08 December 2024
10:30 | 
Posted by
Dr Platts |
Father Chris had help to light the second Advent Candle, before celebrating the Eucharist at 10 am.
This Sunday our thoughts were with the story of John the Baptist who preached about the coming of our Lord. The Choir sang 'The Record of John' As the anthem (see music blog for details)
We had coffee after the service in the Parish Rooms.
Next week we will draw the winners of the Christmas Grand Draw!
A reading from the book of the prophet Baruch.
Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
and put on for ever the beauty of the glory from God.
Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God;
put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;
for God will show your splendour everywhere under heaven.
For God will give you evermore the name,
‘Righteous Peace, Godly Glory’.
Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height;
look towards the east,
and see your children gathered from west and east
at the word of the Holy One,
rejoicing that God has remembered them.
For they went out from you on foot,
led away by their enemies;
but God will bring them back to you,
carried in glory, as on a royal throne.
For God has ordered that every high mountain
and the everlasting hills be made low
and the valleys filled up, to make level ground,
so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God.
The woods and every fragrant tree
have shaded Israel at God’s command.
For God will lead Israel with joy,
in the light of his glory,
with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.
Philippians 1:3-11
A reading from the letter of Paul to the Philippians.
My brothers and sisters,
I thank my God every time I remember you,
constantly praying with joy
in every one of my prayers for all of you,
because of your sharing in the gospel
from the first day until now.
I am confident of this,
that the one who began a good work among you
will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.
It is right for me to think this way about all of you,
because you hold me in your heart,
for all of you share in God’s grace with me,
both in my imprisonment
and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel.
For God is my witness,
how I long for all of you
with the compassion of Christ Jesus.
And this is my prayer,
that your love may overflow more and more
with knowledge and full insight
to help you to determine what is best,
so that on the day of Christ
you may be pure and blameless,
having produced the harvest of righteousness
that comes through Jesus Christ
for the glory and praise of God.
Luke 3:1-6
Hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke.
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius,
when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea,
and Herod was ruler of Galilee,
and his brother Philip
ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis,
and Lysanias ruler of Abilene,
during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,
the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
He went into all the region around the Jordan,
proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,
as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” ’
