Sermons

FILTER BY:

← back to list

Dec 24, 2023

There’s a Glory in Play

There’s a Glory in Play

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: 2023 Advent: Glory Days

**Please note: There will be no regular Sunday morning worship service on Christmas Eve. We invite your family to join us for our Christmas Eve service at 4:30pm on Sunday, December 24. We look forward to celebrating the Incarnation with our GMR family & friends! Children welcome, no childcare available.

Readings & Scripture

PRELUDE: “Refugee,” by Malcolm Guite
LEADER: We think of him as safe beneath the steeple,
Or cosy in a crib beside the font,
But he is with a million displaced people.
On the long road of weariness and want.

For even as we sing our final carol.
His family is up and on that road,
Fleeing the wrath of someone else’s quarrel,
Glancing behind and shouldering their load.

Whilst Herod rages still from his dark tower.
Christ clings to Mary, fingers tightly curled,
The lambs are slaughtered by the men of power,
And death squads spread their curse across the world.

But every Herod dies, and comes alone
To stand before the Lamb upon the throne.

READING 1: Isaiah 9:2-7
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone.
3 You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
4 For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
5 For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire.

ALL: 6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.

Scripture Reading #2 - John 1:1-5, 9-14
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it...9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

ALL: 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Scripture Reading #3 - Luke 2:1-7
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

ALL: 6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

READING 3: Luke 2:1-7
 1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

ALL: 6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

MEDITATION TEXT: Hebrews 1:1-3
Heb. 1:1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

BENEDICTION: John 1:5
The light shines in the darkness,
ALL: and the darkness has not overcome it.

ILLUSTRATIONS:

 

 

QUOTES:

  • The basic form of the sin from which we need to be delivered is the myth of self-sufficiency. The diabolical urge that destroys our well-being again and again is the temptation to think of ourselves as somehow able to set our own agenda in isolation, and the greatest and most toxic paradox that results is that we become isolated from our own selves. Rowan Williams
  • The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. C.S. Lewis. “The Weight of Glory’
  • To believe as a Christian means in fact entrusting oneself to the meaning that upholds me and the world; taking it as the firm ground on which I can stand fearlessly. . . . [It means] affirming that the meaning we do not make but can only receive is already granted to us, so that we have only to take it and entrust ourselves to it. Cardinal John Ratzinger
  • Is there then something bold and life-affirming in faith, as there is in play? . . . Maybe that is why people of easy and resolute religious faith seem light-hearted, as the courageous do. To trust in providence relieves one of anxiety for the future. To believe that the [reality] of the world,. . .is somehow trustworthy would seem to be something further. . . .. It relieves one of anxiety for the present. That’s real abandon. A person in that state is in possession of a gift, and he shines. Matthew B Crawford

BOOKS / DOCS