“At the center of the Christmas story is hope…hope which comes to us in the form of a vulnerable, poor baby. A child, not a king, changes the world. God appears to us as a marginalized, Afro-Semitic, Jewish child from Nazareth in Palestine. A child who grows up to teach us to welcome the stranger. How would our world be different if we loved our neighbors as ourselves?” asks the Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, senior minister of Middle Collegiate Church.
When Jesus prayed, he found a sense of sacred oneness, when Buddha meditated, he became awake to deeper levels of awareness. No one truly knows the effectiveness of prayer, but one thing is for sure- when we take the time to be still, to slow down, to go inward, we almost always discover something about ourselves and the potential awareness that we are not alone.
Come to us, God of peace. Come with your healing and your reconciling power. Come, that fear may be cast out by love;
Born to a poor uneducated carpenter and his partner All: Jesus was one with oppressed humankind
Gracious life-giving God, you call us to live out our faith in ways that honor you and bless our neighbors, and we recognize that worship is an essential part of our faith journey.
Leader: It is a night of anticipation, a night of waiting. People: We wait, as Mary and Joseph waited for the birth of their son.
Soulful music that combines elements of folk, blues, jazz, and gospel. Lyrics are spiritual yet progressive, philosophical yet earthy, and realistic yet hopeful.
Leader: In this Advent season, we honor a time in history when people anticipated the birth of a child. People: The child grew to be a man who gave hope to his people.
Group reading...a commitment to live as compassionate beings.