20th. December. 2020 Service.
Fourth Sunday in Advent
Let us Worship God
Hymn: “Come and join the celebration”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I6x8lccIz8
The Collect for today
Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Hymn: Once in Royal David’s city
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgR48OpNmOA
God comes to us in the cry of a child:
Let every heart prepare a welcome.
God comes to us in the whisper of a loving mother:
Let every heart prepare an embrace.
God comes to us, abides in us:
Let every heart prepare to receive the Christ.
Let us worship the God who has come, who is here and who will come again.
Prayer of Adoration and Confession
God of majesty and mercy,
Creator, Christ and Spirit,
you are powerful, you are holy, and you are loving.
You come among us not as a warrior or tyrant,
but as a child. new life born among us and for us.
And so we come to worship you this day,
trusting your wisdom with Joseph,
pondering your mystery with Mary.
We offer you our love for all that you have been,
all that you are,
and all that you will be,
one God. Holy and loving, now and forever, Amen.
God of mystery and mercy,
you came to be with us and offer us new life in Christ,
and yet we often stray from your side.
You came to offer us love,
but we confess that we can be stubborn and selfish in the ways we live.
You came to reconcile all people,
but we confess that we often resist repairing relationships and so remain divided.
Forgive who we have been,
amend who we are,
and direct who we shall be.
through Jesus Christ who reaches out to us from the manger and the cross. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon
Words from Christina Rosetti fit the Advent theme for today:
“Love came down at Christmas; Love all lovely, love divine. Love shall be our token, Love for plea and gift and sign.”
We meet God’s gift of love in the Christ Child, whose forgiveness restores us for whatever lies ahead, giving us reason to rejoice. Thanks be to God for this hope!
Prayer for Understanding
Living, loving God, the stories of this season are familiar, so open our minds and hearts by the power of your Spirit to hear your Word afresh. Make us attentive to Jesus, the Living Word, and gift he brings to our midst. Amen.
The Lords Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever Amen.
Hymn: “In the bleak mid-winter”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAzQIS4-MpY
Invitation to the Offering
The fourth Sunday in Advent celebrates God’s gift of love. At this time of year, we give gifts to express our love. May our offering today be a sign of your love for God and those in God’s world who need our love to brighten dark days and difficult times.
Prayer of Dedication
God of love and joy, God of peace and hope, we are so grateful for these Advent gifts, which bring comfort and courage even in the most challenging times. Receive our gifts as tokens of our love and loyalty. Bless them with your grace so that they will bring love to those who need it so much this year. Bless our lives, too, so that we shine with your love, blessing others in the name of Jesus, our friend and Saviour.
The Readings
2 Samuel 7:1-11
7 After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, 2 he said to Nathan the prophet, ‘Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.’
3 Nathan replied to the king, ‘Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you.’4 But that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying:
5 ‘Go and tell my servant David, “This is what the Lord says: are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? 6 I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. 7 Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’”
8 ‘Now then, tell my servant David, “This is what the Lord Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. 9 I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. 10 And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people shall not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning 11 and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.
‘“The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you:
Luke 1:26-38
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, ‘Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants for ever; his kingdom will never end.’
34 ‘How will this be,’ Mary asked the angel, ‘since I am a virgin?’
35 The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.’
38 ‘I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled.’ Then the angel left her.
Romans 16:25-27
25 Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, 26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith – 27 to the only wise God be glory for ever through Jesus Christ! Amen, this is the Word of the Lord, to Him be all praise and glory.
Hymn: “See in yonder manger low”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbGD6cJFrCk
Sermon
Luke 1: 35
The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most high will overshadow you; therefore, the child to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God.
The story of the virgin birth tends to divide people. For some it is a special joy. Others claim it is an obstacle. I don’t think I have preached on the topic very often over the years. Rather than let it be an obstacle why don’t we simply enjoy the Gospel that is proclaimed by Luke’s version of the conception of Jesus.
That does not mean we should dodge the difficulties posed by this story. But I think it would be too bad if we get so caught up in arguing about the matter that we miss what Luke was trying to tell us.
However, for those who want to think around the issue, I will add some thoughts on the web site about the four common attitudes towards the story of the Virgin Birth.
But let us get to the main theme. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most high will overshadow you; therefore, the child to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God.
To make ourselves available to this nativity message, we need to face two questions. Is history going anywhere at all? How can humanity get itself out of its own mess?
Well, what do you think? Is history going anywhere? Is there any thread of purpose? Or is it maybe a cyclic thing, a wearisome repetition with no hope or destiny? Is life on this planet an accident in a blind and soul-less universe? As the Preacher put it in Ecclesiastes, 1:9 9 What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is our frantic activity, to borrow from William Shakespeare, a meaningless exercise “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?”
Many of our contemporaries are beset with a sense of futility. Life for them has no meaning. They echo “The words of the Teacher, son of David, king of Jerusalem:2 ‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’
Luke thinks otherwise.
Luke celebrates the God who worked for many centuries to prepare for this moment of incarnation. The human story is not blind chance. It has been going somewhere from all eternity The indefatigable love of God has been present in it all, driving towards a higher destiny. Jesus is the fulfilment of the human story, the foretaste of the destiny.
A dynamic thread runs from creation to Abraham to David to the conception of a baby in Mary’s womb. That dynamic thread is the purposeful Spirit of God.
The virgin birth, a mighty act of God, is the fulfilment of the journey that took a new turn when Abraham and Sarah, led by God, left home and in faith went out into the unknown. Jesus is the fulfilment of the liberation of slaves that God accomplished through Moses, the fulfilment of God’s word burning in the soul of the prophets as they called for fidelity, justice and mercy, the fulfilment of the tears of both laughter and hope and pain and grief in the psalms of the Old Testament, the fulfilment of Isaiah’s heart-achingly-beautiful visions of an earth reconciled and at peace. More than ever in our day this message is deeply relevant.
Luke stresses this fulfilment message and exults that Jesus was born into the Hebrew stream, a descendent of David. The angel tells her that her child will inherit the promises given to David. Mary in her song of praise glorifies God upholding the covenant made with Abraham. This is the fulfilment of a long history.
When Mary conceives, it is totally God’s work. Not human doing. Holy providence is personally at work in history and finds its focus in this moment of supreme wonder.
The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most high will overshadow you; therefore, the child to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God.
But you may still ask, why the virgin birth? Why is the virgin birth so important for Luke? Why is Jesus said to be conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit?
Now this is indeed a critical point. The answer is clear: Because God alone is Lord of history. Without God’s initiatives, there would be no purpose. It is God himself within human affairs that drives us forward. There is a sense in which every conception that comes to fruition is by the power of the Holy Spirit for every soul comes here with a clear purpose, to know God more deeply.
It is not humanity which creates a destiny through planned (or chance) genetic combinations, not through better education, nor by a more disciplined morality. Not by superior political systems, nor by brilliant intellectual breakthroughs. It is solely by God’s deliberate choice and active involvement.
There is a purpose, there is a plan, there is a movement towards fulfilment. This is God’s doing, not ours. The vision of the Hebrew prophets flows from God, the direction is shaped by God, the end is guaranteed by God. All of history prior to the Mary’s pregnancy leads to this event.
This links inseparably to the second question: How can humanity get out of its own mess?
There has never been a shortage of people who have put forward programs for the reformation of humanity. In the 4th C BCE Plato wrote “The Republic.” In 1516 Ad Thomas Moore penned his remarkable “Utopia”. In the nineteenth century there was Karl Marx with his “Manifesto.”
Today there are still plenty of secular and mystic gurus around telling us how to get out of our own mess. We have never lacked theories and advice. But it does not work, as the rapid decline of every political system into utter corruption testifies.
For Luke, we cannot deliver ourselves from the human predicament. Only God can achieve this by pure saving grace. God does this through a young women. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most high will overshadow you; therefore, the child to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God.
Luke rejoices in a God who saves with people through love and mercy. The story of the Virgin Birth helps him to focus on God’s grace alone. It takes the cure right out of our corruptible and corrupting hands.
When we examine the life of Mary, we see that she is not described as a woman of many prayers or righteous deeds. She was not like the elderly prophetess Anna, who spent much of her 84 years at the temple, praying and fasting.
The grace of this event is not the grace of Mary, but the grace of God. Mary is the ‘favoured one” not because of what she was as a super-religious person, but because of what God chose to do with her. It is not her superior humanity that selects her, but the free grace of God. This is entirely God’s doing. Mary was an ordinary woman who accepted the destiny to which she was called. In fact, we are told nothing about Mary other than that she was a virgin, betrothed to Joseph. We are not told of any miracles or great deeds beyond motherhood. She lived an ordinary life raising children and she died, if the stories are true in a little stone house in the hills above Ephesus in Turkey.
The only exceptional thing was her motherhood of Jesus, and that all started with God, not with humanity.
When she was told that that she was to become pregnant, Mary asked the practical question: “How? How can this happen?” She had not yet taken marriage vows and slept with her husband.
She was told that the “Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the Child to be born will be called holy.”
In the Old Testament Hebrew, the Holy Spirit is feminine. It is the fertile activity of God personally working in creation and recreation. Luke means us to recall of the opening words of the Bible, when “the earth was without form and void” Then it was that the Spirit of God overshadowed (moved or brooded,) over the face of the waters, and out of chaos, light, pattern, purpose, and life were created.
Now, says Luke, in the town of Nazareth in Galilee, in an act of new creation the Spirit broods over Mary and a unique new life begins. In fact, a new world begins.
We are also told that the “power of the Most high will overshadow you.” Here again Luke wants us to draw on the Old Testament. We are meant to picture the holy cloud of the glory of God drawing close to earth in the days of Moses. Not on a mountain as on Mt Sinai (or in the later Transfiguration of Jesus) but overshading a young women and doing something absolutely new. This underlines for us the pure, initiating grace of God.
Most empathically Luke is proclaiming his good news. Here in the Nativity, the Spirit and is involved in new creation. The seeds of a new world are being sown and nurtured. Something absolutely unheard of is happening. God is setting up his tent, not as in the old Tabernacle of Yahweh’s Presence (that tent of Meeting which travelled with the Israelites as they were led by Moses through the wilderness) but in a human life. Here the tent is being settled within the foetus inside Mary’s womb.
Jesus is solely the product of God’s initiative. Incarnation. It is the ultimate act of grace. The grace and favour of the word of God calls new life out of nothing. A new life such as this world has never before seen. As Eduard Schweizer, when the Professor of New Testament at Zurich University, wrote: the story “as a whole emphasises the unmerited, unmotivated, gracious coming of God.” That is what the story of the virgin birth is meant to tell us.
Mary simply trusts the grace of God. Without any argument, she accepts God’s gracious action, and becomes a person of faith.
This is, of course, a thoroughly Protestant theme. Salvation by grace through faith.
We do not worship Mary in any way. We do not attribute to her any special power with God. She was a vessel of God’s grace, but in her we acknowledge the power of God through the feminine and nurturing Spirit. How do you think of the Holy Spirit, – as masculine, feminine or neuter? Surely the Spirit of God is all three. If we think of power, we think masculine or neuter, when we think of regeneration and wisdom, as the Jews did, then the Spirit is feminine. It has been observed that Mary represents the feminine aspect of God, hence her worship in some traditions. In the protestant tradition the Church is the Bride of Christ and in that sense the completion of God, but of course God is all in all the completion of all things incorporating all aspects of sexuality and gender.
Mary was not chosen because of her grace. By God’s grace she is chosen. Luke always speaks about the boundless, inclusive saving initiative of God in Jesus Christ. He does so right from the start of his Gospel.
The birth of Jesus is a glorious miracle of Divine grace. When Jesus commences his ministry, grace flows through everything he says and does. Luke underlines how Jesus gathers the marginalised people, he eats with outcasts and sinners, he heals Jew and Gentile, dares to includes women within his inner circle, draws lessons from aliens like a Phoenician woman or a Roman army officer, and tells parables about a Father who runs to meet and embrace a prodigal son, and a good Samaritan who lives with the generosity of grace.
Luke, like Paul, has a firm grip on the truth that we are saved by the grace of God in Christ Jesus. By enjoying telling the story of the Virgin Birth, Luke celebrates this grace, a grace that encompasses the whole of humanity in all its diversity.
This is the Gospel the glorious, good news! The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most high will overshadow you; therefore, the child to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God.
This birth is not man’s doing but God’s! And it is marvellous in our eyes! Amen.
Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession
Spirit of Hope, whenever the world seems confusing and bleak,
you pierce the darkness with light, bringing us hope and vision for the way ahead.
This has been a difficult and confusing year as we have endured the pandemic,
and we thank you for lessons we have learned, the changes of heart we have experienced and for new discoveries and the restoration of hope.
As nature around us moves into the long sleep of winter,
we pray for those who are fighting the virus and caring for those who are ill or dying,
and for those who are bereaved and feel the burden of grief and loss.
(A silence is kept.)
O God, reach out to all of us in Christ,
and give us hope for the living of these days.
O God of Peace,
Within lives and relationships of many and in communities around the world,
there is conflict and antagonism, mistrust, and resentment.
We pray for all places where violence has done its worst,
where cruelty and suspicion appear to win the day,
and where the vulnerable live-in fear and despair.
(A silence is kept.)
O God, reach out to all of us in Christ,
and give us peace in these times.
O Creator of Joy,
we thank you for moments of joy and celebration in our lives,
for pleasure given and received,
for quiet times spent in reflection and remembering,
and for happy gatherings, even if they have to be small.
In these colder, darker days,
we remember people who feel left out or neglected,
many who have found the months of pandemic restrictions a heavy burden,
and those we find difficult to love, even at a distance.
(A silence is kept.)
Be their light and their warmth,
O God, reach out to all of us in Christ,
and give restore joy to your world in the days ahead.
O Love Come Down at Christmas,
you call us to live in communion with you and one another.
You form us into families, circles of friendship, and communities.
Today we pray for our family members, whether we are close or estranged,
for our friends, whether nearby or far away,
and for neighbours who share our community, like minded or not.
(A silence is kept.)
Help us express both our love and concern in gentle words and kind actions.
O God, reach out to all of us in Christ,
and strengthen our love for you and for one another. These and all our prayers we ask in Jesus’ Name. Amen
Hymn “The Virgin Mary had a baby boy”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOiwbABmhcU
Benediction
Be people of love.
Let love live in your heart and share the love of Christ with all you meet.
Share love by loving those you see regularly. Start by loving your community.
Share love by loving those you do not know. How do your actions affect the rest of God’s creation?
Share love by praying for our world.
In this Advent season, we need to see, feel, and share love.
As you go out into the wonder of God’s creations, share love, joy, peace, and hope with those you meet. And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be among you and remain with you ever more. Amen.
May God’s blessing surround you each day.
Postlude: “Love came down at Christmas, Celtic”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsrZ2-s0lKU
Hymns
Here are some hymn suggestions to check on YouTube if you wish to sing along. Some may not be as familiar as their titles suggest and the ones marked “listen” do not have the lyrics on the screen:
Prelude: Love came down at Christmas Rutter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I6x8lccIz8
Come and joint the celebration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMqG5M76tFE
Once in royal David’s city
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgR48OpNmOA
In the bleak mid-winter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAzQIS4-MpY
The Virgin Mary had a baby boy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOiwbABmhcU
It was on a starry night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbEHFB6WLx4
It came upon the midnight clear
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U_Dzovu1XA
See in yonder manger low
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbGD6cJFrCk
Postlude: Love came down at Christmas Celtic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsrZ2-s0lKU
For Children
One of the most exciting times in any couple’s life can be when they find out they’re going to have a baby. And there are many things to do to get ready but choosing a name for the baby is one of the most important things they’ll do. Parents choose their babies’ names carefully because it’ll be the person’s name for his or her whole life.
Sometimes couples buy a book, go to the library, or look online for baby names. That way they can choose a name with a special meaning. Here are the meanings of these names.
John – God gave
Mary – the perfect one
Caleb – faithful, bold
Alex or Alexis – helper
Michael or Michaela – one who is like God
Elizabeth – God’s promise
Daniel or Danielle – God is my judge
Why not look up the meaning of your name here?
https://what-does-my-name-mean.org
When Mary and Joseph found out that they were going to have a baby, they didn’t get a book to help them choose a name for Mary’s baby. They didn’t even choose the baby’s name at all! God chose it for them; He sent an angel to tell Mary what to name her baby. The angel said to Mary, “You will have a Son, and you will call His name Jesus” The name Jesus means “the Lord saves.” Jesus’ name was very important because the Bible says in Acts 4:12 that there’s no other name that can save us from our sin.
Dear God, thank You for sending Your Son. During this season when we celebrate His birth, help us to remember there’s salvation in the name of Jesus. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Here is a nativity video for you
https://youtu.be/VkrYlKYMBrg?t=3
Intimations
Please remember to indicate to Joan More or Chris Duguid if you wish to attend worship on Sunday. Owing to Government regulations, numbers will be restricted to fewer than fifty persons, twenty-five in North Queensferry and places will be allocated on a first come first served basis each week. Please call Joan 01383 414515 on Friday or Chris 01383 413372 to indicate that you wish to attend. Please do not come without first ensuring your place each week as we do not wish to turn anyone away on the day.
There will be a service of Lessons and Carols in Inverkeithing Church on Christmas Eve at 6:30pm. Please be sure to reserve you place with Joan.
The Christmas Eve Service in North Queensferry will be at 4:00pm. Again, please let Chris know if you wish to attend.
Freewill Offering Envelopes
The envelopes for use during 2021 will be available in the Church on Sunday for those attending who use this method of giving.
We wish everyone a very happy Christmas and a New Year filled with safety and blessing.
Addendum: Four ways of looking at the story of the virgin birth
1. No problem at all
Some people see no difficulty. God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and God’s ways are not our ways. If God choses to act in this way, then fine. For these folk, if God is God then anything is possible, and the unlikely is in fact likely to happen.
God is the God of the unexpected. After all, our human life on this one precious little planet is not something that an outside observer would have expected at the beginning, a few seconds after the big bang when all was hydrogen and some helium. Creation is a miracle. One more should not surprise us. Virgin Birth? No problem at all.
2. A stumbling block
On the other hand, there are those who bristle at the story of the Virgin Birth.
People who see themselves as reasonable people and believe that they can reason their way through life, find the Virgin Birth to be an aberration to be explained way.
Some say it’s just another superstitious story, like the mythological gods of ancient Greece who had a penchant for getting human girls pregnant.
Others want to engage in a discussion about the possibilities of parthenogenesis; that is the development of the female egg into a foetus without male fertilisation. Maybe a freakish thing did happen. Unlikely but not impossible.
Yet other critics, usually outside the church, treat the story with scorn and repeat the old claim that Jesus was most likely the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier. That Mary covered the scandal up by claiming a virgin birth.
3. Absolutely essential
A third group claim belief in the Virgin Birth is absolutely essential. It is an essential article of the Christian faith. Embedded in the creeds. They say that those who doubt it, or put it aside, are wrong.
Such believers insist that only a Virgin birth could keep Christ safe from the taint of sin that has infected the whole human race. Jesus cannot be a descendent of sinful Adam if he is also the son of God. If there was no virgin birth then Jesus could not have been divine.
Virgin Birth? An essential doctrine.
(It is true that in Hebrew biology at the time of Christ, the seed of the man was regarded as the sole agent of new life. The man planted the seed. The woman was merely a seed bed, a surrogate. At first the church took over this belief. Later on, when the biology of conception was better understood, and the essential contribution of the woman was understood, the church had a sticky problem. Mary’s genes would have also contaminated her son. The solution for some was a bold one. In 1854 Pope Pious IX got around this hindrance by proclaiming the dogma of the immaculate conception of Mary. That is, Mary herself was miraculously conceived without sin.}
4. It does not matter
The voices of a fourth group say: “What does it matter? It makes no difference to the life and work of Jesus, nor to the mystery of his nature. What he was and accomplished is the real issue. That emphatically reveals his true, divine nature.”
These believers point out that the idea of virgin birth does not occur in either the earliest Gospel of St Mark, or the latest Gospel of St John. The earliest Christian writings we possess are St Paul’s letters. There is only one possible reference in the prolific writings of St Paul, and he put no theological store on the matter.
Some of these “it-does-not-matter” believers go further. Even the possibility of Jesus being the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier does not faze them. As they see it, if Jesus were an illegitimate child, then God’s glory shines out all the more. In fact, they assert, as such it makes the gospel all the more remarkable. In Jewish culture an illegitimate person was despised; worse, he was not allowed to take part in the communal worship of God: “No illegitimate person shall enter the assembly of the Lord.” Deut. 23:2. If Jesus was such, then he displays his Divinity among the lowliest outcast members of society. B.P.