Trinity – Clifton Community of Faith
                    United Church of Canada

           December 24, 2021    7 pm
 
                   Christmas Eve

                                 Welcome

We are glad that you are here as a visitor, a seeker, someone looking for a new church home, or as a regular worshipper or member.  
All are welcome in this place. 
* Please stand if you are able

Trinity-Clifton Vision Statement: We are a joyful, welcoming, inclusive Christ-centered community of faith, reaching out to others, providing a safe space where we respect differences. We learn from the past and dare to change.

Acknowledging Traditional Territory: We follow the lead of the United Church of Canada in acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional and unceded territory of the Abegweit Mi’kmaq First Nation.

Prelude 

Words of Welcome
	God is good
	all the time.
	All the time
	God is good.

Lighting of the Advent Wreath 
Reader 1: 	Today we complete our journey with the lighting of the Christ Candle. We unite all of God’s gifts into one and can sense the relief that our lives are now complete, and the light of the Lord shines bright upon us. The transformation of the candles from a sombre purple to pure white has symbolically cleansed us, as we have celebrated the life of Jesus and anticipate the morning.

	Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. 

Reader 1: 	Deep in our hearts there is a common purpose; deep in our hearts there is a common goal; deep in our hearts there is a sacred message, justice and peace in harmony. Born in human likeness, found in human form: Jesus, “God is with us,” we proclaim your glory as we light the Christ candle. (light candle)

Carol VU #47	Still, still, still

Christmas Eve - The Christ Child

Reader 2: Scripture Reading Micah 5:2-5 

	We scarcely believe it God, this story of Love’s birth in the world. It seems a little beyond our comprehension. We rationalise and reason. We read the headlines, and we somewhat doubt. And yet, oddly, we hope, desperately, that it just might be true. And so, here we are hoping to be ready, to understand what it could mean to us and to our world. Help us ready ourselves. 
If we are here disbelieving God.
Unwrap our doubt to make space for love.
If we are here despairing,
Unwrap our grief to make space for joy.
If we are here angry,
Unwrap our resentment to make space for peace.
If we are here nostalgic,
Unwrap our sentimentality to make space for life.
If we are here cynical,
Unwrap our scepticism to make space for hope.
Let you story be real in this place tonight.
Unwrap us God, giver and creator of life. Amen.

Carol VU #43	Go, Tell It on the Mountain

Reader 3: 	Rejoice, and again I say rejoice, for God is coming yet again this night. Let all things praise the holy babe, born when the world so needed a saviour. Let us welcome this saviour in our hearts and here, in our community this night. As ever, this world and all who live on it need the promise the baby carries within, the spirit of God, the seed of hope year after year.  Let all praise the God whose spirit gives life to this earth, from mountain top to the bottom of the ocean. From green leaves to white flakes of snow. From North to South and East to West. Let animals and angels, young and old join together to praise the God who comes to us, who knows us, who loves us as God teaches us to love one another. Come let us all prepare for this coming.

Reader 4: 	Scripture Reading Luke 2:1-20

Opening Prayer

The Christmas Story Told Anew

Reader 5: Scripture Reading Genesis 1:1-5; 26-30

In the Beginning

	Before there was something, there was nothing. This has always been one of our longest and hardest mysteries to deal with as humans.  Many thousands of stories have been written to try and deal with this reality. We think of “our” story, the story written to tell of the creation of the world. All creation created out of chaos and nothingness. We are told of our creator God and actions taken. And how God thought it was good; not bad.  It is said that humans were created in God’s own image, Male and Female - we are told.  We were created to create and take care of what has been created.  This story of ours, tells us of God’s intentions from that very beginning and the hope that was implied. God’s intention was good.

Carol VU #29	Hark the Glad Sound v.1 & 4

The Fall

Reader 6: 	If there is one thing that we know about history, it is that something went awry from God’s initial setup.  Intentions of goodness seemed to get lost, and over centuries buried deep down into the depths of society. The world is struggling. The world is not the way it was intended to be. At some point we walked away from living the life that we were intended to live.  We thought we knew better – some still believe that. The even harder part to admit is that we, each and every one of us in the world are part of the problem.  It lies in us just as much as it lies in the world.  We are not being who we are created to be.

Carol VU #68 All Poor Ones and Humble

The Promise

Reader 7: 	It was a good thing that God did not give up on us. We could certainly understand if God did. God chose a people who he wanted to shape and form in hopes that God could bless the entire world and let them begin again. Beautiful and compassion laws like the year of Jubilee, where every 50 years all debts in the nation would be forgiven.  Or laws that were meant to take care of the other nations, like leaving tons of leftovers in their fields for the poor, or how to welcome a stranger into your home.  

Scripture Reading Isaiah 9:2, 6-7

Carol VU #1 O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Change is in Order

Reader 8: 	Eventually God uses the prophet Isaiah to get things moving. There will be a person that will come from a certain genealogy. There are very specific things that this new person will do and a lot of it has to do with putting things back in their proper order; the order that was intended from the beginning. Listen to the voice of Isaiah crying out for the kind of justice and equality that this new person is going to bring.

Scripture Reading Isaiah 11:1-9

A Left-Handed Infant

Reader 9: 	The favoured nation was excited at this point. There was now a promise of a Messiah, some type of Saviour that will come and finally free them from their oppression. Many would have expected a very right-handed approach to getting the job done. Many of them would have expected some type of revolutionary to come in and wipe away with the Romans, or all other religions. Others were expecting someone to come and get rid of all the impure and the unclean in their midst. Still others were expecting a political take over where someone would rise to the top and change the system to be more God-like. It seemed though, that the typical ways of power; through war, manipulation, force and politics wasn’t working. All these did was deepen the cycle and cause one to be stronger and more powerful to come out on top. God had something else in mind. God decides to send a baby. Not only that, God sends this baby to no-name parents, in a non-important town, in the stable of an inn when these no-name shepherds show up to worship him. What was God thinking?  

Scripture Reading Luke 1:26-35

Carol VU #71	‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime
Reader 10: 	The nativity scene is what we remember about the Christmas story in our days. Now it might be up in our house, or we may drive by it on the way to the mall. It really should be the most powerful scene in the history of the world, but now it has been reduced to another product you buy on the shelves or a decoration in a front lawn. It really has lost its significance. The nativity scene may have looked a little different – perhaps a cave, a space in the rocks. There was a real baby. There was most likely real animals and visitors too!

Scripture Reading Luke: 2:1-7

Carol VU #69	Away in a Manger

The Visitors
Reader 11: 	God chose the most random people to let in on the secret of Jesus’ birth. No name shepherds and some “Magi”; basically astrologers. It would be the equivalent of Jesus showing up to the variety store clerk and a group of fortune tellers. It just didn’t make any sense. This of course though becomes a pattern with Jesus. He picks those that are marginalised, outcaste and hated and brings them the closest. He eats with the tax collector. He turns failing students into his disciples. He makes the failures into the heroes of his stories. Jesus did everything backwards from what any successful person did. It is in this story that we are shown again that God refuses to use our expectations to play out God’s plan. Through this story we are reminded that God uses anyone, and usually the people we don’t expect or want God to, to accomplish God’s purposes.

Scripture Reading Matthew 2:1-12

Sight for Sore Eyes

Reader 12: 	While Jesus was a game changer, there is an obvious disconnect for many. Many simply did not believe it. What kind of Messiah is born in a stable? What kind of Messiah dies? These things just did not make any sense. Even Jesus’ own parents were shocked at some of the things said about him. Jesus was slowly figuring out his role and the people around him were slowly picking up on who he was. The hope is that who he is and what he has done becomes known across the world.  There is purpose that lies in his words. His role is to bring peace and justice to the world and his followers are doing the same. If we want to follow him we can. The hope and prayer of ours should be that all people see the truth and life of Jesus for what it is.  

Scripture Reading Luke 2:25-33

Special Music

The Light Has Come

Reader 13: 	Tonight, is the evening that we ready ourselves for the coming again - to remember and acknowledge Jesus’ birth. We acknowledge it because it was and continues to a game-changing day. Without Jesus, the world has no hope in countering the downward spiral of violence and hate and sin and destruction that we have created and are sitting by watching as it moves on. Left by ourselves we follow the theory that every force should be met with a larger force and every blow with a larger blow. But Jesus steps in and reverses these cyclic systems.  Instead of becoming more powerful, he dies on a cross. Instead of becoming more controlling, he offers a free choice. Now he calls us, to follow him in recreating this world with peace, and justice and love. He calls us to start living in the Kingdom of God here and now. He calls us to participate with him in the reconciliation of all things and bringing the world back to the proper order like in Genesis. He calls us to incarnate this good news of a new kingdom, of a new way of living into every aspect of our lives. The light has finally come. Let us rejoice that Jesus has come and is finally bring hope.

Reflections
The Celebrating and Sharing of Communion 

The Response VU #73 The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy
 
Christmas Resolution

In this birth, there has been a glimpse of the Kingdom. A foretaste, a hint, a promise. Let it hold us, let it send us, so we will never be at peace… until all are fed, until all know home, until all are free, until all are vaccinated, until justice is done, until peace is the way, until grace is law, until love is the rule, until God’s realm comes, until God’s realm comes, until God’s realm comes, and tonight the Kingdom is near.

Closing Carol VU #67 Silent Night, Holy Night

Transitional Minister: Rev. Dr. Arthur Davies  
Music Director: Donald Fraser
Custodian: Andy Gagnon
Office Administrator: Ellen Locke
Web Page: www.trinityclifton.org Email: trinityunited@eastlink.ca
Phone: 902-892-4114 Office Hours: Mon. – Fri., 8:30 am – 4 pm

Tonight’s bulletins are in loving memory of Elsworth Wheatley on the 50th Anniversary of his passing presented by daughter Miriam Wheatley-McGuire.

Thank you to this evening’s readers: Devon Turcotte, Dana Doucette, Joyce Phillips, Bruce Fitchett, and Suzanne Campbell (soloist).

Thank you to all for remembering us during the Christmas season with cards, gifts, and messages filled with good cheer. Happy New Year from Rev. Arthur, Andy, Don, Elliott, Seamus, Luke and Ellen.

Voices United #67 Silent Night, Holy Night

	Silent night! Holy night!
	All is calm, all is bright
	round yon virgin mother and child.
	Holy infant so tender and mild,
	sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.

	Silent night! Holy night!
	Shepherds quake at the sight:
	glories stream from heaven afar,
	heavenly hosts sing Hallelujah,
	Christ the Saviour is born, Christ the Saviour is born.

	Silent night! Holy night!
	Son of God, love's pure light
	radiant beams from thy holy face,
	with the dawn of redeeming grace,
	Jesus, Lord, at thy birth, Jesus, Lord, at thy birth.