.
There are plenty of dreamers noted in the bible – Jacob, dreaming of a ladder going up to Heaven,
another Joseph and his dreams of sun and moon and stars bowing to him among other things, Isaiah and his vision of God in the temple. We don’t really know what type of dream Joseph had – it’s a pretty short passage and no words spoken by Joseph are recorded. Joseph believes the dream and Matthew tells us, “When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife.”
I think we can safely assume the dream had a powerful impact on Joseph and I wonder how much he shared of the dream with Mary and conversely how much she shared with Joseph of her visit from the Angel that is recorded in Luke. It would have made for very interesting conversations.
Joseph accepted the invitation to participate in God’s plan just as Mary had already done. taking Mary as his wife to protect her and insure the care for the unexpected infant; Once married and living together in the village, life would not have been easy, being the subject of gossip and perhaps isolation from their family and neighbours and possibly humiliation from the religious elders because of the scandal. And something I truly love about this holy family is that it is not a typical family unit. Here indeed is the supreme example of a ‘family of choice’ – the family God apparently chooses, with much heralding by angels, for their child. This is not a ‘natural’ family, or a family formed according to traditional ‘religious values. It is an extraordinary family, and as such should give courage to all other families that do not fit neatly into customary categories. And for those who live within typical expectations it may also give strength to acknowledge hidden differences and to support those who face other hurts and condemnations.
Joseph’s example in Matthews Gospel today of being open to God’s prompting and stepping outside of conventional boundaries and exercising compassion and Love is the Good News for us today. God worked with two ordinary people who struggled with life and all its challenges and emotions, and Jesus was born and assures us the Emmanuel God is indeed with us.
God will work out God’s purposes through whoever is willing to listen to the promptings of their hearts.
While you and I may not be invited to such a momentous task as Joseph, we no less can take part in what God is doing. Jesus makes it clear that by being God’s hands and feet in the world this is part of how God breaks into human history, bringing God’s plans to fruition through ordinary people.
The Love of Emmanuel God-With-Us does not come as mere feeling, or sentimental fluff. It is not the stuff of pretty Christmas cards or sanitised TV commercials. Like the first Christmas its messy, get your hands dirty Love. Love is our greatest commandment— tending tenderly to God, to each other, and to self. The Love of God-With-Us is love in action, radical love: redistribution of resources and risks, solidarity with those most exposed to threat, hospitality to the poor, refugees, migrants, less abled,caring for those we’ve been taught to despise, or fear. This love is fierce, and tender. It defies unjust rules and flattens hierarchies of value. The Love of Emmanuel God-With-Us is collective, invites our expectation, and demands our participation.
As we journey these last days to Christmas, may we be open anew to how Emmanuel God is giving us the opportunity to respond to his invitation to love. God is with us and for us in everything.
And continuing this reflection theme I have the NSW Moderator Simon Hansford’s Christmas message to share with you.
Christmas 2022 – Simon Hansford
Simon Hansford Message
HYMN – O Come O Come Emanuel – New words
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and fill our lives, all dark and fear dispel,
as once an exiled Israel you found,
redeemed, restored and set on holy ground.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to us and in our hearts will dwell.
O come, O light of Christ, so bright and clear
and lift our spirits by your advent here.
In all who gather, show us your face,
that we may know the warmth of your embrace.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to us and in our hearts will dwell.
O come, O Wisdom, mind and heart divine,
help us restore a world we’ve let decline.
Enlighten us; your way we would know
and show us where new seeds of hope to sow.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to us and in our hearts will dwell.
O Advent God of hope, joy, love and peace,
in you we pray our sad divisions cease.
Bind us as one, a people of grace,
for at your table each one has a place.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to us and in our hearts will dwell.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
OFFERING PRAYER – adapted from a Jon Humphries prayer
Giving God,
What a gift it is to be alive.
What a gift it is to be special and unique.
What a gift it is to share love and relationships.
What a gift it is to be in community.
What a gift it is to have gifts to share.
We bring our gifts today of our money, food, time and talents for You to use in this church and beyond
for your work in the world
God,
We are a gift
And we have gifts to give.
Help us to see that we don’t have to give things or stuff to show love and care.
Showing love and care is a gift in itself.
Help us to giftly give good things to others,
To bring them hope,
To share with them peace,
To awaken joy
And to love all people deeply and really.
God,
Help us to be a gift each day,
And to receive the gift of others.
Amen.
Prayers for others – Peter
Song – O Little town of Bethlehem 3 verses ( 1, 3 , 4)
O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight
How silently how silently
The wondrous gift is given
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven
No ear may hear His coming
But in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive Him still
The dear Christ enters in
O holy Child of Bethlehem
Descend to us we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in
Be born in us today
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell
O come to us abide with us
Our Lord Emmanuel
BENEDICTION
May we go into the world with eyes open and arms wide
seeking those who do not belong.
May we make space in our hearts and a place in our lives
for every child of God.
May we meet Emmanuel, God with us, and be responsive to his invitation to Love
Amen.
Blessing Song – Let Us Be Known By Our Love
Let us be known by our love
In every word in every deed honour the Son
Let our light shine in every eye
Let us be known by our love
Chorus
For the glory of the Father
For the glory of the Son
For the glory of the Spirit
Let us be known by our love
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