The Church of Christ the Cornerstone
Baptist Union / Church of England / Methodist Church / Roman Catholic Church / United Reformed Church
O Lord, you found faith in unexpected people
and those scorned by the religious people of your time.
Help us to live in your church so close to those outside it,
that we may know and share true faith across borders.
Amen
As we gather in this sanctuary this morning,
let our hearts rejoice in the promise of eternal life.
Let us approach the throne of divine mercy to worship the living and loving God
as our ancestors have faithfully worshipped: in truth and in spirit.
And let us give thanks for everything today and all the days of our lives.
Amen
Heavenly Father,
your Son battled with the powers of darkness, and grew closer to you in the desert;
help us to use these days to grow in wisdom and prayer
that we may witness to your saving love in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
Radiant God, source of light,
as you surrounded Jesus with your glory, so you come to us in penetrating brightness.
You catch us off guard and expose our weakness.
We choose the limelight while you call us to explore the shadows and brighten the darkness.
We seek the spectacular while you bind up the broken In countless acts of mercy.
We seek to stay on the mountain or in a comfortable pew while you walk to the valleys of need.
Radiant God,
fill us with light and courage to carry good news into all the corners of the world
and to bring back the joy of your presence.
Amen
Lord, as we gather here today, we pray that you wold make us attentive to you and to one another.
Give us minds that think the best of everyone; eyes that see beauty in the ordinary;
ears that want to hear only good things about others; mouths that speak blessings
and hearts that are open to you and to others.
Receive us kind Lord by your grace and help us to mend our lives.
Amen
God of our salvation,
help us to turn away from those habits
which harm our bodies and poison our minds
and to choose again your gift of life,
revealed to us in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
Almighty God, gentle and compassionate,
if we are not strong in you, then we are weak;
if we do not need you, then we are poor.
Thank you for receiving our praise and filling our lives,
for you are our everything and we are here to worship by the power of your spirit.
Amen
Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation.
Through your goodness we have this time to gather and to learn the truth of ourselves.
We cannot always feel joy for this life for we know too much of lives that have been broken.
Give us courage when we hear tragedy, despair and death to bless you, the one true Judge.
Amen
Almighty God, in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen
Loving God, we thank you that you can break into our lives
and bless us with moments of clarity.
Help us to act on your prompting and be confident of our calling,
that when new opportunities come, we will be ready to embrace them to your glory,
and in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen
O God, who by the leading of a star manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth:
mercifully grant that we, who know you now by faith,
may at last behold your glory face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen
Many people have this romantic and idealistic notion that Christmas must be perfect. Such people have the tendency to dwell on the sentimental aspects of Christmas as an escape from the harsh, cold realities of life. The truth is, Christmas has always been untidy, and the powers of evil were active at work when Christ was born, and they are still active today.
Yes, even during Christmas, there are countless, untold stories of children being trafficked, abused, tortured and even killed. Unfortunately, most of these stories don’t make the headlines. This morning, our gospel lesson brings us such a story to shake us from our post Christmas sleep induced by all the good food and wine. We awake from our slumber to hear too many parents wailing and lamenting for their children and they refuse to be consoled because they’ve lost their children: they’ve lost their children to the forces of globalisation, child labour and sweat shops; they’ve lost their children to street gangs, drug cartels and militias who force young children to kill their own people. They’ve lost their children to the sex industry and sometimes the trafficked children are transported to far-flung destinations and the parents never see them again. Such are the harsh, cold realities of our world today. In this sense, nothing much has changed in the last two thousand years: Far too often it seems that the dark forces have the upper hand!
Lord, we thank you for the gift of your scriptures;
for the people whose stories we read within them.
We thank you for Joseph, whose care and obedience
ensured the safety and wellbeing of our Lord
the son of God and changed the world
and through whom we are adopted into God’s family.
Amen
Now we know it’s all about trust:
Joseph trusted God and kept his word to Mary.
A seed planted in hope can bring down a fortress.
O Lord, strengthen our trust in your promise
of a new made world, a life unending ever after,
all through the act of power that raised Jesus from the dead.
Amen
If you have ever been jailed or locked up by the police, perhaps you can appreciate how different things must have looked for John behind those prison walls. The denial of freedom and confinement to a limited space can quash one’s spirit. For, if ever the phrase ‘free spirit’ applied to anyone, it was John. As we mentioned last week, he lived in the dessert, dressed outrageously and said what he wanted to say without holding back, until Herod Antipas locked him up.
We don’t know much about John, so we don’t know if he was able to keep his ego in check when multitudes gathered from Jerusalem and the surrounding villages to hear him preach. Perhaps it is safe to say that John felt a kind of excitement with so much religious energy in the air. There was some expectation at the beginning of John’s ministry that something was about to happen, and John’s mission was to prepare the people because someone was coming whose sandals he was not worthy to untie.
John was sure that when this powerful person arrived, things would change. He expected the righteous to be vindicated and the evil and corrupt to be confronted. He therefore could not understand why he was in prison for speaking the truth while the Messiah who sets people free was around and had not sent the cavalries to rescue him. Was he frustrated, angry, bitter? We don’t know; but I am almost certain he was very disappointed! John had once made the multitude tremble with his words. Now he had to pass through his disciples to ask Jesus a question; and his question was this: Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?
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