Beloved Creator, we open our hearts as we prepare for worship this morning, on this first Sunday of Advent. Wake us from our slumber. Make us aware of all that you call us to be. Prepare our hearts, not just to celebrate your coming this Christmas, but to prepare for your return to us. Let us live in the now, preparing for the time when you will walk among us again. Oh, Lord, as we begin Advent, today we pray for hope. Amen
(Prayer Requests prayed for)
Lord’s Prayer
Call to Worship and Lighting of Advent Candle (Psalm 80)
Oh, Shepherd of Israel, You who were from the beginning
Come, shine upon us.
Oh, Shepherd of Israel, oh Mighty One of Israel
Come and save us!
Oh, Shepherd of Israel, Leader of the Nations
Come and restore us!
Oh, Shepherd of Israel, Savior of our hearts,
Come, shine upon us, save us, restore us, prepare us for your coming.
(We light this candle as a token of the hope God has given us.)
* O Come, O Come Emmanuel 83/88
Prayer of Confession (based on Isaiah 64)
As we wait for you to come down, we tremble, for we know we have sinned.
We have become like ones unclean, our righteousness is like filthy rags.
There is no one who calls upon your name, or who clings to you.
But you, Oh, Lord, are a God of Mercy, our Father
You formed us like clay, like a potter, and can re-form us into new beings.
Transform us Lord, into your people who follow you. Amen
Assurance of Forgiveness (based on 1 Corinthians 1)
Hear the Good News! God is faithful. By Him, you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ. He will strengthen you so that you may be steadfast until the end. Our great hope is this – God has forgiven us, be at peace.
Gloria Patri
Children’s Time
Prayer for Illumination
Reading of the Word: Luke 1:5-25 (Living)
5 My story begins with a Jewish priest, Zacharias, who lived when Herod was king of Judea. Zacharias was a member of the Abijah division of the Temple service corps. (His wife, Elizabeth, was, like himself, a member of the priest tribe of the Jews, a descendant of Aaron.) 6 Zacharias and Elizabeth were godly folk, careful to obey all of God’s laws in spirit as well as in letter. 7 But they had no children, for Elizabeth was barren; and now they were both very old.
8-9 One day as Zacharias was going about his work in the Temple—for his division was on duty that week—the honor fell to him by lot to enter the inner sanctuary and burn incense before the Lord.
10 Meanwhile, a great crowd stood outside in the Temple court, praying as they always did during that part of the service when the incense was being burned.
11-12 Zacharias was in the sanctuary when suddenly an angel appeared, standing to the right of the altar of incense! Zacharias was startled and terrified.
13 But the angel said, “Don’t be afraid, Zacharias! For I have come to tell you that God has heard your prayer, and your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son! And you are to name him John. 14 You will both have great joy and gladness at his birth, and many will rejoice with you. 15 For he will be one of the Lord’s great men. He must never touch wine or hard liquor—and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from before his birth! 16 And he will persuade many a Jew to turn to the Lord his God. 17 He will be a man of rugged spirit and power like Elijah, the prophet of old; and he will precede the coming of the Messiah, preparing the people for his arrival. He will soften adult hearts to become like little children’s, and will change disobedient minds to the wisdom of faith.”*
18 Zacharias said to the angel, “But this is impossible! I’m an old man now, and my wife is also well along in years.”
19 Then the angel said, “I am Gabriel! I stand in the very presence of God. It was he who sent me to you with this good news! 20 And now, because you haven’t believed me, you are to be stricken silent, unable to speak until the child is born. For my words will certainly come true at the proper time.”
21 Meanwhile the crowds outside were waiting for Zacharias to appear and wondered why he was taking so long. 22 When he finally came out, he couldn’t speak to them, and they realized from his gestures that he must have seen a vision in the Temple. 23 He stayed on at the Temple for the remaining days of his Temple duties and then returned home. 24 Soon afterwards Elizabeth his wife became pregnant and went into seclusion for five months.
25 “How kind the Lord is,” she exclaimed, “to take away my disgrace of having no children!”
This is the word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
Great is Thy Faithfulness 40/39
Sermon: God Comes to Us in our Brokenness
Here on this first Sunday in Advent, we lit the candle of Hope. There were many people hoping on that day when it fell to Zechariah to burn the incense in front of the alter. They stood outside and prayed.
I am not certain what all of them were praying for, but they had a few common hopes. They hoped that the long-promised Messiah would come, obviously. In their minds, it was intertwined with another hope, that this Messiah would lead them in throwing off the yoke of the Roman Empire.
If you look at your Bible, or if you memorized the books of the Bible, you know that the final book in the Old Testament is Malachi. It was written about 400 years before this event, when God promises to send a prophet to prepare the way of his coming. For 400 years that promise stood waiting … 400 long years. The people had given up hope.
Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth had hoped for many years. They had hoped for a child that never came. Month after month, year after year, they sat with empty arms. Who knows how many times they went to the temple and prayed. But the years passed, and there was no child.
Now they were old and had resigned themselves to their fate. Elizabeth would never bear a child. They would never see the first smile, hear the first words, walk to the temple holding a tiny hand, watch as the child grew and married and brought them grandchildren to hold.
The prayer Zechariah held in his heart that morning was likely not a prayer for a child. He had given up hope. His work was his child, the only one he would ever hold.
In order to picture that morning, you have to understand the context. This was not a weekly event for Zechariah, like we light our candles each week, or like you count on me being the ONE in the pulpit each week. Only one priest received the honor, and there were 24 divisions of priests, each with 300 priests. If you do your math, Zechariah was chosen as one of 7,200 priests.
The incense was burned twice daily, once in the morning and once in the evening.
So, while this wasn’t necessarily a once in a lifetime event for a priest, it would likely have happened only once every ten years or so. It was the kind of thing where when your name came up, your whole family would gather to commemorate the event and to join in the praying outside of the temple.
Zechariah was old, and this was likely the last time he would have this chance to serve.
Let’s picture it.
Unlike our open sanctuary, the temple was built in layers.
First there was the outer perimeter, which separated the building from the world around it. Once you entered, you were on Holy ground. As you walked into the temple, you would see the area known as the outer courtyard. Here, anyone would come, and here was where you find Jesus and his disciples visiting.
This is where the money was converted, the animals were sold for sacrifice, where gifts for the temple were given.
Looking straight ahead you would find 12 steps, one for each tribe of Israel. Only those who had been circumcised were permitted to approach those steps, and they were only granted entrance to present a sacrifice to the priests.
But once they entered, it was only for a short distance. They stood in an inner courtyard, this was Holier than the open one outdoors, but still there was a wall of separation.
Only as a priest performing your duties could you go further. You would take the sacrifice beyond the wall into the inner courtyard and present the sacrifice on the alter built there. This would be the furthest you would normally go, even as a priest.
Then there was an inner building. From the front door you entered the most holy part of the temple. Here there were lamps that would burn day and night to honor the Holy of Holies.
Since we do not know when the Ark of the Covenant was removed, we do not know if it still was there at the time Zechariah performed his task. But beyond that inner area was a curtain from ceiling for floor, and behind that curtain was the most holy of holies, a room which held the Ark, the memories of all of the people, and the very presence of God.
It was here, in front of the curtain, where the act of burning incense was held. And only a priest purified by the killing of a bull, carrying the blood would be permitted to offer incense.
It was a scary thing to walk past the outer courtyard, up the steps, past the Israelite court, and beyond where the bull would be sacrificed, then into the temple itself.
It was scary enough that priests wore bells on their ankles so those listening outside would know that they were still alive, and a rope on their ankle so that if they were killed by being in the presence of God that their body could be dragged out.
Because God is a Holy God, and coming into the presence of God should be a scary thing.
So, when the angel Gabriel appeared, Zechariah fell down before him.
No, the angel was not God, but stood both in front of Zechariah and in front of God, and was in a way a portal between the two, bringing God’s message.
And the message was this “God has heard your prayer.”
Often, hearing the sign that God would give, the birth of John, we think of this as an answer to the prayers of Zechariah and Elizabeth for a child. But it is not limited to that.
Remember when Moses encountered God in the desert at the burning bush? God told him, “I have heard the cries of my people.” Again and again, God would tell his prophets the same thing, “I have heard. I will answer.”
Here God tells Zechariah, “I have heard the prayers you have offered for my people.”
The prayers of God’s people at this time were for the coming of the Messiah. John, the one who prepared the way would be the first sign, the sign promised so long ago by the prophet Malachi.
And it would be accomplished not in some high lofty citadel, but in an old couple, faithful to God in spite of their long years of waiting.
It is strange, because back in their days childlessness was looked upon as a curse from God because of something you did to displease God. Their neighbors had long dismissed them as unimportant.
Which is why it is so important as we begin our journey toward the birth of Christ that we start here, with an old childless couple who had given up hope.
There are a lot of people in our world who have given up hope. Many live in our own community.
Before March, I tried to visit the Open Doors Kitchen twice a month. I would slip by before lunch and visit with many people there. I also participated in the homeless count. In doing so, I encountered people who did not have hope.
The problem wasn’t always money, nor was it joblessness or disability or even domestic violence, although all were present. The people I spoke with had worked with many agencies and I could not help them with those things. I did not have to worry about them being hungry, because a meal was about to be served.
But what I found they were hungry for was hope. They felt caught, and trapped, and hopeless.
I could not give them anything physical, but by sitting with them for awhile, my deepest desire was to give them hope, to give them the knowledge that in their darkest days, that there is hope, that there is a God who heard their prayers.
That is the first message we need to hear this Christmas, the message of God to Zechariah, that there is HOPE. That God does hear our prayers.
And. in the midst of these hard and uncertain times that all of us are in, we also need something to hold onto. So, this first Sunday of Advent, we stand together in HOPE.
Zechariah and Elizabeth teach us that hope. In the face of hopelessness and brokenness, God still acts. In the face of impossibility, God makes things possible. In the face of the darkest moment in the history of Israel, God brought a promise.
In this darkest moment of our history, God once again brings us a promise, the promise we commemorate on Christmas, that God brought his Son to us. That through that Son we can be born again into the family of God.
I spent some time this morning describing the temple, particularly the curtain that Zehariah stood in front of as he burned the incense in front of God.
I did so because where he was standing, bells on his ankle, rope on his foot, lest he die performing his duty, speaks to our greatest hope. I will read Matthew 27 verses 50 and 51, when Jesus dies on the cross.
50 Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. 51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split.
At the moment when the Son of God died on the cross, there was no more separation between God and his people. God had broken out of the little room where they tried to hold him and broken into the world.
Yes, in a few weeks we will celebrate the birth of Christ. But it is important because of this. God came into the world so that we do not have to stand trembling in front of a curtain lest we die. God came into the world so that he could live in us and be with us for all time.
In this uncertain world, so in need of hope, the curtain is torn. God is at loose in the world and is here with us.
Let that BE your hope as we approach Christmas.
Apostles Creed
Dedication of Offerings/Doxology
* Take My Life and Let it Be 393/697
* Charge and Benediction (Based on Mark 13)
As you go out, keep awake, for you do not know when the master of the household is coming.
Remain vigilant, lest you be caught sleeping and unaware. But go with the knowledge that you do not go alone. The God of the universe has prepared your way and goes with you. Go this week in hope of the coming ChristMay the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
And also with you
Pastor: Rev. Bobbie Karchner
Phone: 660-851-0067 Cell Phone: 660-596-3954
E-mail: [email protected]
Ministers: The Congregation
Web Site: http://tricountyministries.weebly.com
Weekly Worship Services uploaded on Sunday
(Prayer Requests prayed for)
Lord’s Prayer
Call to Worship and Lighting of Advent Candle (Psalm 80)
Oh, Shepherd of Israel, You who were from the beginning
Come, shine upon us.
Oh, Shepherd of Israel, oh Mighty One of Israel
Come and save us!
Oh, Shepherd of Israel, Leader of the Nations
Come and restore us!
Oh, Shepherd of Israel, Savior of our hearts,
Come, shine upon us, save us, restore us, prepare us for your coming.
(We light this candle as a token of the hope God has given us.)
* O Come, O Come Emmanuel 83/88
Prayer of Confession (based on Isaiah 64)
As we wait for you to come down, we tremble, for we know we have sinned.
We have become like ones unclean, our righteousness is like filthy rags.
There is no one who calls upon your name, or who clings to you.
But you, Oh, Lord, are a God of Mercy, our Father
You formed us like clay, like a potter, and can re-form us into new beings.
Transform us Lord, into your people who follow you. Amen
Assurance of Forgiveness (based on 1 Corinthians 1)
Hear the Good News! God is faithful. By Him, you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ. He will strengthen you so that you may be steadfast until the end. Our great hope is this – God has forgiven us, be at peace.
Gloria Patri
Children’s Time
Prayer for Illumination
Reading of the Word: Luke 1:5-25 (Living)
5 My story begins with a Jewish priest, Zacharias, who lived when Herod was king of Judea. Zacharias was a member of the Abijah division of the Temple service corps. (His wife, Elizabeth, was, like himself, a member of the priest tribe of the Jews, a descendant of Aaron.) 6 Zacharias and Elizabeth were godly folk, careful to obey all of God’s laws in spirit as well as in letter. 7 But they had no children, for Elizabeth was barren; and now they were both very old.
8-9 One day as Zacharias was going about his work in the Temple—for his division was on duty that week—the honor fell to him by lot to enter the inner sanctuary and burn incense before the Lord.
10 Meanwhile, a great crowd stood outside in the Temple court, praying as they always did during that part of the service when the incense was being burned.
11-12 Zacharias was in the sanctuary when suddenly an angel appeared, standing to the right of the altar of incense! Zacharias was startled and terrified.
13 But the angel said, “Don’t be afraid, Zacharias! For I have come to tell you that God has heard your prayer, and your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son! And you are to name him John. 14 You will both have great joy and gladness at his birth, and many will rejoice with you. 15 For he will be one of the Lord’s great men. He must never touch wine or hard liquor—and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from before his birth! 16 And he will persuade many a Jew to turn to the Lord his God. 17 He will be a man of rugged spirit and power like Elijah, the prophet of old; and he will precede the coming of the Messiah, preparing the people for his arrival. He will soften adult hearts to become like little children’s, and will change disobedient minds to the wisdom of faith.”*
18 Zacharias said to the angel, “But this is impossible! I’m an old man now, and my wife is also well along in years.”
19 Then the angel said, “I am Gabriel! I stand in the very presence of God. It was he who sent me to you with this good news! 20 And now, because you haven’t believed me, you are to be stricken silent, unable to speak until the child is born. For my words will certainly come true at the proper time.”
21 Meanwhile the crowds outside were waiting for Zacharias to appear and wondered why he was taking so long. 22 When he finally came out, he couldn’t speak to them, and they realized from his gestures that he must have seen a vision in the Temple. 23 He stayed on at the Temple for the remaining days of his Temple duties and then returned home. 24 Soon afterwards Elizabeth his wife became pregnant and went into seclusion for five months.
25 “How kind the Lord is,” she exclaimed, “to take away my disgrace of having no children!”
This is the word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
Great is Thy Faithfulness 40/39
Sermon: God Comes to Us in our Brokenness
Here on this first Sunday in Advent, we lit the candle of Hope. There were many people hoping on that day when it fell to Zechariah to burn the incense in front of the alter. They stood outside and prayed.
I am not certain what all of them were praying for, but they had a few common hopes. They hoped that the long-promised Messiah would come, obviously. In their minds, it was intertwined with another hope, that this Messiah would lead them in throwing off the yoke of the Roman Empire.
If you look at your Bible, or if you memorized the books of the Bible, you know that the final book in the Old Testament is Malachi. It was written about 400 years before this event, when God promises to send a prophet to prepare the way of his coming. For 400 years that promise stood waiting … 400 long years. The people had given up hope.
Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth had hoped for many years. They had hoped for a child that never came. Month after month, year after year, they sat with empty arms. Who knows how many times they went to the temple and prayed. But the years passed, and there was no child.
Now they were old and had resigned themselves to their fate. Elizabeth would never bear a child. They would never see the first smile, hear the first words, walk to the temple holding a tiny hand, watch as the child grew and married and brought them grandchildren to hold.
The prayer Zechariah held in his heart that morning was likely not a prayer for a child. He had given up hope. His work was his child, the only one he would ever hold.
In order to picture that morning, you have to understand the context. This was not a weekly event for Zechariah, like we light our candles each week, or like you count on me being the ONE in the pulpit each week. Only one priest received the honor, and there were 24 divisions of priests, each with 300 priests. If you do your math, Zechariah was chosen as one of 7,200 priests.
The incense was burned twice daily, once in the morning and once in the evening.
So, while this wasn’t necessarily a once in a lifetime event for a priest, it would likely have happened only once every ten years or so. It was the kind of thing where when your name came up, your whole family would gather to commemorate the event and to join in the praying outside of the temple.
Zechariah was old, and this was likely the last time he would have this chance to serve.
Let’s picture it.
Unlike our open sanctuary, the temple was built in layers.
First there was the outer perimeter, which separated the building from the world around it. Once you entered, you were on Holy ground. As you walked into the temple, you would see the area known as the outer courtyard. Here, anyone would come, and here was where you find Jesus and his disciples visiting.
This is where the money was converted, the animals were sold for sacrifice, where gifts for the temple were given.
Looking straight ahead you would find 12 steps, one for each tribe of Israel. Only those who had been circumcised were permitted to approach those steps, and they were only granted entrance to present a sacrifice to the priests.
But once they entered, it was only for a short distance. They stood in an inner courtyard, this was Holier than the open one outdoors, but still there was a wall of separation.
Only as a priest performing your duties could you go further. You would take the sacrifice beyond the wall into the inner courtyard and present the sacrifice on the alter built there. This would be the furthest you would normally go, even as a priest.
Then there was an inner building. From the front door you entered the most holy part of the temple. Here there were lamps that would burn day and night to honor the Holy of Holies.
Since we do not know when the Ark of the Covenant was removed, we do not know if it still was there at the time Zechariah performed his task. But beyond that inner area was a curtain from ceiling for floor, and behind that curtain was the most holy of holies, a room which held the Ark, the memories of all of the people, and the very presence of God.
It was here, in front of the curtain, where the act of burning incense was held. And only a priest purified by the killing of a bull, carrying the blood would be permitted to offer incense.
It was a scary thing to walk past the outer courtyard, up the steps, past the Israelite court, and beyond where the bull would be sacrificed, then into the temple itself.
It was scary enough that priests wore bells on their ankles so those listening outside would know that they were still alive, and a rope on their ankle so that if they were killed by being in the presence of God that their body could be dragged out.
Because God is a Holy God, and coming into the presence of God should be a scary thing.
So, when the angel Gabriel appeared, Zechariah fell down before him.
No, the angel was not God, but stood both in front of Zechariah and in front of God, and was in a way a portal between the two, bringing God’s message.
And the message was this “God has heard your prayer.”
Often, hearing the sign that God would give, the birth of John, we think of this as an answer to the prayers of Zechariah and Elizabeth for a child. But it is not limited to that.
Remember when Moses encountered God in the desert at the burning bush? God told him, “I have heard the cries of my people.” Again and again, God would tell his prophets the same thing, “I have heard. I will answer.”
Here God tells Zechariah, “I have heard the prayers you have offered for my people.”
The prayers of God’s people at this time were for the coming of the Messiah. John, the one who prepared the way would be the first sign, the sign promised so long ago by the prophet Malachi.
And it would be accomplished not in some high lofty citadel, but in an old couple, faithful to God in spite of their long years of waiting.
It is strange, because back in their days childlessness was looked upon as a curse from God because of something you did to displease God. Their neighbors had long dismissed them as unimportant.
Which is why it is so important as we begin our journey toward the birth of Christ that we start here, with an old childless couple who had given up hope.
There are a lot of people in our world who have given up hope. Many live in our own community.
Before March, I tried to visit the Open Doors Kitchen twice a month. I would slip by before lunch and visit with many people there. I also participated in the homeless count. In doing so, I encountered people who did not have hope.
The problem wasn’t always money, nor was it joblessness or disability or even domestic violence, although all were present. The people I spoke with had worked with many agencies and I could not help them with those things. I did not have to worry about them being hungry, because a meal was about to be served.
But what I found they were hungry for was hope. They felt caught, and trapped, and hopeless.
I could not give them anything physical, but by sitting with them for awhile, my deepest desire was to give them hope, to give them the knowledge that in their darkest days, that there is hope, that there is a God who heard their prayers.
That is the first message we need to hear this Christmas, the message of God to Zechariah, that there is HOPE. That God does hear our prayers.
And. in the midst of these hard and uncertain times that all of us are in, we also need something to hold onto. So, this first Sunday of Advent, we stand together in HOPE.
Zechariah and Elizabeth teach us that hope. In the face of hopelessness and brokenness, God still acts. In the face of impossibility, God makes things possible. In the face of the darkest moment in the history of Israel, God brought a promise.
In this darkest moment of our history, God once again brings us a promise, the promise we commemorate on Christmas, that God brought his Son to us. That through that Son we can be born again into the family of God.
I spent some time this morning describing the temple, particularly the curtain that Zehariah stood in front of as he burned the incense in front of God.
I did so because where he was standing, bells on his ankle, rope on his foot, lest he die performing his duty, speaks to our greatest hope. I will read Matthew 27 verses 50 and 51, when Jesus dies on the cross.
50 Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. 51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split.
At the moment when the Son of God died on the cross, there was no more separation between God and his people. God had broken out of the little room where they tried to hold him and broken into the world.
Yes, in a few weeks we will celebrate the birth of Christ. But it is important because of this. God came into the world so that we do not have to stand trembling in front of a curtain lest we die. God came into the world so that he could live in us and be with us for all time.
In this uncertain world, so in need of hope, the curtain is torn. God is at loose in the world and is here with us.
Let that BE your hope as we approach Christmas.
Apostles Creed
Dedication of Offerings/Doxology
* Take My Life and Let it Be 393/697
* Charge and Benediction (Based on Mark 13)
As you go out, keep awake, for you do not know when the master of the household is coming.
Remain vigilant, lest you be caught sleeping and unaware. But go with the knowledge that you do not go alone. The God of the universe has prepared your way and goes with you. Go this week in hope of the coming ChristMay the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
And also with you
Pastor: Rev. Bobbie Karchner
Phone: 660-851-0067 Cell Phone: 660-596-3954
E-mail: [email protected]
Ministers: The Congregation
Web Site: http://tricountyministries.weebly.com
Weekly Worship Services uploaded on Sunday