| New Book now Available Here is an anthology of over 1100 brief prayers and thought-starters, for each day of the year, with almost 400 original prayers by Bruce Prewer. Included is both a subject index and an index of authors-- an ecumenical collection of about 300 different sources. |
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| Title: Brief Prayers for Busy People. Author: Bruce D Prewer ISBN 978-1-62880-090-6 Available from Australian Church Resources, web site www.acresources.com.au email service@acresources.com.au or by order from your local book shop or online on amazon. |
YEAR C,
CHRISTMAS EVE
December 24
Luke 2: 1-14. (Mini
Sermon 1: “The Unexpected”)
Titus 2: 11-14 (Mini
Sermon 2: “Grace has Appeared”).
Isaiah 9:2-7...
Psalm 96
GREETING
The grace and wonder of our Lord Jesus Christ be
with you all.
And also with you.
Now is God about to do a wonderful thing.
A young woman
shall give birth to a child.
And his name shall be Jesus, meaning Liberator.
For he shall save his people from their sins.
Holy, holy , holy, is the
Lord of mighty galaxies,
the God also of tiny babies!
The whole
world is filled with God’s glory!
OR —
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light!
O sing to the
Lord a new song,
sing to the Lord all the earth!.
Those who lived in a world of deep darkness,
on them has the light shined!
Let the
heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice
let the plains exult and the
trees of the forest sing
for joy before the Lord who
comes to us.
May the glory of the grace of Christ Jesus be reborn
in you this night.
And also in you.
A COLLECT FOR CHRISTMAS EVE
You, awesome God, have made this wondrous evening
shine with a radiance exceeding all the stars in the night skies. For our
liberation and healing, you have seized the initiative and visited us in the
most famous stable in the universe. Lead us to draw close with a wonder like
those who are making their first visit, and with the sturdy love of those who
have known your beauty for many years. Through Christ Jesus
our Lord.
Amen!
END AND BEGINNING
At the end of a long journey
for a called people
seeking a destiny;
at the end of an enforced trek
to a highland town
with no room for the poor;
at the end of the hard travail
for a teenage woman
sheltering in a shed:
Came the unspeakable Gift;
the awesome self-emptying,
the embodied Word,
the great folly of God;
that baby crying in the night
who frightened jewelled kings
and shook the gates of hell.
© B.D. Prewer 1992
CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE
Friends, let us admit to each other, and to God, our
errant ways. Let us pray.
We have been stupid.
Because, in spite of what happened at Bethlehem, we
still expect to find You among the manicured people
who ooze success and self advertisement;
Lord have mercy.
Lord have mercy.
We have been impatient.
Because we sometimes wish you had not come in
humility but with an army to overthrow corrupt rulers and to publicly humiliate
the greedy and ruthless;
Christ have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
We have been mislead.
Because your ways are not our ways and your brand of
foolish meekness outsaves and outglories everything else on earth around us or in
the heavens beyond.
Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy.
Most wonderful God, let not our celebrations be
despoiled by either unrepentance or apathy in the presence such abundant
forgiveness and rehabilitation.
May the Spirit at the heart of Christmas, breathe
into us that healing which makes all things new.
For your name’s sake.
Amen!
FORGIVENESS
My friends,
“You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save
his people from their sins.”
Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life,
and have it to the uttermost.”
Glory to God! We are a forgiven and liberated
people!
Glory to God
in the highest
and on earth peace and goodwill
to all people.
.
PSALM 96
Sing a new carol to God!
Sing to God
all the earth!
Sing a new
song to God’s name!
Publish the good news daily,
tell this happening everywhere,
tell the miracle to every
person!
Our Lord is great, and great is our praise.
Compared to
him other gods are nothing,
the things we idolise are
hollow
Our God formed all the galaxies;
dazzling is the majestic Presence,
all-beautiful is God’s power
Give of yourselves, human family,
give to God all your energies,
give the glory that is due.
Bring to worship the best you have;
adore the splendour of Holy Love;
tremble, tremble all the earth.
Tell the whole world it does have a God.
Life is
undergirded with values
by which we shall be judged
Let the stars sparkle and
the earth laugh,
let the sea roar and everything
in it.
Let farmlands cheer and the cities dance,
let the bushland
and forest sing for joy;
Ready for the God who comes,
who comes to weigh the world,
who deals out
better than justice
and tests us with
the litmus of love.
Ó B D Prewer, 2012
PRAYER FOR CHILDREN
Wonderful God,
on this exciting night
you gave us the best present
in the whole universe!
You gave us
your true Child,
Jesus
our brother
and Saviour!
Thanks a million, million times
for loving this world
so very much.
Ó B D Prewer & Open Book Publishers
COLLECT
Most loving God, you make us happy each year as we
remember the birth of your true Son Jesus. As we joyfully receive him now as
our Saviour, so may we in the fullness of time look upon his glory with love
and wonder. For through him, to you in union with the Spirit, rises all our gratitude and praise, world without end
Amen!.
SERMON 1:
THE UNEXPECTED
God in a cow shed!
In our eyes, God is always doing the unexpected
thing;
not because it is God who is hooked on novelty,
but because God’s kind of love is extremely rare
in our love-deprived, world community.
We would not have anticipated Christmas.
We
wouldn’t have expected that God’s most special thing
in the whole of history of life on this planet
would take place in a cowshed at Bethlehem.
But it was so.
Nor would we have expected that God’s special thing
would take place in the vulnerability
of yet another tiny human baby.
But it was so.
Babies are plentiful in our world,
thousands upon thousands born every day,
but God’s pure wisdom planned another;
one more human infant
in whom God’s true-love
could be born among us
full of unimaginable truth and grace.
Thank God, it was so.
Tonight we celebrate
the hallowing of our human flesh.
Tonight our potential strengths are uncovered
and our weakness overcome.
Tonight our self-respect is recreated
by that common yet unique baby.
Tonight our faith is renewed
as the unexpected God
does his unexpected thing
by which the whole world
is in profound sense reborn
through one more human baby.
With that birth, the world is never the same again;
never the same valley of broken hopes,
never the same stony field of loneliness.
Never the same barren hilltops
where despairing souls build altars
to an unknown God.
Tonight we once more celebrate
that True-love has broken loose
on planet earth.
The very soul of God
wears our flesh and shares our laughter,
bears our smell and shares our toil,
dares our dreams and shares our frustration.
With the resilience of Divine grace,
with the light which cannot be
put out,
with the joy which no one can
take from us,
God
comes among us
gasping a first human breath
and making a little crying protest
at the apparent coldness of existence.
It is all so wonder-fully odd,
yet so wonder-fully right
for this kind of world.
That is why we come
at the midnight hour
in anticipation;
that the unexpected God
may meet us again
in the stable-like stuff
of our common experience.
O come, o come, Immanuel!
SERMON 2: GRACE HAS APPEARED
Titus 2:11
For the grace
of God has appeared for the salvation of all people. Titus 2:11
To night we celebrate the hidden grace
that is now made wonderfully seeable,
hearable, touchable, nurseable,
hugable,.adorable!
The baby Jesus in Mary’s arms
begins God’s ultimate revelation of saving grace.
Sometimes I hear preachers
who seem to think that the
grace of God was not present until Jesus died on the cross. On this wonderful
midnight I strongly put it to you that the grace of God has been with us from
the beginning of human history. Always with us and for us!
Of course God’s grace reached its consummate work on
the cross.
But it was not a new thing, but the visible, and the
ultimate, implementation
of something that has always been flowing from the heart of God from the very
foundation of the world. Hidden from human eyes but active in
human souls.
Grace is God’s prodigal generosity.
It is God’s renovating gift. It is God’s healing,
liberating activity. It cannot be bought by holy prayers or good deeds or
‘correct’ theology. It is given! Utterly given!
Sheer bonus!
Grace is God’s active loving;
unpredictable and immeasurable. Grace
recognises no obstacles and will not be confined to any limits.
Grace is always precious;
always given to humanity at
personal cost, like the cross.
At Bethlehem, in a smelly stable
where poor people are sheltering
from the chill of the night among the hill country of Judea, grace is made
visible. Now we see it, hear it, nurse it, cuddle it, love it, adore it.
Jesus is born.
For the grace of God has appeared for the
salvation of all people. Titus 2:11
IN THE KNOW
From the first day you’ve cared for us,
shaping the soul,
by your Spirit through long
ages,
knowing us well,
grieving our sins and sharing joys,
loving us all.
Now you know us in a new way,
in our flesh cast,
cradled in a young mother’s arms,
suckling her breast,
learning in the hard school of life,
as creatures must.
Now we know you in a new way,
God
with no mask,
tasting all of our hopes and fears,
from dawn to dusk,
a weakling in a hard, strong
world,
a child at risk.
Of that which human ears have heard,
our carols ring,
for that which eyes have seen
and loved,
all joy be sung,
to that which hands have
touched and nursed,
we now belong.
Inspired by Luke 2: 1-20 and 1 John 1: 1-4
© B.D. Prewer
1994
INTERCESSIONS
Our God, Immanuel, while we meet tonight in warm
fellowship and love,
we pray for those who are
still out in the cold.
May the light of Bethlehem’s greatest Child, touch every dark place.
For those who because of persistent hatreds,
terrorism or war, are far from the promise of peace and goodwill;
Come,
Immanuel, and help your servants complete the works of love
and peace which you have
launched.
For those who this night live is refugee camps,
squat in derelict buildings, or sleep in back alleys or on park benches.
Come,
Immanuel, and aid all your lost and homeless children to find their true
inheritance.
For those who are ill, at
home or in hospital; the diseased and maimed, and the latest accident victims
of our highways and streets.
Come,
Immanuel, and bring comfort and hope through those nurses and doctors who do
your healing work this night.
For those grieving folk who for the first time are
facing Christmas without a precious loved one at their side.
Come Immanuel,
and give to the grieving that deep soul-peace that no human voice or hand can
offer.
For the church in every land, wherever it worships
and works in peace, and especially where it lives under constant threat and
persecution.
Come Immanuel,
and give all your people the assurance of your constant presence, and your
all-sufficient grace
And now, holy Friend, we pray for ourselves, that
this Christmas may not pass in vain.
O Spirit of
Christ,
you are the very Word of God
who became flesh,
give each of us the will and the
wisdom
to back up our prayers with
appropriate actions.
To your praise and glory.
Amen.
SENDING OUT
It is good to have been here!
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great
light;
those who lived in deepest night,
are lit up with a brilliant sight.
Unto us a
child is born, unto us a son is given.
The spread of
his influence and of his peace will never end.
Therefore, go out into the world with great joy,
and the grace of Bethlehem’s matchless Child,
the love of the God who never ceases to amaze,
and the fellowship of the Spirit who never wearies,
will be with you this holy night and evermore.
Thanks be to God!
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