God
of Christmas, God made known in a baby laid in a manger,
we open
our hearts and souls and minds,
our very beings, to your
presence
We listen for the song of angels, and the soft cry of a
newborn.
God
of Hope
At various times this year it has been hard to find
hope.
Living in a time of pandemic, and all the turmoil
associated with it,
seems to work against hope.
The
tendency of our news media to follow the old maxim “if it bleeds it
leads” –
and then to tell those stories over and over
–
brings despair when we most need hope.
God of Hope,
move in our hearts this night.
Awaken the seeds of promise, help
us dream of what could be,
as we gaze upon the babe in the
manger may we see hope for the world.
For where there is life,
especially new life, there is hope.
God
of Peace
The promise of the kingdom, the promise shared by the
child who is born tonight,
is a promise of deep abiding
peace.
We look and look but too often peace is hard to
find.
There is so much violence, so much distrust, so much
brokenness in the world.
There are so many of our neighbours
whose lives are filled with anxiety.
The promise or possibility
of peace is so routinely shattered.
God of Peace, on this night
where angels sing,
sharing
Good News for all, sharing a promise of peace on Earth,
bring
peace to our troubled hearts and souls.
As the angel song rings
in our ears,
move
us to commit ourselves to be peace makers and peace bringers,
make
as agents of that deep abiding peace promised by the babe in the
manger.
God
of Joy
We join our voices with voices around the globe this
night.
We sing of Joy, we sing our wonder and our praises. And
yet...
We are all too aware that for many in our city, in our
province, in our country,
for many of your Beloved children all
around the globe,
Joy can be a challenge this evening.
So
we hold in prayer all those who mourn and grieve this night,
all
those who are lonely, missing family who did not come this year
all
those whose health, mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical, is not
what they wish it was.
May they all know that they are held in
your love, held in our love.
God of Joy, on this night when
songs of Joy are sung,
reach through our pain, and the pain of
the world,
help us find the deep joy that comes from knowing
that in Jesus, Emmanuel
you are with us in joy and in sorrow,
wherever life may lead us.
God
of Love
this year Love has taken new forms.
Masks on our
faces, needles in our arms, keeping socially distanced,
all have
been ways we live love with our neighbours this Covid-Tide.
In
addition there are all the old ways we live love in this world.
The
gifts we share, the acts of connection, the tokens of care
the
big things and the little ones,
ways we make our love of
neighbour real and tangible.
Thank you for the ways we have met
love this year.
Thanks you for the chances we have had to share
love this year.
God of Love, as Love Incarnate lies in a manger,
recovering from his journey through the birth canal,
we
remember that he will challenge us to put love at the center of
life,
to love each other as you first love us,
to share a
love that is willing to sacrifice for the good of the ones we
love.
Help us live into the challenge over the year to come.
God
of Christmas,
tonight we join our hearts in prayer with millions
over the miles and through the years.
We lay all these prayers,
and all the prayers we carry deep in our hearts,
the joys and the
sorrows,
the hopes and the fears,
the peaceful and the
disturbed,
the ones that lift us up and the ones that issue from
broken hearts,
before
you in the name of Jesus, the baby in the manger
the
one we call Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace.
Amen
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