Tag Archives: Joy

Advent Joy: A Candle-lighting Liturgy

Posted on by
Reply

.

Open the heavens and come down, O God of joy.

Bring Your joy so near we can taste it—

like eating French fries!

in Mexico!

on Christmas!

. 

We have seen glimpses of Your joy

not only when we visit our favorite places and people

but in some wildly unexpected places and people as well.

Whenever a child is born to us, 

we know Your presence.

Where our pleasures now are partial and fleeting,

give us energy to keep up with a joy that endures.

. 

We have heard Your promises:

that You came to bring the great joy of reconciliation

to absolutely everyone

and that none of our faults can separate us from God.

When we bring you our grief, you collect our tears

to water orchards producing perfect fruit.

Forgiveness flowers wherever You walk.

. 

Jesus, You come to make our joy chock-full,

complete, whole, limit-bursting, and exuberant.

Enlarge our capacity for unbounded delight

in Your world and in each other.

. 

Anoint us with your dancing Spirit

to bring good news of your continued favor

to everyone muddling through the rough places.

Reconnect us to the Source of all joy.

. 

We are God’s people.

We light this candle as a sign of God’s joy,

that calls us out of our corners to play along,

harmonizing with an ecstatic angel chorus

jamming to the music of the spheres.

.

O come, Immanuel. 

.

This year’s liturgies composed with contributions from the wreath-lighters of Bethany Presbyterian, Seattle. There may or may not have been a five-year-old involved this week.

Advent Wreath-Lighting Liturgy: JOY

Posted on by
Reply

Jesus, as we enter again
into the odd story of your unusual arrival,
we find your joy where we’d least expect it–
in hard conversations, in hard lessons learned,
in hard circumstances, and in the hard angles
of a feeding trough in the West Bank

Yours is a joy unforced,
an unconditioned calm only you can create,
discovered with delight in the simple things
and in openness to the complex and novel–
a joy found in stillness and in running,
in random observations and chance encounters

We find your joy
in the flow of our projects regardless of outcome,
in the unanticipated win and the inexplicable
closeness of other cheering fans,
in the unforeseen camaraderie of co-workers,
fellow students, and other players in survival mode

Volunteer usher passing around homemade cookies

Awaken us to our role
as astonished agents of your astonishing joy.
Open our hands and hearts
so your promised future may unfurl
for the unsafe, the unfed, and the unfulfilled
with and without our agency

We are God’s people.
We light this candle
as a sign of God’s joy
who comes to us as dappled sunlight
and makes a home among us.
O come, Immanuel

Words of Witness – Advent Week 3: JOY

Posted on by
Reply

We gather here today in God’s Spirit of joy

that erases all memory of pain and fear

like the holy cry of a newborn child.

 

Despite the status quo and daily grind that stifle our humanity

Despite unanswered prayers that make us doubt divinity

In the face of desperation and discrimination, sickness and loss,

In the face of death itself, we come.

 

We come because of all these things,

believing that God’s joy is as unconditional as God’s love,

as unbounded and independent of circumstances as God’s own Spirit.

Holy Spirit, help our unbelief.

 

We gather in the joy of the Spirit who groans for us,

longing that our joy be made full,

that our joy be made deeper

than the pride we can buoy only with compliments,

more grounded than the mania we conjure against depression.

The joy of letting our guard down.

The joy of going beyond our limitations and our successes.

Giving more, doing more than we thought possible

only to find we have and are more than when we began.

Joy in the journey when the end is not yet in sight.

Walking freely in the counsel of the wise.

Being blessed by our children.

Joy transcending time and place

to make joy possible in our time and place.

20171027_073630472_iOS

“The Way of Water” – photograph by Jenn Cavanaugh

We are God’s people.

We light this candle as a sign of God’s joy

who comes to us in the newness of life

and makes a home among us, and for us.

O come, Immanuel.

 

 

Composed by and for the American Church in Paris community, the work of the people to the glory of God.