James T. Cleland - "To Bethlehem?" (December 17, 1972)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(choir singing) | 0:03 | |
♪ Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice ♪ | 0:20 | |
♪ Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice ♪ | 0:28 | |
(choir singing) | 0:39 | |
♪ Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice ♪ | 1:08 | |
(choir singing) | 1:18 | |
♪ Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice ♪ | 1:56 | |
(choir singing) | 2:03 | |
- | Let us remember God, everlastingly great. | 2:26 |
Utterly loving, holy to be trusted. | 2:30 | |
And because God knows us through and through | 2:34 | |
because we need not and cannot pretend to him, | 2:39 | |
let us quietly acknowledge our need of his forgiveness | 2:44 | |
and boldly approach the throne of grace | 2:48 | |
to receive his mercy. | 2:51 | |
And we pray together. | 2:54 | |
We confess to you dear father, that we mean well, | 3:06 | |
but our good intentions are easily exhausted. | 3:12 | |
Before you all our hearts are alike. | 3:16 | |
We have sinned against our better selves. | 3:19 | |
We have not been true to our most noble dream. | 3:23 | |
We have neglected our deepest hopes. | 3:27 | |
We have doubted you, tried you and forgotten you. | 3:30 | |
Turn us now to repentance and deepen our sorrow | 3:35 | |
for having failed you so often. | 3:39 | |
Open again in our minds and hearts the great vision | 3:42 | |
of your kingdom and the assurance of your grace | 3:46 | |
that we may be born again | 3:50 | |
and our lives restored in Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 3:53 | |
The words of assurance are these. | 4:00 | |
If God is for us, who is against us, | 4:03 | |
it is God who pronounces acquittal, who is to condemn. | 4:07 | |
Here's the good news of Jesus, the Christ, | 4:13 | |
which I declare to you in his name. | 4:16 | |
We are forgiven. | 4:19 | |
And we join together in the Lord's prayer. | 4:23 | |
Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, | 4:28 | |
thy kingdom come thy will be done | 4:34 | |
on earth as it is in heaven. | 4:38 | |
Give us this day, our daily bread | 4:41 | |
and forgive us our trespasses | 4:44 | |
as we forgive those who trespass against us | 4:47 | |
and lead us not into temptation, | 4:51 | |
but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom | 4:53 | |
and the power and the glory forever. | 4:58 | |
Amen. | 5:02 | |
(gentle music) | 5:09 | |
♪ Now go forth ♪ | 6:03 | |
♪ Now go forth ♪ | 6:06 | |
♪ Now go forth ♪ | 6:09 | |
♪ Now go forth ♪ | 6:12 | |
♪ Now God sees you, God sees you ♪ | 6:16 | |
♪ God sees me at the cross ♪ | 6:20 | |
♪ Now go forth and see him ♪ | 6:25 | |
♪ Go see him at the cross ♪ | 6:28 | |
♪ Go see the cross now ♪ | 6:31 | |
♪ Now go and see him at the cross ♪ | 6:38 | |
♪ Child, go and see him, see the cross ♪ | 6:43 | |
♪ Child, go out and find him ♪ | 6:52 | |
♪ At first it shall be said ♪ | 6:58 | |
♪ At first it shall be said ♪ | 7:01 | |
♪ Be ♪ | 7:06 | |
♪ At first it shall be said ♪ | 7:10 | |
♪ Be said be ♪ | 7:13 | |
♪ At first it shall be said ♪ | 7:16 | |
♪ Be said be ♪ | 7:20 | |
♪ That I may charm thee ♪ | 7:24 | |
♪ That I may charm thee ♪ | 7:30 | |
♪ That may adore him ♪ | 7:34 | |
♪ That may adore him ♪ | 7:41 | |
♪ The bride may charm him ♪ | 7:47 | |
♪ And may adore him ♪ | 7:54 | |
♪ And may adore him ♪ | 7:57 | |
The Lord be with you, let us pray. | 8:21 | |
Oh God who has made of one blood, all nations of men | 8:27 | |
for to dwell on the face of the earth | 8:33 | |
and did send your blessed son, Jesus Christ | 8:36 | |
to preach peace to them that are afar off. | 8:39 | |
And to them that are nigh. | 8:43 | |
Grant that all peoples of the world may feel after you | 8:45 | |
and find you. | 8:50 | |
And hasten oh Lord the fulfillment of your promise | 8:51 | |
to pour out your spirit upon all flesh | 8:55 | |
through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 8:59 | |
- | Then Herod when he saw that he had been tricked | 9:11 |
by the wise men was in a furious rage | 9:13 | |
and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem. | 9:17 | |
And in all that region who are 10 years old and under, | 9:21 | |
according to the time | 9:24 | |
which he had ascertained from the wise men. | 9:26 | |
Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, | 9:29 | |
a voice was heard in Rayma, | 9:33 | |
wailing and loud lamentation, | 9:35 | |
Rachel weeping for her children. | 9:37 | |
She refused to be consoled because they were no more. | 9:40 | |
But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord | 9:44 | |
appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt | 9:48 | |
saying rise, take the child to his mother | 9:51 | |
and go to the land of Israel. | 9:55 | |
For those who sought the child's life are dead. | 9:57 | |
And he rose and took the child and his mother | 10:00 | |
and went to the land of Israel. | 10:03 | |
But when he heard that Archelaus rained over Judea | 10:05 | |
in place of his father, Herod, | 10:08 | |
he was afraid to go there and being warned in a dream. | 10:10 | |
He withdrew to the district of Galilee | 10:14 | |
and he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth. | 10:17 | |
That what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled. | 10:21 | |
He shall be called a Nazarene. | 10:24 | |
(upbeat music) | 10:36 | |
(choir singing) | 10:46 | |
- | Let us affirm our faith. | 11:20 |
We believe in God who has created and is creating, | 11:24 | |
who has come in the true man, Jesus | 11:29 | |
to reconcile and make new | 11:32 | |
who works in us and others by his spirit. | 11:35 | |
We trust him. | 11:39 | |
He calls us to be in his church to celebrate his presence, | 11:42 | |
to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, | 11:47 | |
to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen our judge and our hope | 11:52 | |
in the life and death and life beyond death God is with us. | 11:59 | |
We are not alone. | 12:06 | |
Thanks be to God. | 12:08 | |
Let us pray. | 12:12 | |
Eternal God, our father, you have blessed us in many ways. | 12:24 | |
The bread we eat and the roof which shelters us, | 12:32 | |
the light of day which gives us sight | 12:37 | |
and the darkness of night, which grants us rest, | 12:39 | |
the work of our hands by which we serve the world | 12:44 | |
and the dreams of our hearts, which lure us to greater deeds | 12:48 | |
the accustomed things we have grown to know and love | 12:55 | |
and the bright invasion of new glory | 12:59 | |
from unexpected sources. | 13:01 | |
We thank you for memory, which enables us to build | 13:06 | |
on the experiences of the past, | 13:09 | |
for imagination, which admits us to a wider world | 13:13 | |
than we could otherwise know. | 13:16 | |
For hope by which we move toward the future. | 13:20 | |
And we thank you for your patience, | 13:25 | |
with the errors and sins of mankind. | 13:27 | |
We offer a special prayer of thanksgiving | 13:34 | |
for Dean Jim Clelin. | 13:36 | |
Quality of who is living among us. | 13:39 | |
He was both inspiration for the meaning of our lives | 13:42 | |
and clear indication of God's individualized care | 13:47 | |
through the healing presence of his special servant. | 13:50 | |
Our father grant is courage when we cower, | 13:57 | |
strength in times of overwhelming difficulty, | 14:01 | |
hope in the face of no longer caring, | 14:07 | |
excitement with life to overcome the blindness of boredom | 14:11 | |
and the renewed sense of personal worth | 14:16 | |
to bury once and for all the delusion | 14:19 | |
that our lives contain little or no meaning. | 14:22 | |
And our father, we lift up ourselves | 14:28 | |
as among those with special needs. | 14:32 | |
There are some of us for whom our daily work | 14:37 | |
is a painful burden offering little | 14:40 | |
in the way of personal satisfaction. | 14:43 | |
We pray for those for whom marriage and family | 14:47 | |
have ceased to be a source of joy and purpose. | 14:51 | |
And for those who dream of marriage and family. | 14:55 | |
Some of us have major decisions to make, | 15:02 | |
some have made wrong decisions and are paying the price. | 15:06 | |
We lift up all those who face problems | 15:14 | |
that appear in this moment, insurmountable, | 15:16 | |
those whose hearts are exploding with new love | 15:20 | |
and those whose hearts lie broken this day | 15:24 | |
because of an old love lost. | 15:27 | |
We pray for those who labor under the weight of exams | 15:33 | |
and for those who have given their lives | 15:36 | |
for the purpose of helping others grow | 15:38 | |
in wisdom and understanding. | 15:40 | |
For those who struggle with the decisions | 15:45 | |
of molding the shape of peace, | 15:47 | |
we beg for guidance and an awareness of the scope | 15:50 | |
of their responsibility. | 15:52 | |
We lift up those whose lives are directly misshapen | 15:57 | |
because of war, because of hunger, because of hatred | 16:01 | |
because of an inability to love | 16:05 | |
or because no one seems to care. | 16:07 | |
Our father, we praise you for the joy of human relationship, | 16:13 | |
without which we couldn't long survive. | 16:19 | |
And for the constant renewal of our lives, | 16:23 | |
through our relationship with him, | 16:26 | |
whose birth into the world is our assurance | 16:27 | |
of the faithfulness of your love for us. | 16:30 | |
Accept our prayers offered during the special season | 16:35 | |
in the name of Jesus, the Christ Immanuel, amen. | 16:39 | |
- | The grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ be with us all. | 16:59 |
We're worshiping today on what is ecclesiastically known | 17:07 | |
as the third Sunday in advent. | 17:12 | |
Ever since the sixth century, | 17:18 | |
advent has been interpreted by the church | 17:20 | |
as a time of preparation for Christmas. | 17:24 | |
It's primary emphasis has been on the birth | 17:29 | |
of Jesus in Bethlehem. | 17:33 | |
Let us look together at three interpretations of Christmas | 17:37 | |
so that we may have a more conscious idea | 17:42 | |
of what various ones of us are anticipating | 17:45 | |
on December 25. | 17:50 | |
One approach may be symbolized by the word Bethlehem. | 17:56 | |
It is for many of us a blessed word, a happy word, | 18:02 | |
a word filled with sentiment even with tears of joy. | 18:10 | |
In the Old Testament, Bethlehem is the village of courtesy, | 18:16 | |
which welcomed an alien woman, a Moabitess | 18:24 | |
by the name of Ruth who became the great grandmother | 18:30 | |
of the great king, David. | 18:35 | |
David to whom the Jews looked | 18:41 | |
as the ancestor of the Messiah. | 18:44 | |
Bethlehem is the village of chivalry | 18:49 | |
where three of David's warriors | 18:56 | |
infiltrated the Philistine lines | 18:59 | |
to bring a drink of Bethlehem water | 19:03 | |
to their beloved captain. | 19:07 | |
He refused to drink it. | 19:11 | |
He said, this is not water. | 19:14 | |
This is the blood of three brave men. | 19:18 | |
Blood belongs to God and he poured it out in front of God. | 19:22 | |
And so endeared himself to these waters more than ever. | 19:29 | |
Bethlehem is the village of hope for Micah, the prophet, | 19:35 | |
but you oh Bethlehem Ephrata who are little | 19:41 | |
to be among the clans of Judah | 19:47 | |
from you shall come forth for me, | 19:50 | |
one who is to be the ruler of Israel, | 19:54 | |
whose origin is of old from ancient days. | 19:58 | |
And in the New Testament, | 20:04 | |
Bethlehem is the village of revelation where Jesus was born, | 20:06 | |
the founder of our faith. | 20:14 | |
Is it any wonder that Bethlehem is a blessed, happy word? | 20:16 | |
And around the annual remembrance of Jesus' birth | 20:26 | |
have been collected and naturalized | 20:29 | |
many religious customs of the pagan world, | 20:33 | |
mistletoe and yule logs, Santa Claus and Christmas trees, | 20:38 | |
gifts and songs, parties and good eating, | 20:44 | |
snow and stars and candles. | 20:49 | |
It has been out a radiant religious holiday. | 20:53 | |
A priest and an organist | 20:59 | |
in the tiny village of Oberndorf near Salzburg | 21:02 | |
combine their talents when the organ broke down. | 21:08 | |
And with 24 words | 21:14 | |
gave the world "Stille Nacht Heilige Nacht" | 21:17 | |
with guitar accompanied. | 21:23 | |
Christmas is beloved music, and very specially, | 21:25 | |
as you know, here, "Handel's Messiah". | 21:29 | |
Now I know that this is a sentimental, | 21:34 | |
even a modeling interpretation, | 21:36 | |
but it doesn't do too much harm once a year. | 21:41 | |
If you think it does, | 21:47 | |
it's time you re-read Dickens's "Christmas Carol". | 21:48 | |
The Bethlehem of the infant Jesus is hallowed and welcomed | 21:55 | |
as the norm of our living in the closing days | 22:01 | |
of each calendar year. | 22:05 | |
And yet some of you are looking at me a little quizzically, | 22:11 | |
wondering just what kind of a bee | 22:16 | |
has found a hive in my Presbyterian bonnet. | 22:20 | |
Do I really know what Christmas is like? | 22:25 | |
Wouldn't I be more up to date | 22:32 | |
to think of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania | 22:34 | |
rather than a Bethlehem, Judah? | 22:37 | |
The American Bethlehem is a bustling industrial city | 22:42 | |
of steel mills and clanking freight trains, | 22:46 | |
and a pall of smoke and a mucky river. | 22:50 | |
The slag pile is the symbol of this Bethlehem | 22:57 | |
not a star in the sky on an angel song. | 23:02 | |
I know I too have ears and eyes. | 23:09 | |
What kind of preparation dominates our contemporary advent? | 23:15 | |
Christmas is the merchant's bonanza | 23:20 | |
and the shop clerk's despair. | 23:25 | |
I had a caller come in to the manager in a local store | 23:29 | |
few years ago. | 23:33 | |
I'll never make it to Christmas. | 23:36 | |
I'll be lucky if I'm on my feet at Thanksgiving, | 23:39 | |
my ulcer is sending out danger signals. | 23:45 | |
It's a time when liquor sales soar | 23:51 | |
and 600 or more of our fellers will be killed | 23:56 | |
on the highways. | 24:00 | |
And someone will receive a perfume | 24:03 | |
called My Sin on the birthday of him | 24:07 | |
who came to save the world from sin. | 24:13 | |
The streets will be illuminated with lights, | 24:18 | |
which are gaudy rather than godly | 24:21 | |
and skillful advertising will plunge quite a few of us | 24:26 | |
into financial debt. | 24:31 | |
And personal preparation will turn on such problems | 24:35 | |
as shall we send a card to so-and-so | 24:39 | |
from whom we haven't heard for three years? | 24:44 | |
Christmas is bedlam and advent is organized chaos. | 24:49 | |
It is exhaustion coupled with bad temper | 24:57 | |
and bewilderment tempered with good intentions. | 25:02 | |
No wonder one exhausted observer sent out | 25:07 | |
as his Christmas greetings all the complaints | 25:10 | |
of the season and a preposterous new year. | 25:15 | |
The word to sum up this season | 25:24 | |
of the religious economic ecclesiastical financial year | 25:26 | |
is not Bethlehem, certainly not the sentimental Bethlehem | 25:30 | |
of Judah, but bedlam, | 25:36 | |
which has been defined as any place or scene | 25:41 | |
of wild uproar and confusion. | 25:46 | |
The infant Jesus is a merchandising gimmick | 25:51 | |
sponsored by advertising and dominated by profits. | 25:56 | |
Perhaps the way to account for such frenzy lunacy | 26:02 | |
is that there are other inhabited heavenly bodies | 26:07 | |
and our world is the insane asylum for all of them. | 26:13 | |
Was it Bernard Shaw who first suggested that? | 26:20 | |
Well, let's try again to interpret this Christmas season. | 26:26 | |
Let's ask this question. | 26:31 | |
Is there any connection between Bethlehem and bedlam? | 26:35 | |
Yes, there is. | 26:43 | |
In 1247, 1247. | 26:48 | |
The Priory of Saint Mary of Bethlehem was founded in London | 26:53 | |
by 1330, almost 100 years later, it had become a hospital. | 27:01 | |
In 1401, 70 years later it was specifically recognized | 27:11 | |
as a hospital for the insane, | 27:19 | |
the original name Saint Mary of Bethlehem | 27:23 | |
was shortened to Bethlehem | 27:27 | |
and Bethlehem by contraction and corruption became Bedlam. | 27:30 | |
That is what happens when syllables are slurred. | 27:40 | |
Semantically, Bethlehem and Bedlam are intimately related. | 27:46 | |
They're the same word. | 27:54 | |
Bethlehem and Bedlam, weren't they intimately related | 27:58 | |
even when Jesus was born in Palestine? | 28:04 | |
You remember where and when he was born, | 28:08 | |
a crowded inn, a stable, barnyard smells, | 28:13 | |
a birthing among animals. | 28:19 | |
These are the marks of busy overcrowded Bethlehem | 28:23 | |
during a census taken when Quirinus was governor of Syria. | 28:28 | |
When Joseph left Nazareth for David's city with Mary, | 28:36 | |
who was a mother to be as the Scottish translation has it, | 28:44 | |
the confusion did not end with his birth. | 28:52 | |
Bethlehem saw and heard uproar and sudden deaths. | 28:57 | |
And weeks later when Herod murdered all children | 29:02 | |
under the age of two and Rachel wept for her babies | 29:07 | |
and would not be comforted. | 29:13 | |
The church year annually recalls that incident | 29:17 | |
just three days after Christmas on December 28, | 29:21 | |
holy innocence on the master of the innocent. | 29:27 | |
Bethlehem did not cease to be Bedlam even then. | 29:32 | |
In 1939, I saw the machine guns of the British army | 29:38 | |
on the roof of the church of the nativity | 29:44 | |
while the police, most of the muslin kept peace on earth | 29:49 | |
among the competing Christian sects within the curtain. | 29:57 | |
The police are still there. | 30:04 | |
Though probably now, Israeli. | 30:07 | |
There isn't much goodwill among men, | 30:11 | |
even 1900 years after the birth of the prince of peace. | 30:15 | |
How many miles from Bethlehem to Bedlam? | 30:24 | |
Not very far. | 30:29 | |
In fact, no distance at all. | 30:32 | |
Why? | 30:37 | |
Because Bethlehem is always set in Bedlam. | 30:39 | |
That's somewhat true even in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, | 30:47 | |
the inferno of the steel mills and the resultant pollution | 30:51 | |
are offset by such sensitive factors | 30:57 | |
as the Moravian lifestyle and the Bach festival. | 31:02 | |
Doesn't that give us another interpretation of Christmas? | 31:09 | |
Doesn't that throw a different light on Christmas? | 31:13 | |
Christmas is not simply Bethlehem | 31:17 | |
and carnivals and sentiment. | 31:21 | |
Christmas is not just Bedlam and shops | 31:25 | |
and the merchant's association. | 31:29 | |
Christmas is Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus | 31:32 | |
set in Bedlam | 31:37 | |
and Bedlam is society as organized | 31:41 | |
apart from the kind of things he believed in. | 31:46 | |
Therefore the word preached, he notes this festival | 31:57 | |
is incarnation or in flesh man. | 32:01 | |
It is the coming to earth of the son of God | 32:07 | |
to reveal God in such a way that man might be willing | 32:11 | |
to enter into joyful, good relations with that God. | 32:17 | |
God so loved the world. | 32:23 | |
That is God so loved Bedlam | 32:26 | |
that he gave his only begotten son | 32:31 | |
that whosoever believeth in him | 32:33 | |
should be a Bethlehemite even in Bedlam. | 32:38 | |
One name for Jesus is Emmanuel God with us, | 32:44 | |
even in Bedlam, always in Bedlam | 32:49 | |
for there is no where else than Bedlam | 32:55 | |
for God to send his son. | 32:59 | |
Jesus is the word flesh. | 33:04 | |
The word God become flesh. | 33:07 | |
Real flesh and blood born in Bedlam | 33:10 | |
and Bedlam was, is, and always shall be the locale | 33:14 | |
of Bethlehem. | 33:22 | |
The two are inseparable. | 33:23 | |
They have to be, if we have any real understanding | 33:27 | |
of the doctrine of the incarnation, | 33:32 | |
it's both the strength and the weakness | 33:36 | |
of the Christian religion | 33:39 | |
that it is interwoven with contemporary culture. | 33:41 | |
It is both the strength and the weakness | 33:47 | |
of the Christian believer that he lives in two worlds. | 33:49 | |
The Bedlamic society of his own time, | 33:56 | |
and the kingdom of God, Bethlehem and Bedlam | 34:00 | |
are in a constant state of tension and adjustment. | 34:05 | |
It's a fact which has to be accepted and lived with. | 34:10 | |
Return to that visit in Palestine, back in '39. | 34:16 | |
One day, we drove over to Tiberius | 34:20 | |
and discovered that the British authorities | 34:25 | |
had clamped a 23 hours daily curfew | 34:28 | |
on the Jewish and Arab villages. | 34:34 | |
Why? | 34:39 | |
A busload of Arabs had been blown up | 34:41 | |
by a homemade Jewish bomb. | 34:44 | |
One was killed, 11 wounded. | 34:48 | |
That night we had dinner with the doctor | 34:54 | |
of the local Christian hospital. | 34:57 | |
He had been operating for eight hours. | 35:00 | |
Each wounded person was a shrapnel case, | 35:05 | |
full of nuts and bolts and rivets and nails | 35:09 | |
from the homemade bomb. | 35:14 | |
Even the nurses had become surgeons for the day. | 35:16 | |
Probing, cutting, sewing. | 35:20 | |
Here was Bethlehem in the midst of Bedlam. | 35:25 | |
Here was Christian sanity binding up the wounds | 35:33 | |
caused by political insanity. | 35:38 | |
Does that say anything to us | 35:43 | |
in the Bedlam of race tension in the United States? | 35:45 | |
Of Vietnam, of North Ireland, of Palestine, of Uganda? | 35:51 | |
There's an interesting verse in the prologue | 36:05 | |
to the fourth gospel. | 36:07 | |
It's interesting because it may be valiantly translated | 36:10 | |
in two different ways. | 36:14 | |
The evangelist has been comparing the coming of Jesus | 36:19 | |
to light. | 36:24 | |
And then according to the King James Version, | 36:26 | |
he adds and the light shineth in the darkness | 36:28 | |
and the darkness comprehended it not. | 36:35 | |
You see what that means? | 36:41 | |
Bedlam has never understood Bethlehem, | 36:44 | |
but the Revised Standard Version has another rendering. | 36:50 | |
The light shines in the darkness | 36:55 | |
and the darkness has not overcome it. | 37:00 | |
Do you grasp what that means? | 37:07 | |
Bedlam has never extinguished Bethlehem, both last on. | 37:10 | |
So although Bethlehem has never been understood by Bedlam, | 37:22 | |
it has never been defeated by Bedlam. | 37:27 | |
There is our hope, therein also is our warfare. | 37:33 | |
This is the sound advent mode | 37:42 | |
in which to approach Christmas, | 37:45 | |
not sentimentally, not cynically, | 37:48 | |
but realistically we live in Bedlam | 37:54 | |
but Bethlehem, may be a colony of the kingdom of God | 38:03 | |
set right within Bedlam. | 38:11 | |
Our job is not to confuse the two apparent. | 38:16 | |
Jesus knew we should have to live in Bedlam. | 38:23 | |
He hoped we would live there | 38:28 | |
with the Bethlehem spirit within us. | 38:29 | |
Listen to him talking to God about his disciples | 38:31 | |
in his high priestly prayer. | 38:38 | |
I have given them thy word and the world has hated them | 38:41 | |
because they are not of the world | 38:50 | |
even as I am not of the world. | 38:52 | |
I do not pray that though should take them out of the world, | 38:56 | |
that is out of Bedlam, | 39:03 | |
but that thou should keep them from evil. | 39:06 | |
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. | 39:11 | |
Sanctify them in the truth. | 39:16 | |
Thy word is truth. | 39:20 | |
As thou did send me into the world. | 39:23 | |
So I have sent them into the world. | 39:28 | |
And for their sake, I consecrate myself | 39:35 | |
that they also may be consecrated in truth. | 39:40 | |
We, his present day followers are sent to Bedlam. | 39:48 | |
There's no where else for us to be sent. | 39:55 | |
But we are sent in the spirit of the God | 40:01 | |
who revealed himself at Bethlehem | 40:05 | |
for love came down at Christmas. | 40:11 | |
Let us prepare ourselves this week for that journey | 40:18 | |
to find Bethlehem in Bedlam. | 40:26 | |
That is what advent is about. | 40:32 | |
Let us pray. | 40:39 | |
We commit onto thee oh God all our Christmas plans, | 40:43 | |
our hopes, our daily work, | 40:49 | |
our families and our family reunions. | 40:52 | |
Our gaieties and our griefs | 40:56 | |
asking thy blessing upon every thought and endeavor. | 41:01 | |
They control over every enterprise, | 41:06 | |
they spirit of charity in our hearts and wisdom in our mind. | 41:10 | |
Let love come down to us this Christmas. | 41:18 | |
Amen. | 41:26 | |
(gentle music) | 41:31 | |
(choir sings) | 42:02 | |
(gentle music) | 43:42 | |
♪ As the poor in the (indistinct) ♪ | 45:15 | |
♪ Shall rise because of the prince of peace ♪ | 45:21 | |
(man continues singing indistinctly) | 45:35 | |
♪ And all the angels of the lord came upon them ♪ | 45:49 | |
♪ And the glory of the lord shall rise above men ♪ | 45:56 | |
♪ And the glory of him ♪ | 46:04 | |
(gentle music) | 46:13 | |
♪ That'll be the end or sorrow ♪ | 46:19 | |
♪ The end ♪ | 46:34 | |
♪ For behold are great new tidings ♪ | 46:36 | |
♪ Of great joy ♪ | 46:42 | |
♪ And sorrows will all be ended ♪ | 46:50 | |
(man continues singing indistinctly) | 46:55 | |
♪ Rise again on Sunday ♪ | 47:01 | |
♪ God is alive in the highest ♪ | 47:08 | |
♪ God is alive in the highest ♪ | 47:14 | |
♪ And he's alive ♪ | 47:19 | |
♪ He's forever a king ♪ | 47:25 | |
♪ God is alive in the highest ♪ | 47:37 | |
♪ And he is our, he's glory ♪ | 47:42 | |
♪ God's gift of man ♪ | 47:51 | |
(gentle music) | 48:01 | |
(choir sings) | 48:52 | |
- | Our father we offer these gifts | 49:41 |
as a reasonable and significant part | 49:43 | |
of the work and joy of worship. | 49:45 | |
And we dedicate them not as a substitute, | 49:48 | |
but as a symbol of the gifts of our lives. | 49:51 | |
Amen. | 49:56 | |
And now may the Lord bless us and keep us. | 50:00 | |
They Lord make his face to shine upon us | 50:03 | |
and be gracious unto us. | 50:05 | |
The Lord lift up his countenance upon us and give us peace. | 50:08 | |
(choir sings) | 50:17 | |
(bell tolling) | 51:54 | |
(upbeat music) | 52:10 |
Item Info
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