One of the things I love about Luke's narrative of Jesus birth is all the voices that we hear giving praise and helping us to understand the significance of the birth of this Child, Jesus... I've often pictured it like an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical with Mary and Zechariah singing and the most amazing and upside down production number... Where the vast host of angels are like performers on a grand stage preforming not the rich who can afford tickets but to a small group of outcast shepherds... Then like a postscript Simeon and Anna in the temple sign a duet not to bring the curtain down but to invite us to enter into the rest of the gospel story.
This Christmas, in this prayer I want to join my voice to this cast... It tries to capture the words of scripture and I've also tried to say them in my own words as well.
AS with all prayers and stuff I write you are welcome to use any or all of it that you would find helpful and encouraging...
This Christmas
we join our voices with Mary to give you praise.
Our souls
glorify the LORD
And our
spirits rejoice in God our saviour,
We thank you
that you have remembered us in our humble state
That you
have blessed us and done great things
You have
shown mercy to those who fear you
Way back
then, now and for generations to come
Your ways
are so different than ours
You don’t
stand with the powerful and self-righteous
You are for
those who are aware of their deep seated need for you
Your heart
is for the poor and the lowly
Those who
have all they need, seem to have no need for you
Yet you have
helped your people and shown us mercy
You are
faithful to your promises
This
Christmas, as your spirited people, we join our voices with Zechariah
We praise
the LORD, the God of Israel
In Christ
you have come to your people, and bought them back to you
You’ve kept
your promise of a just and honest king from David’s house
You’ve been
faithful to your word, spoken through the prophets
AS you said you
would, you’ve pulled us from the clutch of death and sin
Rescued and restored
us to serve you, and love one another without fear
To live out
your justice and grace empowered by your Spirit’s presence
We will
declare your word, God, and tell the good news of Jesus Christ
We proclaim that
in this Christ we celebrate today we can know new life
That because
of Jesus, his birth, life and death that we can be forgiven
The slate is
wiped clean, through your tender mercy
Mercy, like
a new day dawning, through this child, the light of the world
A light that
shines for those living in darkness and deaths cold shadow
A light to
guide our feet onto the path of peace.
This
Christmas we join our voice with Simeon and Anna,
We embrace
this child you have given, and give you praise,
In Him you have
kept your promise to us
We can leave
this place, our hearts full of peace and joy
Because in
Jesus we have seen your saving grace
Good news
and hope prepared for the whole world
The light of
the revelation of God, for gentile and Jew alike
The one who will
bring glory to You Father God in all nations
Who will
cause many to stumble and others to find solid footing,
He will
not be accepted by all, many will speak against him
But in whose
truth, the very core of being will be made known
The one who
gave his life up for us, that in him we may find life
Lord God, in
the midst of the suffering and sorrow of life
we will not stop telling of your son Jesus to
all who look for hope
This
Christmas we join our voices with the whole host of heaven
Glory to God
in the highest
And on earth…
peace to those on whom God’s favour rests
This Christmas
we join our voices to say the prayer Jesus taught his disciples.
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