Time to wake up! A sermon for the First Sunday of Advent (Year A RCL) Sunday 27 November 2022

Scripture Readings:

Isaiah 2:1-5

Romans 13.8-14.4

Matthew 24.36-44

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

We tend to take light for granted. Even as our northern winter draws in, we can dispel the gloom with a flick of a switch. When we do venture out, our streets, shops and public buildings are lit. As we move into Advent, many places will be lit with even more, fancy, lights- the Christmas lights are starting to appear on some houses already.

But news from Ukraine reminds us that we ought not to take our lights for granted. Many places in Ukraine are without light- and heat- as winter approaches, due to the damage done to infrastructure by the evil Russian invasion. Today we read of Isaiah, telling the people of Israel at a time when they frightened by the threat of war, that one day people will hammer their swords into ploughs, their spears into pruning knives, turning the instruments of violence into tools for peace, and that humanity will give up going to war. It is a wonderful dream which seems as distant as ever- especially for the people of Ukraine. It’s hard to dream of a better future when the present is so awful.

And yet, as the darkness draws nearer, we lit a candle in church today.

The Church season of Advent season of Advent is a strange sort of time. It’s supposed to be about looking forward to Christmas, to the day when we will remember the birth of the baby of Bethlehem. But how can you look forward to something which has already happened? How can we be expectant about a birth which happened 2,000 years ago?

Yet all this confusing of past, present and future shouldn’t be disconcerting for Christians. For we Christians know what we are living in an in-between time in history. In Jesus Christ, God has come among us, in the child of Bethlehem. But the risen and ascended Christ is, in a mysterious way, still to come. And that should make a difference to the way we live- and give us hope

In chapter 13 of his Letter to the Romans, St Paul encouraged the Christians of Rome to lead good lives. He reminds them of Christ’s command to love, writing

The commandments… are summed up in the one command, “Love your neighbour as you love yourself”. If you love someone, you will never do them wrong; to love, then, is to obey the whole Law.

If we could learn to love our neighbours, there would be an end to war, an end to cities without electricity, an end to new-borns killed by rockets in maternity hospitals. We are too keen on making enemies of our neighbours, and too easily forget what loving them means.

And Paul reminded the Roman Christians that the command to love our neighbours was an urgent command. We are, he says, living in in-between times:

You must do this, because you know that the time has come for you to wake up from your sleep. For the moment when we will be saved is closer now than it was when we first believed. The night is nearly over, day is almost here.

It’s as if Paul was someone who feel that time is passing quicker than other people realise.

We also find this urgency the preaching of Jesus. Consider this strange wee parable, which Jesus tells in our Gospel reading today:

If the owner of a house knew the time when the thief would come, you can be sure that he would stay awake and not let the thief break into his house. So then, you also must always be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting him.

By ‘the Son of Man’, Jesus means himself. Now, I’m sure you can think of many things the Bible says about Jesus- Prince of Peace, Son of God, Redeemer, the Word made flesh. But Jesus as a burglar- had that ever occurred to you before? But there it is, that’s what he apparently said. Not the most obvious thing to say about Jesus, but here he is, saying it about himself: I’m like a thief in the night!

Even odder is this strange passage- words which, again, are said to be the words of Jesus:

At that time two men will be working in a field: one will be taken away, the other will be left behind. Two women will be at a mill grinding meal: one will be taken away, the other will be left behind. Watch out, then, because you do not know what day your Lord will come.

Now, this is really strange stuff. Jesus seems to be saying that, at some point in the future, we’re suddenly going to find our neighbours and friends disappearing round about us, as if they’d suddenly been dematerialised and teleported on the Starship Enterprise? What are we supposed to make of stuff like this?

I think this is Jesus encouraging us to urgency. Jesus is urging us to watch out, keep alert, look for the signs that the unexpected it going to happen. Otherwise, we will be like the folks in Noah’s day, whom Jesus said didn’t know what has happening until they were swept away by the flood.

So St Paul tells the Christians of Rome that they’ve to wake up:

…the time has come for you to wake up from your sleep.

We humans spend about a third of each day asleep. But sometimes it is as if we are asleep the rest of the time, too. We can be jolted when something apparently unexpected happens because we were not alert enough to see it coming: a health problem that leads to hospitalisation, the seemingly happy marriage which- to everyone’s surprise- ends suddenly, the discovery that we have friend who’s deeply unhappy, and we never really noticed.

It happens on a world scale, too: everyone’s asleep, until something wakes us up. The invasion of Ukraine in February was once such moment. The climate crisis ought to be another. Both represent great threats to the future of the planet. Both need us to reach out to one another and work together with our neighbours. It’s a time for battering swords into ploughshares, for otherwise, disaster will ensue.

But many of us, including our leaders, seem asleep at the wheel. So we miss the danger signs, the ‘wake up calls’. A melting glacier is a wake up call. Our putting up with far-right racism and discriminatory rhetoric is a wake up call. As St Paul says, ‘the time has come for you to wake up from your sleep’! Or as Jesus said, we are like the folks in Noah’s day who had no idea that a disastrous flood was on its way- even though Noah was building a giant boat!

Yet Paul was also convinced that the light was breaking into our darkness.

Christianity is an historical faith. We Christians look backwards to the story of God’s dealings with Israel, which come to a climax in the history of Jesus Christ. Yet our historical faith points us towards the future. Christianity isn’t nostalgia- it’s about looking forward with hope. We hope for a time when swords are hammered into ploughshares. Christ was crucified, but he rose again- how can we not have hope?

Christians are folk who have learned from the Bible what God did in Jesus Christ. Responding to God’s love with faith, we now have hope, because God, we know, is taking things further. Not everything is quite complete. In Jesus’ and Paul’s day, many people had a sense that the end of the age was nigh. They looked forward to a day when, all at once, God’s reign of peace and justice was established on earth.

But early on, Christians, such as Paul, saw that the end of the world was, in a way, already underway. From them we get this sense of living in an in-between time. We know that evil has ultimately been defeated already the cross and resurrection of Jesus. Darkness still lingers, but, like people waiting for the sunrise, Christians can see the light on the horizon. We know the sun will soon appear, but the end is not quite yet.

The waiting can be hard. We might get drowsy, and even fall asleep. We might allow the darkness, rather than the light, to lull us into false ways of living. We might given in to the darkness around us and lose hope for peace- so we need prophets like Isaiah to help us dream of a better future. We might stop being urgent about loving our neighbours, and allowing the bigots and racists get away with their hatemongering- so we need preachers like Paul to remind us to keep on loving our neighbours. We might be too drowsy to see what God is up to in the world- so we need our saviour, Jesus the burglar, to break into our houses, our workplaces and our lives to make urgent for the Kingdom that is dawning.

For in Jesus Christ, the light of the world has come to us. And his light is still dawning, especially in the lives of those who choose to live in his way, his light. He taught us to love, not just by tell us, but by showing us how to do it. In Advent, we are reminded that God’s Kingdom is it hand, already appearing among us. ‘The night is nearly over, the day is almost here’, says Paul, which for me, conjures up an image of a sunrise: the dawn light beginning to banish the darkness. Dawn is coming, and so we have hope! So let’s live in the light, dream of peace, and by loving our neighbours, light a candle against the dark!

Ascription of Praise

To God be honour and eternal dominion! Amen.

1 Timothy 6.16 (GNB)

Biblical references from the Good News Bible, unless otherwise stated

© 2022 Peter W Nimmo

Featured image: Arab women grinding coffee in Palestine, 1905.
Published as a stereoscope in September 29, 1905 by Meadville, Pa. : Keystone View Company.
Library of Congress, Washington DC. From Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59364 [retrieved November 25, 2022]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Coffeepalestine.jpg.

Crowds, leaders and faithfulness- Sermon for Palm and Passion Sunday, 2 April 2023

The texts I’ve used for this Sunday are: The entry into Jerusalem- Matthew 21:1-11; and the Passion Narrative- Matthew 27:11-56.

The cross of Christ is the central symbol of Christianity. Over the centuries, millions of words have been written about it. Theologians have created various theories about it all. But on this Sunday, as we have listened to the story as told by Matthew the Gospel writer, we have heard no theories. Instead, the accounts of the death of Jesus in the Gospels are very human stories. I’m not going to offer any theories, but I do want to ponder three groups of people in the story we have heard.

Firstly, there is the crowd. Holy Week, the last week of Jesus’ life, is framed by the Jerusalem crowds. On Palm Sunday, Jesus is welcomed with enthusiasm. Riding into the city on a donkey, people think that their liberation has come. He’s a prophet, they say. He’s the special king who is predicted to come riding on a donkey.

And then, over a few days, they go sour on him. During those few days, it’s almost as if Jesus sets out to be controversial. He makes enemies of the religious leaders, who want to get rid of him, and they eventually hand him over to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. As Pilate tries to decide what to do, turns to the crowd again.

There is this weird tradition that at the Passover, the governor can ask the crowd if he should free a prisoner. It’s first century reality television- who will you vote for, he asks the crowd. And the crowd chooses, not the Jesus, but Barabbas, who is an actual criminal. Pilate, fearing a riot, condemns Jesus and frees Barabbas.

Why did the crowd turn, from adulation one day, to wanting Jesus dead a few days later? We are told that ‘The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask Pilate to set Barabbas free and have Jesus put to death’. There must have been lots of conversations, sermons and discussion conversations, as the religious leaders planted doubt in people’s minds, persuading them that Jesus wasn’t the Messiah, but a heretic.

Would that happen today? We are supposed to live in a scientific age, but millions have been fooled into denying scientific realities, such as the dangers of Covid, or the consequences of climate change. It’s easy us to be fooled by people who seem to know what they are talking about. When you read or hear a news story or an opinion piece, to you ever think to ask who is feeding this information to you, and why? Did the people on the streets of Jerusalem ask themselves ‘why are the chief priests and the elders saying this about Jesus?’ Apparently, not enough of them did ask that critical question.

But Pilate knew what was going on: Matthew says that ‘He knew very well that the Jewish authorities had handed Jesus over to him because they were jealous’.

And that brings us to the second group of people- the leaders of church and state in Jerusalem at the time.

Israel was an occupied country- it was ruled, ultimately, by Rome, either directly through governors like Pontius Pilate, or an indirectly through puppet kings such as the Herod family. The Romans tolerated the local religion, because it made it easier for to rule the population. So the Temple in Jerusalem still functioned, and the priests and the elders in charge of the Jewish religious were allowed power over the people in religious matters.

But that made the religious leaders collaborators with the Romans. So once they decided that Jesus was a heretic who ought to die, they went to the Roman governor, Pilate- for only he had the power to put someone to death.

Pilate, however, had his doubts. After all, this young preacher didn’t seem to be guilty of anything. Even his wife was worried about the situation- as Pilate is sitting in judgement, she sends a message to him: “Have nothing to do with that innocent man, because in a dream last night I suffered much on account of him.” Will Pilate develop a conscience?

He decides, however that he will do (the morally wrong, if politically convenient thing)- condemn Jesus- but convinces himself it is for the right reasons- to prevent a riot. It is a classic politician’s dilemma. In front of the crowd, he washes his hands of the affair- trying to put the blame on them. But I’m sure he couldn’t wash his conscience so easily.

Yet Pilate sends Jesus to be tortured and mocked, and his Roman soldiers take a sadistic pleasure in doing so, spitting on him and beating him, dressing him up as a king with a purple robe and a crown of thorns. The Romans are the people with power in this story, and they use it to humiliate Jesus, who is by this time utterly defenceless, having been abandoned by most of his compatriots and the leaders of his religion.

The Gospels give the impression that the religious leaders really didn’t try very hard to understand Jesus. But do you remember a few weeks ago we talked about Nicodemus? He was a Pharisee- a religious group Jesus was often in conflict with. Yet John’s Gospel tells us that he went to see Jesus one night, for what was a genuine effort at a conversation. Later, he would speak up for Jesus at his religious trial, and the end Nicodemus helped prepare Jesus for burial. Nicodemus was a religious leader who showed some integrity, who tried to get beyond the groupthink of his colleagues.

And at the very end, people see Jesus crucified and insult him- the same people who welcomed him with palm branches a few days earlier, the same people who the day before had been persuaded by their religious leaders to cry ‘crucify him’ when Pilate tried to set him free. They are egged on by those same religious leaders who also insult the dying Jesus. Even the actual criminals who are being crucified with Jesus jeer at him.

Yet, as he dies, one Roman soldier comes to a new insight. The army officer in charge of the crucifixion, and some of his soldiers, say ‘He really was the Son of God’. That army officer, and his soldiers, were part and parcel of the Roman power complex. They may have been torturing and humiliating Jesus just a few hours before. Yet, like Nicodemus, they are able to step outside of their role, and understand that God is at work.

Human life is complicated. We are all caught up, in some way, in power structures, in betrayal, in lies. We do the wrong thing, and convince ourselves that we did the right thing. We are easily swayed by what sounds like the truths, easily persuaded by plausible liars because they are leaders we thing we should trust.

Yet there is always the opportunity to be a Nicodemus, or to be the Roman officer at the cross, and to realise that God is at work, and to confess to the truth. An employee blows the whistle on criminality by their company; a soldier refuses to take part on a war crime; a politician resigns instead of supporting a policy which goes against their conscience- we can all admire such integrity. It is a refreshing change to the murkiness of human life.

And there is my third group of people- the few honest people in this tale. At the every end of our reading today, we hear of some people who stood by Jesus, all way to the cross:

There were many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed  from Galilee and helped him. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the wife of Zebedee.

The male disciples had largely deserted Jesus. Even his chief disciple, Simon Peter, denied knowing him. But the women stayed faithful. Those women, who had followed him from Galilee, who are so often overlooked in our teaching and preaching about Jesus- they didn’t deny or abandon him, but went with him, all the way to the cross.

And there is one other person of integrity in this story, isn’t there? The one who goes to Jerusalem even when his disciples try to persuade him not to. The one who rides a donkey into the city, who chucks the traders out of the Temple, who heals and forgives even when it will upset the religious leaders. The one who stays silent in the face of Pilate’s questions, and the mockery as he is tortured and killed. Jesus- the one at the centre of it all- shows incredible integrity through all this horror.

He is brave, but he is not superhuman. In Gethsemane, he prays for a way to avoid death. At the very end, he wonders if God has abandoned him.

Whatever else the church has said about Christ over the centuries, this story reminds us that Jesus was fully human. Like you and me, he finds it hard to stick to doing God’s will. He, like us, has moments where his faith wobbles. He, like us, feels the pain of rejection and betrayal. He has tried to live by his law of love, but he dies a horrific, violent death.

Today, I offer no theories on any of this. Today, there is just the story. And a dark, violent, murky story it is, too. This is not humanity at its best. Yet Jesus, and a few others, too, stay faithful- creating a hope that maybe, just maybe, something good will come out of this, and that love and truth will defeat hatred and lies eventually. Amen.

Biblical references from the Good News Bible, unless otherwise stated

© 2023 Peter W Nimmo

Featured image: John August Swanson, Entry into the City (1990): Painting at Notre Dame University, Indiana, USA. From Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56544 [retrieved March 29, 2023]. Original source: Estate of John August Swanson, https://www.johnaugustswanson.com/. The artist has granted permission for the non-commercial use of this image with attribution. The artist must be contacted for other uses.

“Can you see Orion?” Sermon for Trinity Sunday, 4 June 2023

Scripture Readings: Psalm 8 and Matthew 28:16-20

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

When I was in my early twenties, I began to realise that my eyes were not what they should be. I wasn’t seeing distances clearly any longer, and if I was ever to take a driving test, I realised I would fail at the first hurdle- my distance wasn’t good enough. So I made an appointment with the optician, and got my first pair of glasses.

I saw a difference at once. Fuzzy objects on the horizon were suddenly noticeably clearer. The degeneration of my eyesight had been very slow, and so I hadn’t realised what I was missing. It was wonderful!

But the I remember most about my new glasses was the first time I wore them at night. It was a clear, frosty night- there were no clouds in the sky. And there, above me, was something I had almost forgotten about- I could see thousands of stars in the night sky, far more than I could before I got my glasses. And I realised that in the last few years, I had been seeing stars, not as sharp pinpricks of light, but as fuzzy blobs of light.

For me, the night sky is one of the greatest natural phenomena. Over the years, I tried to learn some of the constellations- my children got fed up with me telling them ‘Look! There’s Orion!’ ‘Can you see the Milky Way tonight?’ ‘The Great Bear is just over that house!’ With a small telescope or binoculars, it’s even more amazing, as you spot thousands more starts, and look at craters on the moon.

The night sky has always been a source of endless fascination for we humans. We see it in the Psalm which we have heard today. Psalm 8 is a beautiful poem- a song of praise to God. It starts and ends with the words ‘O Lord, our Lord, your greatness is seen in all the world!’- it is a hymn of praise- praise ‘sung by children and babies’. And then the Psalm goes on to sing of the sky, the moon and the stars, of human beings, of animals and birds and fish- it’s a celebration of creation, and a thanksgiving to the Creator!

In verses 3 and 4, the Psalmist makes an interesting move when he speaks about the sky:

When I look at the sky, which you have made,
at the moon and the stars, which you set in their places-
what are human beings, that you think of them;
mere mortals, that you care for them?

That captures something of the fascination of the night sky. When we look at the stars, its awesomeness puts us in our place. The Psalmist wonders why the Creator who did all this would take any notice of mere humans.

Today, we know that the night sky is even more wonderful than the Psalmist knew- writing over two and a half thousand years ago. We’ve sent spacecraft to the moon and even beyond our own solar system. Telescopes, and radio receivers, on earth and sent into space, have sent back incredible images of stars and galaxies which are unimaginably far away from us.

In 1990, the Voyager 1 spacecraft- which had been sent to explore the outer planets of our solar system- turned its camera on our own planet earth. At the time, Voyager was 6 billion kilometres from earth, and had already passed Jupiter and Saturn. The photograph it took of earth became known as ‘the pale blue dot’ photograph, for at that distance, earth showed up as a tiny, tiny speck against the darkness of space[1]. It looks a bit like a faint star. And as the photo makes very clear, earth is not the centre of the universe. Why, indeed, should the ‘mere mortals’ who inhabit that speck be especially important?

Two and a half thousand years ago, the Psalmist looked at the sky from the earth, and was awed by it. He would never have imagined that we would ever be able to do the opposite, and look at the earth from space- which is something which has only been possible in the last 50 years. The chance to look at the earth in that has given us a new perspective- and for many people, they have concluded that human beings, living on our blue dot, are not really very important. For as we now know, our sun is just one of millions of stars, and our earth one of millions of planets. Who knows- one of those other planets might be like our planet earth, and there may be people like us living on another planet. Our little island in space may not be unique.

But there is another way to think about our little blue dot. It is our home, and so, for us, it is unique. It may be tiny, but it is vitally important, for it is all we have got. We know we are damaging our earth, because we exploit it and pollute it as if there was no tomorrow. Put it in the perspective of the vastness of space, and it seems mad we should ignore the warnings of scientists about climate change, animal extinction, and pollution. These photographs of earth from space are awesome, because they actually remind us how important our planet is.

And that, I suggest to you, is not that different from the insight of the Psalmist. He couldn’t go into space, but he could look at space and be profoundly moved:

When I look at the sky, which you have made,
at the moon and the stars, which you set in their places-
what are human beings, that you think of them;
mere mortals, that you care for them?

We shouldn’t have needed photos of earth from space to make us wonder about our smallness and insignificance. The Psalmist did it two and a half thousand years ago, as he looked at the sky and was awed by what we now call ‘outer space’. And he wondered if humans were all that significant. Gazing at the sky, he thought ‘Does the Creator of all this really care for mere mortals?’

Yet you made them inferior only to yourself;
you crowned them with glory and honour.

The faith of the Psalmist is that, yes, God does indeed care for mere mortals. Each of us is ‘crowned with glory and honour’- we are all special. We tend to think that ‘human rights’ is a modern concept, but here in- in the Jewish scriptures of the Old Testament- is the origins of concept. For the teaching of the Bible is that human beings are infinitely important. That’s why we are commanded not to kill one another- for each human life is precious, as each of us have something of God within us. Since every person is created by God, who has crowned each of us with glory and honour, every human life is worthy of our respect.

The Psalmist then goes on to say that humans are ‘rulers over everything [God] has made’. That’s an old idea- the idea that we humans have some sort of ‘dominion’ (Psalm 8.6 NRSV) over creation. Perhaps stewardship would be a better word. For today we have it our ability to destroy all life on earth, either very quickly (for example by nuclear war) or a slow, poisoning suffocation of the land, air and sea. No other species has caused so much destruction to the planet, and no other species can stop it. To many people, the idea that God would put humanity in charge of nature seems absurd- but in fact, we now have the power to decide the future of all life on our planet. We actually have a relationship with nature, and, unfortunately, it’s not been a good relationship. But we can’t keep damaging the earth, for it’s the only planet we have.

Psalm 8 is full of relationships. It speaks of the relationship which we humans have to our Creator- a God who loves and honours humanity. It speaks of God’s relationship to creation- God is the origin and sustainer of all that exists. It speaks of the human relationship to creation- when we look at the skies, or when we look at our planet from space- it should excite wonder and awe within us, and remind us of our responsibilities to nature, to the earth- and to each other. It speaks of God’s relationship with humanity- God honours and loves us all.

Christian faith is all about relationships. Jesus had his special friends, his disciples, and at the very end of Matthew’s Gospel, he told them to go and spread the good news- to the ends of the earth- that the Creator of the Universe is a God who loves us. And we continue to have that relationship with Jesus as we take his message into the world- to invite others into a relationship with the Creator. As the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote,

[Christ’s] life on earth is not finished yet, for he continues to live in the lives of his followers. Indeed it is wrong to speak of the Christian life: we should rather speak of Christ living in us.

And all this is symbolised as we celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Communion today- a sacrament that’s also all about relationships and connections. As we share the bread and wine, we are reminded of our connection to our fellow believers- men and women, rich and poor, children and adults and elders. And the bread and wine are symbols of the sacrifice of the Son so that we might have a relationship with the Creator of the night sky, of our little planet, and of all living things.

At this table, the Creator of the stars stoops to welcome us. For in Jesus Christ, God has come among us and assured us anew of God’s love for mere mortals. In this vast universe, we matter to God. And as God in Christ has loved us, let us go from the table to love and respect other people, and the beautiful world God has given us to live on.

Ascription of Praise

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and shall be forever, Amen.

Biblical references from the Good News Bible, unless otherwise stated

© 2023 Peter W Nimmo

Featured image: the constelation Orion; stock photograph from WordPress

Opening Prayers for the Fourth Sunday in Lent Year A (March 15 2026)

Part of a series of opening prayers for Sundays in the Revised Common Lectionary. They take their inspiration from the Scripture readings in the Lectionary. Worship leaders are welcome to use them for worship, but if you print or display any part of them, please credit the author. Comments welcome.

The following prayers are for based on the readings for the Fourth Sunday in Lent Year A: 1 Samuel 16:1-13, Psalm 23, Ephesians 5:8-14 and John 9:1-41.

Call to Worship

St Paul tells us:
‘Sleeper, awake!
Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’

Ephesians 5.14

Let us worship God.

Prayer of Approach

God, the source of all that is good and right and true,
we worship you this morning.
By your Spirit
enable us to cast off the drowsiness and dark of the night.
Open our eyes to your glory-
the glory of the One who created all things
who is Love above all
and who, in Jesus Christ
brings us to a knowledge of your grace.

To you, Creator, Redeemer and Reconciler
we offer you our praise
and bring you our prayers.

Confession

All-knowing God,
you see beyond the outward appearance
which we present to the world
and look into our hearts.
You know of our secret thoughts and desires
which we would never want to bring into the light of day.
For we are burdened with guilt, frustration and anger
which we keep hidden,
but which sours our relationships
with colleagues, friends and family.
Forgive us for our unwillingness to see
the wrongs and injustices
which blight your world
and to own up to our own faults.
Open our eyes
that we may walk in the light of Jesus Christ
who promises peace, and healing, and forgiveness.

silence

Supplication

Great shepherd of your sheep,
we pray that Christ’s goodness and mercy
would follow us all the days of our lives.
Enable us to walk close to you
and when we go through dark valleys
grant us faith to know that you go with us,
and are leading us to the green pastures and still waters
which you promise your people.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Featured image: Su00fcleyman on Pexels Free Photos

© Peter W Nimmo 2026

Opening Prayers for the Third Sunday in Lent Year A (March 8 2026)

Part of a series of opening prayers for Sundays in the Revised Common Lectionary. They take their inspiration from the Scripture readings in the Lectionary. Worship leaders are welcome to use them for worship, but if you print or display any part of them, please credit the author. Comments welcome.

The following prayers are for based on the readings for the Third Sunday in Lent Year A: Exodus 17:1-7, Psalm 95, Romans 5:1-11 and John 4:5-42.

Call to Worship

O come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into God’s presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

Psalm 95.1-3 NRSV (alt)

Let us worship God, in spirit and in truth!

Prayer of Approach

God of gods, and King of kings
the rock our salvation
we bow before you and worship you.
For you are inconceivably greater than we can imagine.
You are the Lord, our Maker
and everything created is the work of your hands.

Yet like a great shepherd
you hold each of us in your hand.
You care for each of us
with a love which is deeper than the earth
and higher than the highest mountains.
You saved your people, Israel
from slavery in Egypt;
and you have saved all humanity
through Jesus Christ.
Songs of praise, we offer you
our mighty and loving God!

Confession

Gracious God,
you love all persons, regardless of race or nationality
but we find it hard to love our friends, our neighbours, our families.
You sent Christ, your son, to die for sinners;
but we find it hard to lay down our prejudices and anger
with those with whom we disagree.

Forgive our hard-heartedness.
Open our ears to hear you speak to us.
May we know your forgiveness,
and so become better people.

silence

Jesus promises that

‘those who drink of the water that I will give them
will never be thirsty.
The water that I will give
will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life’.

John 4.14

May the living waters of your divine love
flow over each of us,
and overflow through each of us
in love for our sisters and brothers!

Supplication

God who rescues us from slavery to sin,
and promises us peace with you through Jesus Christ;
grant that the love which pours through our hearts
by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us
would strengthen us in times of suffering
give us endurance to meet the challenges of life
and a character which reflects that of Jesus,
that we may boast of our hope in you
not just in our words,
but in deeds of love.
We pray all this in the name of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Featured image: by Samad Deldar from Pexels Free Photos

© Peter W Nimmo 2026

Opening Prayers for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany Year A (January 25 2026)

Part of a series of opening prayers for upcoming Sundays in the Revised Common Lectionary. Worship leaders are welcome to use them for worship, but if you print or display any part of them, please credit the author. Comments welcome.

The following prayers are for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany. They are based on Isaiah 49:1-7, Psalm 40:1-11, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 and John 1:29-42

Call to Worship

One thing I asked of the Lord; this I seek:
to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the LORD,
and to inquire in his temple.

Let us worship God.

Call to Prayer

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 27:1 NRSV

Let us pray.

Prayer of Approach

Most loving and gracious God,
you are indeed our light, our salvation,
and our stronghold.
As your Son Jesus Christ
once called Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John,
to leave their fishing nets
and follow him,
so your Word and Spirit calls each of us by name
to follow Jesus today.

Today we renew our commitment
to be Christ’s disciples
as you renew your promise
to uphold and strengthen us
in our discipleship.

at a celebration of Holy Communion:

Here at your Table
you offer us the body and blood
of your own dear Son
to be light for our path
and strength for our soul;
once more you will promise us salvation.

or, at other times:

May this time of worship
to be light for our path
and strength for our soul.
Once more, may we hear your promise us salvation.

Prayer of Confession

Lord Jesus Christ,
we confess that we have sinned against God
and our neighbours
in thought, word and deed.
Our discipleship has been slack
and our faith has been weak.
O Lamb of God,
you take away the sin of the world,
have mercy upon us
and grant us your peace.

silence

Hear these words of St Paul:

For the message about the cross
is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved
it is the power of God.

1 Corinthians 1.18 GNB

Loving God, the cross of Christ shows us
that you do not judge us with human wisdom.
Rather, you promise to forgive and renew us
By your Spirit, enable us to turn from our sins
to hear again clearly Christ’s call
and to leave behind what would keep us back
from following Christ
and more fully being his disciples in our own time. Amen.

Featured image: Cover of ‘Jesus Calls His Disciples’, by Lucy Diamond, illustrated by Kenneth Inns. Children’s book published by Ladybird,1959.

© Peter W Nimmo 2026

#Lectionary #LectionaryPrayers

Opening Prayers for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany Year A (January 18 2026)

Part of a series of opening prayers for upcoming Sundays in the Revised Common Lectionary. Worship leaders are welcome to use them for worship, but if you print or display any part of them, please credit the author. Comments welcome.

The following prayers are for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany. They are based on Isaiah 49:1-7, Psalm 40:1-11, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 and John 1:29-42

Call to Worship

We are gathered together as God’s church,
dedicated to God in Christ Jesus,
called to be his people.
Grace and peace to you
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

c.f. 1 Corinthians 1.2

Let us worship God.

Prayer of Approach and Confession

Call to Prayer

I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.

Psalm 40:1

Let us pray.

Approach

Eternal God,
creator of all things,
in times past, your people have known
of your presence with them.
And when they have strayed from you
your Word was heard anew
in scripture, in story,
and in the sharp words of the prophets;
and the people learned once more
to put their trust in you.

And when the time was right
your Word became flesh in Jesus Christ.
John the Baptist recognised him
as the one who had come to take away
the sins of the world.

And now, by your grace, you call us
to be the successors of Andrew and Simon Peter
to be disciples in our own day
to live by your eternal Word
and to live in the power of the Spirit
which we received in our baptism.

Lord Jesus Christ, as you called the disciples,
open our ears to your calling,
open your eyes to your presence,
open our hearts to your love,
that we may hear you,
and hearing you may love you.
For to love you and serve you
is perfect freedom.

this paragraph based on David Adam, Traces of Glory (SPCK 1999, p28)

Confession

Merciful Father,
who knows us better than we know ourselves,
we confess that we have failed to hear you,
to share the gifts of our Spirit,
and have strayed from the loving way of Jesus.
We have caused distress and hurt
by the wrong we have done to other people
and we have grieved your heart.
Yet in Jesus Christ,
the Lamb of God,
you offer us forgiveness and renewal of life.

Jesus, Lamb of God,
who takes away the sins of the world,
have mercy upon us.
Grant us your peace.

silence

Grace and peace to you
from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 1.3

May the mercy of God be upon you;
the steadfast love of God surround you
and the faithfulness of God keep you safe forever.

from Psalm 40.11

Supplication

God of grace
who freely forgives those who turn to you in Christ.
make known to us anew
the grace and peace which we know through our faith in Christ.
May we whom you have called to be disciples of your Son
be kind to our neighbours
and be strong in our faith
so that we may be blameless
on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ
in whose name we pray. Amen.

Featured image: Lamb of God. Mosaic in the Basilica dei Santi Cosma e Damiano (Rome, Italy), 527AD. from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=52396 [retrieved January 6, 2026]. Original source: Prof. Lee M. Jefferson, [email protected].

© Peter W Nimmo 2026

#Lectionary #LectionaryPrayers

Opening Prayers for the Baptism of the Lord Year A

Part of a series of opening prayers for Sundays in the Revised Common Lectionary. They take their inspiration from the Scripture readings in the Lectionary. Worship leaders are welcome to use them for worship, but if you print or display any part of them, please credit the author. Comments welcome.

The following prayers are for based on the readings for the Baptism of the Lord, and this week is mostly based on the Gospel: Matthew 2:1-12.

Prayer of Approach, Confession and Supplication

Almighty, eternal and loving God,
this universe you have created
is wonderful proof of your concern
for we mortals.
In Jesus Christ, you have come among us,
his baptism sealing his solidarity
with the whole human race.

Yet confess we must,
that we have failed to acknowledge your love.
We have used the gifts of your creation
as though they belonged only to us,
as if we had an absolute claim to your creation.

We have been selfish,
failing to share your good gifts with others,
failing to remember that you are the source
of all our material and spiritual riches.

In our concern for the everyday,
we have failed to see your love for us in creation,
and we have obscured for others
the signs of the eternal.

But Lord, to whom shall we go?
Yours are the words of eternal life.

Silence

Your Word became flesh and lived among us.
You have taught us that it is the Spirit
which gives us life,
compared to which the mundane things
of this world which we normally worship
are as nothing.
You understand our faults, our failings,
our weaknesses,
and have made it possible to come to you
through Jesus Christ.
 
For your grace,
for your promise of forgiveness,
and for the power of your Spirit to renew our lives
we give you thanks, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Featured image: “John baptizes Jesus” from JESUS MAFA (1973). JESUS MAFA is a response to the New Testament readings from the Lectionary by a Christian community in Cameroon, Africa. Each of the readings was selected and adapted to dramatic interpretation by the community members. Photographs of their interpretations were made, and these were then transcribed to paintings. From Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48290 [retrieved January 2, 2023]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).

#bible #Christ #faith #god #Jesus #JohnTheBaptist #Lectionary #Prayer

Opening Prayers for the Second Sunday after Christmas Day, Year A

Part of a series of opening prayers for upcoming Sundays in the Revised Common Lectionary. Worship leaders are welcome to use them for worship, but if you print or display any part of them, please credit the author. Comments welcome.

The following prayers are for the Second Sunday after Christmas Day. They are based on Jeremiah 31:7-14, Psalm 147:12-20, Ephesians 1:3-14 and John 1:1-18.

Call to Worship

Optional: the congregation may say together the words in bold.

We gather to worship the God of heaven and earth
to hear God’s Word
and remember God’s power.

Let us all rejoice and sing
for it is God who has gathered us together!

or the response:

We rejoice and sing
for it is God who has gathered us together!

Let us worship God.

Prayer of Approach and Confession

Let us pray.

Word of life
existing from the beginning
and through whom all things came to be
we gather to worship you.

Light of the World,
who shines in the darkness
and cannot be overcome
we gather to seek your light.

Unknown God
who made yourself known in Christ
we gather to experience anew your grace and truth.

God of light and love,
we bring our songs of praise
for we have known your merciful grace in Christ.
We bring our concerns in prayer
because we follow Christ, who is close the Father’s heart.
We bring our thanksgivings
because in Christ, the true light is coming into the word
and taught us that we are your beloved children.

All praise to you, Father, Son and Spirit!

Confession

Merciful God,
we confess that we often live
as if we did not know Christ.
We seek darkness
when we should follow the light.
You call us to be holy,
but we act foolishly.
Your truth has set us free
but we often seem trapped by lies.

You have promised
that all who receive Christ,
and believed in his name,
are become children of God.
Forgive us our faults and sins
and enlighten us again with your love and truth, we pray.

silence

Assurance of Pardon

In Christ we have redemption through his blood,
and the forgiveness of our trespasses,
according to the riches of his grace.
For grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ.

Children of light- know that you are forgiven!

Supplication

Lord Jesus Christ,
in whom we hear the Word of truth and grace,
may we set our hope in you alone
and live to the praise of your glory,
so that by living in love
we may share your light in a dark world.
To you, and to the Father, and to the Holy Spirit
we eternal glory and praise! Amen.

Featured image: Josef Krautwald, In the Beginning was the Word, 1955. Metalwork, St. Dionysius Parish Church, Recke, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. From Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59020 [retrieved December 28, 2025]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Dionysius_Hauptportal_Tuer_1.jpg.

© Peter W Nimmo 2025

#bible #christianity #Christmas #faith #god #Jesus #Lectionary #Prayer