Welcome
Bring your family’s advent wreath to the center of your gathering. Make sure you have matches or a lighter.
One: Our first week we lit the Advent candle that reminded us of God’s promises during this special season.
(light the candle from the first week)
Our second week we lit the Advent candle that invited us to proclaim the coming of Jesus.
(light the candle from the second week)
Our third week we lit the Advent candle that invited us to praise God for the coming of Jesus our Messiah, Savior and…
(light the candle for the third week)
Our fourth week we lit the Advent calendar that invited us to rejoice in knowing
All: Emmanuel, God with us.
(light the candle from the fourth week)
One: Our circle reminds us of God’s unending love and presence.
All: Emmanuel, God with us.
One: The evergreens to remind us the hope we find in Jesus is eternal.
All: Emmanuel, God with us.
One: The four candles mark the four weeks of joy and anticipation as we ready our hearts and lives for the babe in the manger and the coming of Christ again.
All: Emmanuel, God with us.
One: The candles remind us that Jesus is the light of the world.
All: Emmanuel, God with us.
One: Four candles are blue or purple as a reminder to prepare for Jesus’ coming.
All: Emmanuel, God with us.
One: One candle is white, in the center of our wreath, a symbol for the purity of Jesus
All: Emmanuel, God with us.
One: Tonight, we light the center candle and give thanks for the love of God made known to us in
All: Emmanuel, God with us.
(light the center candle)
God sightings and prayer offerings
Invite each person to share where they saw or experienced God this week. Invite each person to share something – a person, community, experience, event, etc. – for which they want to offer prayer.
Good and gracious God, we thank you for all the ways you were and are present in our lives and in the world … [Invite each person to say aloud the sighting they named earlier.] We bring our prayers to you, prayers for … [Invite each person to say aloud the prayer need they named earlier.]. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.
Connecting with Scripture — Luke 2:1-20
Read the Scripture aloud the first time using the New Revised Standard Version or the Common English Bible.
If you have a nativity set in your home, remove all the characters except the basic structures and an empty manger. Then, as the text is read a second time add each character to the scene as they appear in the telling of the story. If you do not have a nativity set in your home, ask each person to select a character from the story, and when the story is read a second time have each person take their place in the scene creating an embodied nativity.
Connecting through story
Listen to the story of Jesus’ birth as told by children (and acted by adults.)
- How is this telling of the birth of Jesus different (or similar) to the Scripture?
- Why is it important that we be able to tell the story of Jesus’ birth in our own voices and way?
Connecting with our lives
Engage in dialogue
- Why do we tell this story every year?
- If you could put yourself in the story, where would you be, who would you be and why?
- Why do you think God chose to come into the world as a baby? In a stable?
- What were Mary and Joseph’s responsibilities once Jesus was born and throughout his life?
- Why do you think God chose to be born into a family?
- What does it mean to be humble?
- Why would the Creator of the whole universe, and all that is in it, choose to come in such a humble way?
- What does this teach us about God?
- How did this act of self-giving love, the birth of our Savior Jesus, change the world?
- How does the gift of Jesus live beyond this one night a year?
- In what ways do honor this gift, the life-giving birth of God in Jesus Christ, throughout the year?
Teaching points that can be incorporated into your discussion
- Tonight, we celebrate the amazing gift of God with us — Emmanuel.
- God chose to enter this world by humble means and in a humble way. God, whose majesty is beyond comprehension and whose power is unsurpassed, chose to come through the most common human experience – birth – and in the most vulnerable form — a baby. God, in Jesus the Christ, became dependent upon humans for care, nurture, shelter and raising. What an amazing gift of trust.
- God did not come as a foundling or appear full-grown but rather God chose to be born in a family.
- God began as God intended to continue – in family, in community, connected to others — in relationship. God, as we see in the Trinity, places high value on the relational nature of being.
- God’s advent and incarnation were witnessed to and attended by a community — shepherds, wise men, angels and all creation. Thus, God’s salvation, grace and love is witnessed to and shared by all communities — our families, our neighborhoods, all countries, and the world.
- God could have come as a great king or a mighty political leader and yet God came in a manner that connected with our human reality — to understand us better, to know at the deepest level what we feel, and to demonstrate there is no place and no experience that is separate from or alien to God.
- As the sacred Christmas hymn says, “Joy to the World, the Lord is come,” and our world is filled with laughter, love and relationships with all their rough edges and blended hearts. We give thanks, during this Christmas season, for the potential and the possibility that the reality of the Christ child brought and brings and will continue to bring.
- The gift of Christmas is not a single event or one particular day that ends at 11:59 p.m. on December 25. It is a gift that reverberates throughout all of creation and through all of time. It is a gift we embody in everything we do and who we are as we reflect God’s living presence and love.
Join together in singing “Joy to the World” on your own or with this video.
Prayer
Close your time together by praying for one another, your neighbor, community and the world. Extinguish the candles.
