Preparation for Worship at Home. When worshipping at home, set aside a time and a place each week for worship. During the Advent season (today through Christmas Eve), set out four candles. One candle will be lit for each Sunday that passes as we approach Christmas Day.
May the following serve as a guide in your worship of God.
The Worship of God
Passing the Peace
Say to one another, “May the peace of Christ be with you.”
And reply, “And, also with you.”
Advent Wreath Litany
In the beginning was the Word –
spoken and breathed,
a promise made and kept.
Listen and hear –
God’s promise is true!
The Word was in the beginning,
and through him all things come into being.
Eternal and near at hand,
already and not yet,
God’s promise is the foundation of all life.
Listen!
Hear the covenant anew, giving voice to a future with hope.
~Teri Carol Peterson
One candle is lit today.
Opening Prayer
We have had enough feasts of anger and bitterness,
so come, God-who-aches-to-be-with-us,
to feed us with the simple Bread of heaven.
Every day we are handed steaming mugs of tears,
so come, to hold the Cup of hope to our lips.
Every day seems to be the longest day
in this year which goes on and on,
so come, God-who-approaches,
using the stars in the night sky
to light the way to the grace
we long to find in Bethlehem,
where we will find a home with you
when all the power and wealth of the world
slams their doors in our faces,
leaving us huddled with all our fears and worries.
We are deafened by all the arguments, the rhetoric,
the foolish boasts, the outright lies,
so come, God-who-is our peace,
to fill our ears with the angelic songs,
to pour love and wonder into the emptiness of our souls.
Come, God in Community, Holy in One,
come to assure is that out of these uncertain times
will come the Advent of new life.
~Thom Shuman
Hymn of Praise
Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus
Author: Charles Wesley
Tune: HYFERDOL
Come, thou long expected Jesus,
born to set thy people free;
from our fears and sins release us,
let us find our rest in thee.
Israel’s strength and consolation,
hope of all the earth thou art;
dear desire of every nation,
joy of every longing heart.
Born thy people to deliver,
born a child and yet a King,
born to reign in us forever,
now thy gracious kingdom bring.
By thine own eternal spirit
rule in all our hearts alone;
by thine all sufficient merit,
raise us to thy glorious throne.
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
Shepherd of Israel, listen!
You, the one who leads Joseph as if he were a sheep.
You, who are enthroned upon the winged heavenly creatures.
Show yourself before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh!
Wake up your power!
Come to save us!
Restore us, God!
Make your face shine so that we can be saved!
Lord God of heavenly forces,
how long will you fume against your people’s prayer?
You’ve fed them bread made of tears;
you’ve given them tears to drink three times over!
You’ve put us at odds with our neighbors;
our enemies make fun of us.
Restore us, God of heavenly forces!
Make your face shine so that we can be saved!
Let your hand be with the one on your right side—
with the one whom you secured as your own—
then we will not turn away from you!
Revive us so that we can call on your name.
Restore us, Lord God of heavenly forces!
Make your face shine so that we can be saved!
Prayer for Others
Pause after each paragraph to give voice to prayers as prompted. Let us pray,
Merciful God, who shelters us and guides us,
we give you thanks for….
God who comforts,
receive those who are fearful and lonely….
God whose love is steadfast,
be refuge for the ill, the dying, and those who care about them.…
God of righteousness,
we ask for your wisdom and ways of justice to prevail
in our community, this nation, your world….
God who seeks our trust, grow us and guide us in your ways
that are life-giving in your world. Amen.
Choral Anthem
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
Composer: Richard Shephard
O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Desire of nations, bind In one the hearts of humankind.
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease, And be Thyself our King of Peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
Mark 13:24-37
“In those days, after the suffering of that time, the sun will become dark, and the moon won’t give its light. 25 The stars will fall from the sky, and the planets and other heavenly bodies will be shaken. 26 Then they will see the Human One coming in the clouds with great power and splendor. 27 Then he will send the angels and gather together his chosen people from the four corners of the earth, from the end of the earth to the end of heaven.
28 “Learn this parable from the fig tree. After its branch becomes tender and it sprouts new leaves, you know that summer is near. 29 In the same way, when you see these things happening, you know that he’s near, at the door. 30 I assure you that this generation won’t pass away until all these things happen. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will certainly not pass away.
32 “But nobody knows when that day or hour will come, not the angels in heaven and not the Son. Only the Father knows. 33 Watch out! Stay alert! You don’t know when the time is coming. 34 It is as if someone took a trip, left the household behind, and put the servants in charge, giving each one a job to do, and told the doorkeeper to stay alert. 35 Therefore, stay alert! You don’t know when the head of the household will come, whether in the evening or at midnight, or when the rooster crows in the early morning or at daybreak. 36 Don’t let him show up when you weren’t expecting and find you sleeping. 37 What I say to you, I say to all: Stay alert!”
Reflecting on the Word
“Apocalypse Later” – Dr. Jeffrey Vickery
It just might seem to many of us that 2020, of all years, is apocalyptic. Let me assure you, it is not. Do not fear the end of all things. While everything from the out-of-control pandemic to the extraordinary number of hurricanes to the murder hornet invasion to the circus spectacle of politics has disrupted the lives of possibly every single person in America, yet these are not signs of the end of time. These are mostly the result of human sin in one form or another. Whatever we do, Christians cannot misunderstand human sin and assign it to God’s purpose. God is the architect of redemption, not sin. God is the Creator of a good humanity and not the instigator of human evil. God is the light of hope, not the dark knight of death and destruction.
So even though 2020 is not the apocalypse warning sign some claim, this dramatic reading from Mark 13 is a good place to think about the end of 2020 and the beginning of a new church year as Advent starts today. Why? Because the biblical message of the apocalypse is not one of doom and gloom but of hope. I’m serious. It is not a message of the end of all things, but the beginning of all that God imagines. While sun and moon turning dark sounds ominous, the end result is salvation. Just as Advent asks us to consider what we need to do in order to prepare for God’s coming, so too these messages that we have come to call the “end of times” are really lessons from the biblical story about “the coming of God.” And when God comes among us, there is hope and salvation. In this way, the message of the apocalypse is identical to the message of the manger. God is coming soon. For the people of God, this brings hope not fear.
This story of Jesus from Mark 13 uses three different stories to make the same point. The first story is cosmic, the second is seasonal, and the third is domestic.
Jesus’ first illustration (beginning in verse 24) draws our attention because we are often enamored by the sensational. The sun and moon will darken. The stars and planets will shake and waver in the sky. These are things that only God can do. The first reminder about the apocalypse is that it comes at God’s time and not ours. It is the result of God’s action, not human accomplishment. It is a work of salvation, not a path of destruction brought on by human mishap and sin. Because these are only accomplished by God’s direct intention, they are hopeful reminders of salvation. Mark does something interesting with these signs by directly attaching them to the coming of the Messiah. The mention of the “coming of the Human One” is a clear reference to Jesus. And for centuries Christians have confessed as our central doctrine that Jesus came to dwell among us, full of grace and truth, as a way to bring us hope and salvation. The character of God is consistent. The truth of God’s grace is unerring. The trust in God’s forgiveness is unwavering. Therefore, the coming of God, at any time and in any place, is a reason for hope. This includes any future coming of God. If the next time we look to the heavens we happen to see the stars and planets dance, we should join the celebration. God is near, enter into the joy of salvation!
Jesus’ second illustration (beginning in verse 28) draws us into the agriculture of Jesus’ Palestinian homeland where fig trees were common. The movement from winter to spring and spring to summer is something that we as humans depend upon but not something that we control. Without summer, Jesus can’t eat figs. That doesn’t sound dramatic, of course, but what if we were talking about a world without tomatoes, corn, squash, and beans? In order to have this good harvest, summer must come in its time. Since Galilee and Cullowhee (where Jesus lived and where we are today) are at the same latitude, our seasons are similar. And in Jesus’ Galilee, they lived in a world where they had to grow their own food. Any indication that summer is on the way, like the young shoot on a fig tree, is a sign of sustenance and hope. Without summer the health and welfare of our family is uncertain. Yet summer comes. Every year. And it comes in the way that God set forth at the creation of this world. Summer is a certainty just as God’s care is without doubt. As our Advent season leads us into winter, we know that snow and frost will eventually give way to new fruit and garden dirt warming in the spring sun. One way to read verse 30, when Jesus says, “I assure you that this generation won’t pass away until all these things happen,” is that Jesus gives us the assurance that, just as summer brings enough food to sustain life for another season, God gives life in every season. Salvation is like an eternal summer in which the garden of God is always abundant and thus our life is sustained for eternity. Think of the images of heaven at the end of Revelation in which a river flows so that water is always available, two trees that grow twelve kinds of fruit are always producing, and the light of God never dims. It sounds like heaven is an eternal summer!
Mark ends this teaching of Jesus with the assurance that “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will certainly not pass away.” Consider all the ways in which the biblical story places emphasis on “the word.” In Genesis 1, God speaks a word and creation takes on life. John’s Gospel (chapter 1) gives us the assurance that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.“ In this way and others, one designation of Jesus himself is as the “Word of God.” Additionally, following the Jewish perception of the Torah, we Christians identify scripture as the word of God. So when Jesus says here in Mark 13 that “my words will certainly not pass away,” it is a statement of assurance. A trust given to us that God’s creative Spirit will always speak and life will not be diminished … regardless. The Gospel of God incarnate in Jesus is not contingent upon any other creation or the possibility of catastrophic destruction. These words of God in all their form both bring and give life. Once again, the apocalypse expresses hope.
Jesus’ third illustration (beginning in verse 33) brings us home. Or maybe I should say, brings us into the household. The emphasis here is that the homeowner is always to be expected to be present or to return soon by those who are employed in the house. The repeated advice, three different times, is “stay alert” — “stay alert” — “stay alert.” Why? Because the owner will come home at a moment that is not determined by anyone inside the house. If God is, in this analogy, the house owner, then God is the only one that determines God’s return. We do not and cannot control God’s actions, but we are indeed responsible for our own. We are like the doorkeeper. We have a job to do and it is one that is common rather than spectacular. It is to be prepared. Do our job. Keep awake. Stay alert. This call is one of basic daily obedience to the Gospel. Since we are surrounded by entertainment and media industries that broadcast superlatives – the best, the scariest, the prettiest, the most dramatic, the world champion, the crazy sensational – we are sometimes led to believe that only these media-worthy actions are important, or make us feel important. But the Gospel lesson here is that the common daily practice of faith is what prepares us for any moment of obedience, whether it involves the extraordinary or not.
I’m reminded of the day that Ronald Reagan was shot. It was March 30, 1981 and I was on Lake Keowee fishing with my father. While listening to the radio we heard the news of the shooting of the President after he had given a speech at a hotel in Washington. Attention turned almost immediately to Jerry Parr and Timothy McCarthy. They were the Secret Service agents who protected the President. Agent Parr pushed Reagan into the limousine while Agent McCarthy jumped between Reagan and the gunman and was shot himself. These two men, as is true for every agent who protects every President, were ready and prepared and trained to respond at a moment’s notice to any threat while at the same time expecting that almost every day will end without any incident. Their daily task is watchfulness. They are present at every event and mostly do nothing sensational. But they are always ready, always alert. They train for an unexpected moment that they also hope will never come.
When Jesus tells the “doorkeeper” to be ready for any return of the “house owner” he is calling us to be ready to respond with the Gospel in any instance. True, we may be alive and living out the Gospel at the end of all the world. But most likely, this day and every other day of our lives will end without cosmic cataclysm. Yet we live today and the next, we train our hearts and minds and bodies, to respond today as though we are prepared for the unfiltered presence of God among us. After all, the host of angels came to the shepherds to announce the birth of Jesus on an ordinary sheep-herding night. Today is by all accounts normal, but it is possibly this day that we are called to show love and grace in a way that just may make this world a bit more as God intends. We don’t start the day expecting to save a life, discover our life’s calling, meet the person who will change our future, or teach the next Nobel Peace Prize winner. We don’t plan these things because, like the apocalypse, they are often within the reach of God’s intent but require our obedience in some common way. Whoever we are, this day we must remain alert to God’s way of living. We are required to exercise forgiveness, and kindness, and generosity, and grace. We cannot treat others as a means to our end but as a value to God’s work and world just because of who they are. We are alert to God’s coming in such a way that will require us to respond with justice for others and to help heal creation. We live in obedience to God now with the hope that this day will be the apocalypse, but most likely it will not. In either eventuality, we are God’s people now, and prepared for this day whatever opportunity we may have to show love.
During this Advent season, don’t just look ahead to the joy of Christmas and skip past this common day, like so many other days, that we are to be obedient to God in the ordinary. That’s our discipleship watchfulness. In so doing, we will be a part of this day of God’s creation, and will be prepared for the hope of an apocalypse later.
Prayer of Thanksgiving
Thank you, God for constant love. Please help our church family grow deeper and deeper in your love. Amen.
Song of Faith
Angels from the Realms of Glory
Author: James Montgomery
Tune: REGENT SQUARE
Angels from the realms of glory,
wing your flight o’er all the earth;
ye who sang creation’s story
now proclaim Messiah’s birth:
Refrain:
Come and worship, come and worship,
worship Christ, the newborn king.
Shepherds, in the field abiding,
watching o’er your flocks by night,
God with us is now residing;
yonder shines the infant light: [Refrain]
Sages, leave your contemplations,
brighter visions beam afar;
seek the great Desire of nations;
ye have seen his natal star: [Refrain]
Sending Out
May the blessing and peace of God uphold you,
May the compassion and love of Christ enfold you,
and may the vitality and power of the Holy Spirit embolden you,
today and always.
Amen.
Closing Song
Blest Be the Tie
Tune: DENNIS (Nageli)
Author: John Fawcett
Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.
The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.
When we are called to part, it gives us inward pain;
but we shall still be joined in heart, and hope to meet again.
This glorious hope revives our courage by the way;
while each in expectation lives and waits to see the day.
Acknowledgements: The anthem was played by Tonya on the piano, Connor on the violin, Tessa on the flute with Mindy singing. Tracy played the organ and Mindy sang the hymns. Scripture readings are from the Common English Bible. Permission to podcast / stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-724755. All rights reserved. All writings have been used by permission from the posting sites or authors.
Cullowhee Baptist Church 
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