Third Advent
1st Advent
Prayers for the third Sunday in Advent

Call to Worship
by Rev. F. Schaefer

L: Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

P: For the Lord, our God is coming to us!

L: Tell the poor, gather the lowly.

P: For the Lord, our God is coming to us!

L: The trees of the fields and all nature are awaiting eagerly the redemption of the earth.

P: For the Lord, our God is coming to us!  

L: Let us praise the God of our salvation.  Let us hail God's Anointed One with shouts of joy.  Let us worship God!

 

Prayer based on all Lections
by Rev. F. Schaefer

God of Life and Joy, on this third day of Advent we joyfully celebrate your certain promise of the new world to come.  We rejoice in anticipation of the your servant Isaiah's vision that calls for wasteland to be turned into fruitful and blossoming land.  We shout for joy, exalting you with all your heart.  For "we shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

Help us prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ, our Lord, the light of the world. Illuminate our waiting and watching, our praying, thinking and our acting with the light of the gospel so that we may produce the fruit of patience.  We need the spirit of patience in our lives, the spiritual source of all joyful hope.

O God, giver of inexplicable joy, bless the church of Christ that we may celebrate aright the incarnation of your love in the person of Jesus.  May the whole world recognize the healing and saving ministry of Christ through us as we reach out to a world filled with dark shadows. Amen.