1st Sunday after Christmas Day (Year C)
/Call to Worship
Praise the Christ-child, the newborn Prince of Peace!
We have been redeemed. We are no longer afraid.
Praise to the God who has come to us in the flesh!
We are being created. We are no longer afraid.
Praise to the Spirit who calls us together to serve!
We will be sustained. We are no longer afraid.
Come, let us worship God!
Prayer of the Day
God of our Christmas joy,
break forth, O beauteous heavenly light
and illumine our way to the paths you would have us tread,
in the name of the Christ-child, Emmanuel, we pray. Amen.
Call to Confession
As we reach the end of one year and prepare to greet a new one,
let us confess the ways we have fallen short of God’s commandments.
Confession
Giver of Every Mercy, Col. 3:12-17
you call us to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness,
humility, meekness, and patience.
However, we often clothe ourselves with different attire:
apathy, hatred, arrogance, and brashness.
Help us to bear one another and forgive each other
even as we ask forgiveness from you.
Help us to don the clothing of love,
which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
This we pray in the name of your Child, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon
Siblings in Christ,
hear now the good news of the Gospel:
through the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ,
our sins are forgiven. Alleluia! Amen.
Prayer for Illumination
Holy Spirit, as did the people in the Temple that day long ago, Luke 2:41-52
may we gather to listen to the wisdom of the Christ-child
through the reading of your holy word. Amen.
Prayers of the People
Let us pray to God, saying:
Gracious God, bind us together in perfect harmony. Col. 3:14
As we gather in the waning hours of 2018,
hear us as we gather in your name
to pray for those concerns on our hearts this day.
Gracious God, bind us together in perfect harmony.
We pray for those who are traveling to visit their families during this Christmas break.
Keep safe those who travel on the roads and in the air.
Give the students and school workers among us
the rest they need before they begin a new semester next week.
Be with those who are journeying through the holidays for the first time
without a loved one who was lost this past year.
Gracious God, bind us together in perfect harmony.
As we turn to a new year,
we pray that our nation might learn from the violence and division
we’ve experienced far too often in the year past.
May 2019 be a year of kindness, compassion, and, above all, justice.
Gracious God, bind us together in perfect harmony.
We pray for the politicians who have been elected and will start their terms in the new year.
May they conduct their work with humility, honor, decency, and righteousness.
We pray especially for [petitions may be made for local politicians beginning new terms].
Gracious God, bind us together in perfect harmony.
We pray for this congregation,
[petitions may be made for the congregation as it looks toward a new year].
Help us as we begin a new year.
Lead us onward with intelligence, imagination, enthusiasm, love.
Gracious God, bind us together in perfect harmony.
We pray for those on our hearts this day
whom we lift up to you in silence…
Gracious God, bind us together in perfect harmony.
Hear us now, Mighty Counselor,
as we pray the prayer you taught us to pray, saying: Our Father…