Advent 1 Sunday, 30/11/2025

OPENING SENTENCE OF SCRIPTURE –

I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to God’s house.’ (Psalm 122)

HYMN-

GREETING

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

COLLECT FOR PURITY

Almighty God,
to whom all hearts are open,
all desires known,
and from whom no secrets are hidden:
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love you,
and worthily magnify your holy name;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

SUMMARY OF THE LAW

Our Lord Jesus Christ said: The first commandment is this:

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.”

The second is this: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these. Amen. Lord, have mercy.

CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION

God is love and we are God’s children. There is no room for fear in love. We love because God loved us first.

Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith.

SILENCE

God our Father,
we confess to you
and to our fellow members in the Body of Christ
that we have sinned in thought, word and deed,
and in what we have failed to do.
We are truly sorry.
Forgive us our sins,
and deliver us from the power of evil,
for the sake of your Son who died for us, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

ABSOLUTION

God, who is both power and love,
forgive you and free you from your sins,
heal and strengthen you by the Holy Spirit,
and raise you to new life in Christ our Lord. Amen.

KYRIE
sung by Sue Turner

COLLECT

Stir up your power, Lord, and come:
that, with you as our protector,
we may be rescued from our sins;
and with you as our deliverer,
we may be set free;
for you live and reign with God the Father,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, world without end. Amen

PROCLAIMING & RECEIVING GOD’S WORD

FIRST READING
Isaiah 2.1–5,
read by Gill Swales

¹ The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. ² In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.

³ Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. ⁴ He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

⁵ O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!

SECOND READING
Romans 13.11–14 ,
read by Andrew Ratnam

¹¹ Brothers and sisters, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; ¹² the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; ¹³ let us live honourably as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy.

¹⁴ Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

GRADUAL HYMN

GOSPEL
Matthew 24.36–44,
read by Rev Steven Ballard

Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew Chapter 24, beginning at verse 36

Glory to Christ our Saviour

Jesus spoke to his disciples: ³⁶ ‘About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³⁷ For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, ³⁹ and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. ⁴⁰ Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. ⁴¹ Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.

⁴² Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. ⁴³ But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁴ Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.’
Give thanks to the Lord for his glorious Gospel

Give thanks to the Lord for his glorious Gospel
Praise to Christ our Lord.

SERMON

Advent Sunday: we enter today that season of anticipation, of preparation, of journeying towards our celebration once more of the coming into our world of Jesus – Immanuel, God with us in His love for us, for our world and for all His creation. But this season of Advent is so much more than simply the countdown to our celebration of the Christmas story, our children and grandchildren daily opening the ‘doors’ on their Advent Calendars in ever-increasing excitement as Christmas Day draws near.

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

The prophet Isaiah tells us that “In days to come…” [Is 2 v 2] there will be a time of everlasting peace when “…nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more…” [Is 2 v 4] and so challenges us to “…walk in the light of the Lord!” [Is 2 v 5] And again, in the Epistle that we have read, Paul tells us that “…the night is far gone; the day is near…put on the armour of light…” [Romans 13 v 12] Our Gospel passage points us forward to that time when all things will come together in God, when, in God’s good time, the whole created order will finds its completion in God. In the meantime, we are challenged to prepare and to be ready.

Here is spelled out for us our hope for the future – our Advent Hope. These passages, this hope which is ours, speaks profoundly, I believe, to each one of us and to our world today. We see so much conflict and division in our world. We long for that vision of Isaiah of a world of everlasting peace to be the reality of our world’s experience. And our hope, as Christians, is not some starry-eyed optimism which says that ‘all is well and all will be well’. Our hope must start with the reality of the world as it is, our lives as they are, and so our need and the world’s need of healing and hope. Our hope then is grounded in the reality of God, who is love, whose love is so great for all His creation – and that includes you and me and all that is – that He gives Himself for us – Immanuel, God with us; Jesus, born as we are, living our life, dying on the cross and raised from death. This is the basis of our hope, for this is what God has already done for us and for our world.

So, because of what God has already done, we can look with confidence to that promised future of all things finding their completion, their fulfilment in God. We can journey into God’s future for us and for our world in hope.

But, of course, we can only live in the present, each day as it comes. And the challenge to each one of us is to live each day that we are given in hope, walking in the light of the Lord. And surely that must mean living each day knowing that we are loved, valued and accepted as we are; that God wants the best for us, to love us into the people that He would have us be and become; that He wants to work through us to build His Kingdom of love, justice, peace and hope in the communities of which we are part. Immanuel – God with us, now and always.

Amen.

THE CREED

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
God from God,
Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one substance with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father.
With the Father and the Son,
he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

PRAYERS

Merciful Father accept these prayers for the sake of your Son,
our Saviour Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those
who sin against us.
Do not bring us
to the time of trial
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power
and the glory are yours,
now and forever. Amen.

BLESSING

Christ the Son of God gladden your hearts with the good news of his kingdom; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

HYMN –

DISMISSAL

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord
In the name of Christ. Amen