December 3, 2006

1^st Sunday of Advent

Preparation for Worship

Lead me in

Thy truth and

Teach me,

O Lord.

People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Luke 21:26

“I have learned two lessons in my life: first, there are no sufficient literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy, only moral ones. Second, just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.”

Elie Wiesel

“If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.”

 Martin Luther King

ADVENT PRAYER

Faithful God, your promises stand unshaken through all generations. Renew us in hope, that we may be awake and alert watching for the glorious return of Jesus Christ, our judge and savior, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

The theme of the first Sunday of Advent is one of hope. The quotations in our preparation for worship reflect this hope. The first is given by Elie Wiesel, an author and survivor of the holocaust, who has written movingly of the reality of hope in a very broken world. You may recognize the quote from Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington DC. The liturgy focuses on the coming of the Lord and the promise and judgment of his imminent arrival.

     The service begins with a church family lighting the first advent candle representing hope. During the advent season, the acolytes will not carry in the light of Christ, thus symbolizing our anticipation of the arrival of this light in the future.

     In worship today, we begin our four-week journey through the season of Advent. During this liturgical season, we prepare to receive God's great gift of his son, Jesus Christ. Throughout these weeks, our sanctuary will undergo a purposeful and progressive transformation. Today, we note the use of blue cloths, stoles, and paraments to mark the change of liturgical season. The baptismal font has been placed out among the congregation as a symbol of Christ's incarnation among and for us. We also begin to light Advent wreath candles, which represent the Advent themes of hope, peace, joy, and love.

     The spirit of worship on this First Sunday of Advent expresses the hope we find in our relationship with God and in his relationship with us. In fact, the music we will use to express our praise and to voice our prayers is best described as "hopeful." The prelude is a setting of a 16th Century German Lutheran Hymn, which states, "In thee is gladness amid all sadness, Jesus, sunshine of my heart." The hopeful processional hymn, "All Hail to God's Anointed," is a metrical setting of Psalm 72 written by the 19th Century Englishman, James Montgomery. Montgomery, son of Moravian missionaries and a newspaper publisher, also penned one of the most beloved Christmas Carols of the modern tradition, "Angels from the Realms of Glory." Creating a sense of lively approach, coming, or gathering is an important aspect of our Advent worship. In this sense, the procession that begins our worship will occur during the first hymn throughout this liturgical season.

     Written in 1984, the communion hymn is a contemporary setting which also well expresses the sense of coming together to "share the Lord" around the Table. The offertory anthem is a setting of an African American Spiritual, "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning." The anticipation of freedom from oppression reflected in the spiritual embodies our spirit of hopefulness in the coming of Jesus Christ. The music

offered during communion is a setting of the earliest Canadian hymn, and perhaps the earliest in the New World. It is attributed to Jean de Brebeuf, a Jesuit missionary to the Huron people in the mid-1600's. Although set in a minor key, the haunting melody used for this hymn never quite resolves itself, thereby leaving almost an "open-ended" whisper of hope to hang in the air. 

     The sending hymn, "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus" is a hymn of Charles Wesley, who during his lifetime wrote over 6,500 hymns!  Although a follower of the Methodist movement, he never relinquished his ordination in the Church of England. This text also reflects the spirit of worship, naming Christ as the "hope of all the earth." The postlude is a setting of a 16th Century German carol, or Christmas celebration dance tune, written by Johann Hermann Schein (1586-1630). Many of the earliest Christmas Carols were actually set as celebratory dance music, and Schein was an important contributor to early Lutheran church music.  In fact, in 1616 Schein was appointed Thomaskantor in Leipzig, a position that would later be held by J.S. Bach. The modal nature of the postlude, which shifts continually between major and minor tones, coupled with a dance-like quality make it a particularly appropriate reflection of God's promise of hope.