+ In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!
Opening Sentence
Let us adore the new-born Christ: today he has given the Holy Innocents the martyrs’ crown.
Hymn: “All Glory, Laud, and Honor”
Morning Reading: Jeremiah 31:15 NLT
This is what the Lord says: “A cry is heard in Ramah— deep anguish and bitter weeping. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted— for her children are gone.”
Morning Reading: Matthew 2:13-18 NLT
The Triumph of the Innocents William Holman Hunt, 1883-4 The Tate Museum
After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.”
Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance. Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: “A cry was heard in Ramah— weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead.”
Morning Prayer
Lord Jesus, even at Your birth, You met with the hatred of men, and children were the first to suffer for Your sake. We proclaim our trust in You:
+ As You were persecuted, so will be Your brothers. Lord Jesus, we look to You for help.
+ You committed no sin: yet You, like us, were called to suffer. Help us to take up our cross and follow You.
+ The Holy Innocents were Your silent witnesses: may we proclaim You to others by word and deed. Speak, Lord, to us and through us.
+ As a child You were persecuted and driven into exile: save all the children of men, in exile or under persecution. Save, too, the children as yet unborn.
Lord God, the Holy Innocents bore witness to You not by speaking but by dying. Grant that the faith we proclaim in words may be borne out by deeds. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Hymn: “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name “ – Michael W Smith
Canticle
Now then, you kings, act wisely! Be warned, you rulers of the earth! Serve the Lord with reverent fear, and rejoice with trembling. Submit to God’s royal son, or he will become angry, and you will be destroyed in the midst of all your activities— for his anger flares up in an instant. But what joy for all who take refuge in him! (Psalms 2:10-12 NLT)
Blessing
“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” (Jude 24-25)
+ In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!
+ In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen
Opening Sentence and Prayer:
As we continue our Christmas celebration, we honor the Holy Family of Jesus and entrust our families to God’s care in the New Year.
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As Your sons and daughters, O loving God, we come before You in thanksgiving, called and united by Your eternal Word. Teach us to ponder the mystery of Nazareth, that we may always find in You the source of our strength and the unity of our families. We ask this through Jesus Christ, Your Word made flesh, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, in the splendour of eternal light, God for ever and ever.
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Hymn: “O Come All Ye Faithful” at Westminster Abbey
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A Reading from the Old Testament: 1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28 (NLT)
[Hannah presents her child to the Lord, just as Mary and Joseph later did for Jesus.]
In due time Hannah gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, for she said, “I asked the Lord for him.”
The next year Elkanah and his family went on their annual trip to offer a sacrifice to the Lord and to keep his vow. But Hannah did not go. She told her husband, “Wait until the boy is weaned. Then I will take him to the Tabernacle and leave him there with the Lord permanently. ”
When the child was weaned, Hannah took him to the Tabernacle in Shiloh. They brought along a three-year-old bull for the sacrifice and a basket of flour and some wine. After sacrificing the bull, they brought the boy to Eli. “Sir, do you remember me?” Hannah asked. “I am the very woman who stood here several years ago praying to the Lord. I asked the Lord to give me this boy, and he has granted my request. Now I am giving him to the Lord , and he will belong to the Lord his whole life.” And they worshiped the Lord there.
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A Reading from Psalms: Psalm 105:1-9 (NLT)
Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done. Sing to him; yes, sing his praises. Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds. Exult in his holy name; rejoice, you who worship the Lord . Search for the Lord and for his strength; continually seek him. Remember the wonders he has performed, his miracles, and the rulings he has given, you children of his servant Abraham, you descendants of Jacob, his chosen ones.
He is the Lord our God. His justice is seen throughout the land. He always stands by his covenant— the commitment he made to a thousand generations. This is the covenant he made with Abraham and the oath he swore to Isaac.
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“Give Thanks to the Lord (Psalm 105)” – Sean Dayton
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A Reading from the Letters: 1 John 3:1-2, 21-24 (NLT)
See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him. Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.
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And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him. And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us. Those who obey God’s commandments remain in fellowship with him, and he with them. And we know he lives in us because the Spirit he gave us lives in us.
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A Reading from the Gospels: Luke 2:41-52 (NLT)
Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. When Jesus was twelve years old, they attended the festival as usual. After the celebration was over, they started home to Nazareth, but Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents didn’t miss him at first, because they assumed he was among the other travelers. But when he didn’t show up that evening, they started looking for him among their relatives and friends.
When they couldn’t find him, they went back to Jerusalem to search for him there. Three days later they finally discovered him in the Temple, sitting among the religious teachers, listening to them and asking questions. All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.
His parents didn’t know what to think. “Son,” his mother said to him, “why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere.”
“But why did you need to search?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they didn’t understand what he meant.
Then he returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. And his mother stored all these things in her heart.
Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.
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Hymn: “Savior of the World” – Hillsong
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Intercessions:
God looks with love on all of creation: let us approach His throne of grace with confidence:
+ For all the members of the Christian family – that joy and peace may be theirs through the Christmas celebration…. Lord, hear us.
+ For homeless families, and refugees – that they may be protected and provided for…. Lord, hear us.
+ For the families in our communities – that the Word made flesh may be at the centre of every home…. Lord, hear us.
+ For familes where there is hurt or difficulty – that those who have suffered may find healing…. Lord, hear us.
+ For Christians facing persecution, that Saint Stephen, the first martyr, may inspire them…. Lord, hear us.
+ For people who are sick, and for all our families and friends in hospital or living in nursing homes – that we may not forget to pray for them and honour them…. Lord, hear us.
+ For those who have died recently, especially from conflict in the Middle East, and for all we have known who have died during the year 2015 whom we remember now – that the light of heaven may be theirs. Lord, hear us.
God our creator, Your strength sustains Your people all their days: hear our prayers and stay with us throughout the New Year, we pray, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Hymn: “God rest ye merry gentlemen” – Mercy Me
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Benediction:
(May you) grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. (2 Peter 3:18)
+ In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen
Behold, I see the heavens thrown open, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. (Acts 7:56)
Hymn: Good King Wenceslas
Morning Reading: Acts 6:8-10; 7:54-60 NLT
Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed amazing miracles and signs among the people. But one day some men from the Synagogue of Freed Slaves, as it was called, started to debate with him. They were Jews from Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia, and the province of Asia. None of them could stand against the wisdom and the Spirit with which Stephen spoke.
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The Martyrdom of St Stephen Peter Paul Rubens, 1616-17 Musée des beaux-arts de Valenciennes
The Jewish leaders were infuriated by Stephen’s accusation, and they shook their fists at him in rage. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand. And he told them, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!”
Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting. They rushed at him and dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. His accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul.
As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!” And with that, he died.
Morning Reading: Matthew 10:17-22 NLT
“But beware! For you will be handed over to the courts and will be flogged with whips in the synagogues. You will stand trial before governors and kings because you are my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell the rulers and other unbelievers about me. When you are arrested, don’t worry about how to respond or what to say. God will give you the right words at the right time. For it is not you who will be speaking—it will be the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
“A brother will betray his brother to death, a father will betray his own child, and children will rebel against their parents and cause them to be killed. And all nations will hate you because you are my followers. But everyone who endures to the end will be saved.”
Morning Prayer
Thank You, Lord God, for Saint Stephen, whose life on earth was lived in the service of Christ, and who in death witnessed to Christ with his blood.
+ For all who have found the freedom to lay down their lives for Your sake – We give You thanks, O Lord.
+ For all whose desire for you has brought them through death with a joyful heart – We give You thanks, O Lord.
+ For all who have followed, through suffering, the way of the cross – We give You thanks, O Lord.
+ For all who have undergone martyrdom for the gospel – We give you thanks, O Lord.
Give us grace, Lord, to practice what we worship. Teach us to love our enemies as we keep the feast of Saint Stephen, who prayed even for the men who stoned him to death. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
New Song: “Noel” – Lauren Daigle
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Canticle
Praise the Lord ! Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing his praises in the assembly of the faithful. O Israel, rejoice in your Maker. O people of Jerusalem, exult in your King. Praise his name with dancing, accompanied by tambourine and harp. For the Lord delights in his people; he crowns the humble with victory. (Psalms 149:1-4 NLT)
Blessing
“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” (Judea 24-25)
Good news of great joy—that’s what the angels sang. That’s what we have been celebrating. The greatest news of the greatest joy, for all people: a Savior has come, Christ the Lord. Every Christmas season the joy of this good news flows into believers’ hearts afresh—and mixes with the current set of this world’s sorrows.
It’s a recurring “sync.” Every sorrow gets updated. In light of joy, first of all sorrow’s colors show more dark and deep.
It can jar our souls to take in the juxtapositions of the biblical story: the joy of a child’s birth surrounded by the agony of many deaths . . . Mary’s song echoing round mothers’ weeping for the baby boys Herod killed . . . farther back, Moses’s birth in the midst of the babies Pharaoh killed—and then deliverance from Egypt and through the Red Sea with all those corpses little and big left behind. In our own time we know the joy of births among family and friends and famous people celebrated against the shadowy backdrop of all those babies extracted from safe warm wombs and killed, by the millions. Unrelenting updates add deeper shadows to the landscape, as our family celebrations are lit up in part by news flashes of whole families slaughtered, of other people’s family members beheaded, of whole schools of children kidnapped, abused, or murdered, of men and boys shooting each other in the cities where we live.
Joy makes sorrow stand out starkly. This is surely meant to be; we must not let the sorrow and brokenness slide by without fierce recognition. I have one sibling, an older sister, who for years has taken great joy in training and directing children’s choirs in her church—especially at Christmas time. This year as the choirs sang she sat quietly with her walker, next to her husband who lovingly cares for her as she suffers the degenerative effects of a rare brain disease. My picture of this season’s joyful celebration includes this grievous part of the scene—and the grief of it seems accentuated by the joyful songs circling round my sister in that church.
All kinds of sorrow and death, public and private, get exposed by the joy. You who are reading know. You who lost your loved one. You who lost your baby. You with dreams deferred. You whose spouse broke the vows of marriage. You who are caught in sin you hate and can’t seem to free yourself from. We all know, in one way or another.
This is why Jesus came: to shine in the darkness. This world’s been dark with sin and sorrow since the fall. We must not close our eyes and pretend it’s light, or assume that we can make it light. Joy comes in, and sorrow heaves up to meet it. Light comes in—the light of life—and death gets exposed.
But that’s not all. Of course that’s not all. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). No, the light overcomes the dark. Joy doesn’t just expose the sorrow; it pierces it through. This is the good news of great joy: the Savior of the world came to bring the light of life, and his light will dispel all the darkness forever.
How did Jesus pierce the sin and sorrow through? This is what we need to know, to think on, in order to suffer the death all around us now on the way to life and light. How? Jesus took our sin and sorrow, man of sorrows that he was, and he was pierced himself, on the cross, in our place. Light of the world by darkness slain.
It was that piercing that pierced sin and sorrow and death, finally and fatally—because the light of the world could not be overcome. The remnants of death and darkness all around us are the violent death-throes of death, a writhing for just a little while until the full light of the risen Savior appears and banishes all the darkness finally and forever. That will be the final update. The fate of death itself is written down: it will be thrown with Satan into the lake of fire for eternity (Rev. 20:7-15).
Right now, especially with Christmas light still shining, joy shows sorrow’s colors dark and deep. Let’s not close our eyes; let’s look deep and sorrow deeply, fiercely hating and battling the sin and brokenness that started with that serpent in Eden. And then let’s look at the Savior and see how bright is the light. Let’s keep singing songs of joy about the light—let’s sing loud and all together, so that our songs enfold all the present sorrow with the hope of the full light of day. Come on, children, sing of the Savior at the top of your voices, and let your songs swirl their joy all around my sister who knows that joy deep in her. Around all of us.
The light has come, and conquered. This is the good news of great joy in the midst of present sorrow and death: Jesus came, he died, he rose, he reigns, and he is coming again.
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Kathleen Nielson serves as director of women’s initiatives for The Gospel Coalition.
+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Opening sentences:
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.
Christ is born for us; O come, let us adore Him.
A Reading from the Gospels: Luke 2:15-20 (NLT)
“Adoration of the Shepherds” by Gerard van Honthorst, 1622 Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, Germany
When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them.
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Canticle
Let the light of Christ in our hearts shine through all that we do or say.
Jesus Christ is born!
Blessing:
May the Lord bless us and protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life.
+ In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen
The Peanut Gallery 