Call to Worship

Leader:  O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
              O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem.
              Come and behold him, born the king of angels.....

refrain:
                G                                     G       D   G   D⁷    G     D
          O come, let us adore him, O come,  let  us    a - dore  him,
          G     D⁷    G   D  Em    D    G...C       G...D⁷          G   
          O  come,  let  us   a - dore him,      Christ       the Lord.

(repeat refrain, if deemed appropriate)

"O come, all ye faithful," #212, verse 1 & refrain

Opening Prayer

         O wondrous God, your love spills over into all creation - into hearts of women and men, girls and boys. Your love spills over into relationships of friends and family and church. Your love spills over in the gift of your blessed child Jesus. This season - this day - we wait for Jesus to come again into our hearts, our lives, our worship.

by Jane Flora Swick (adapted)
from For All Who Minister, ©1993, Brethren Press

For Children
"How many X’s?"

objects: 4 sheets of paper with X's on them

         I want to see how sharp you all are this morning. What is this? (show sheet #1) Looks like a bunch of X’s, doesn’t it. Anyone want to guess how many? Nice try. There are actually 398 X’s on this sheet of paper. Now, what do you suppose all those X’s represent? (Playfully wonder with them. If someone guesses what you intend them to represent, great!) Those are all good answers, but what I intended them to represent were the hours between now and Christmas. When we began worship at 10 am, there were 398 hours until Christmas Day - actually until midnight on Christmas Eve when, according to our clocks, Christmas begins. At this moment it is actually slightly less than 398 hours. Does that feel like a lot of time to you? Is it hard to wait? (Talk about "waiting").

         Okay, I think you’ll catch on to this next part pretty quick. What is this? (show sheet #2) Yes, again it’s a bunch of X’s. How many? Well, there are 1,440 X’s, and what do you think they all represent? If you guessed hours, you’re wrong. If you guessed minutes, you're on the right track. What would 1,440 minutes equal? Believe it or not, that's how many minutes each of us has in one day. Of course, many of those minutes we spend sleeping. And on some days, many of those minutes take place in school. But we have do a lot of time on our hands every day, as you can see. All these X’s, all this time is a gift to us from God. We have many choices to make in what we do with this time. We can even choose, sometimes, to "give" our time to someone else. We have lots of it (point to all the X’s).

         I have one more sheet of paper (show sheet #3). It also has lots of X’s. Anyone want to guess how many. Hey, you’re getting good at this. There are 1,000 of them. What do you suppose these 1,000 X’s represent? (Again, playfully wonder with them). Actually, these don’t stand for hours. If you listened to the scripture Mark read just before you came forward, you heard that "...with the Lord one day is like 1,000 years, and 1,000 years are like one day." What do those X’s mean? They stand for "years."

         For God, a thousand years is the same as one day. In other words, this whole page also represents one day (show sheet #4, which has just one big X on it) ... in God’s eyes, that is. God’s time is a bit different from our time. But on the other hand, for God, one day is also the same as a thousand years (hold up both sheet #3 and sheet #4). Now some people wonder how Santa Claus gets all around the world to deliver his presents in one night. A bigger question is how God takes care of everybody - with all the prayers that most be prayed all around the world. Well, this scripture reminds us that God’s time is a bit different from our time.

         In God’s own time, when the time was right, in what the Bible calls the "fullness of time," God sent Jesus to live among us and become our Savior. That’s what Christmas is all about for us. These 398 hours leading up to Christmas remind us of something else - that in God’s own time, when the time is right, Jesus will return to fully make things right in this world. For now, God wants us/you to live every hour of every day like it’s a gift from him. Not just until Christmas, but every day of your life. So, as you open up the rest of this hour and day, in your choir practice, your playtime, your Sunday School, your family time - remember, it’s all a present from God.

the seed for this story was planted by
Harold Steindam in his book Growing Together, p. 6.
though I have traveled with it in a different way.

Responding with our Tithes and Offerings

         The gospel of Mark, unlike that of Matthew or Luke, does not begin with the story of Jesus' birth. The "Advent" story Mark tells starts with the preaching of John the Baptist, who was that "voice" of whom Isaiah prophesied. The days of his life, given him by God, were well spent calling people to come and repent, thus preparing the way for Christ... Listen to the beginning of the great "Advent"-ure, according to Mark:  read Mark 1:1-8

Please pray with me.

         On a twisted road we have all come to this point in time, O Lord, confessing how far we have fallen short of what you created us to be. We've told our share of lies, or perhaps just half-truths. We have hidden behind our rationalizations and fears, sometimes pretending to be better than - in truth - we really are. We have failed to reveal to others the seed of hope you've planted within us, depriving them of what you desire in their lives. We are sinners, just like all those who came to the riverside long ago, in response to that voice crying out in the wilderness.
         We turn again to you now, remembering our baptism, or anticipating that commitment we will one day make. Refresh us now, in the repentance of this moment, with the fire of your Holy Spirit, that we might "prepare the way of the Lord" in the world around us. These offerings we now bring are but a reflection of what you have already done, and are continuing to do, to make your path straight in us. Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen!

ushers?

Benediction

         "My dear friends, you have been warned ahead of time! So don’t let the errors of evil people lead you down the wrong path and make you lose your balance. Let the wonderful kindness and the understanding that come from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ help you to keep on growing. Praise Jesus now and forever. Amen!"
                                    (2 Peter 3:17-18, CEV)