Ardoch Parish Church & Blackford Parish Church

Sunday 27th December 2020

27th December Order of Service 1

Download a copy of the Order of service

Our minister, Rev Mairi Perkins welcomes everyone

to this joint Service with Blackford

Last Sunday was sadly Blackford’s last service in their Church because of further Covid restrictions.

  We will enjoy worshiping with them for the next two Sundays. 

3rd January will be a live Joint Zoom meeting and the following Sunday 10th will be conducted and recorded by Gordon Roy.

Our First Hymn: Brightest and Best

of the sons of the morning

Brightest and Best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness and lend us Thine aid;
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.

Cold on His cradle the dewdrops are shining;
Low lies His head with the beasts of the stall;
Angels adore Him in slumber reclining,
Maker and Monarch and Saviour of all!

Vainly we offer each ample oblation,
Vainly with gifts would His favour secure;
Richer by far is the heart’s adoration,
Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.

Brightest and Best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness and lend us Thine aid;
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.

Words: Reginald Heber © Public Domain
Music: © 1987 Jon Seccombe, (Admin. by Arndell Reighton Press)

Prayer of Adoration and Confession

Slowly and sleepily we come to you today, O God.
Christmas, for better or for worse,
is behind us for another year.

We are variously glad to have experienced it,
and glad that it is over.
Disappointing or fulfilling,
the same as usual or strangely different,
surrounded by family, happily or painfully alone,

Christmas is past. The festival is over.
As we breathe a sigh of satisfaction or relief,
we stop to think what happens now.

Christmas may be over, but incarnation is not.
The mysterious presence, the divine spirit
that confronted people all those years ago
in Jesus, is here with us still—
always has been, always will be.

You are Emmanuel, God with us,
and having glimpsed you once,
we can never be the same again.
Loving God, it was not the people like us—
religious, respectable—who recognised you
when you came before.

May we not miss you this time.
May we learn from this ancient story
where you are most likely to be found:
not among royalty, but with the refugees;
not in the centre, but on the margins,
with those whom people like us,
are most likely to overlook.

Forgive us if we have been dazzled
by the qualities that don’t matter
and discounted the things that do;
if we have written someone off
because they were too old;
or not taken them seriously
because they were too young.
If we have not had the patience
to listen carefully to someone speaking
with a foreign accent,
or to speak more clearly for someone
whose hearing was poor.

O God, how easy it is to judge
without even knowing that we are doing so,
and how much poorer we are if we do.
We miss out on learning from one another;
we miss out on meeting with you.

God, who sees the amazing potential
in every person you have made,
help us to look with your eyes
on every person that we meet.
May we be astonished every single day
as we look in the mirror,
or in the eyes of friend or stranger,
and see you there, God with us, Immanuel.

Amen.

Michael Boxer reads

from

Matthew Chapter 2 v 1-23

Hymn: As with Gladness men of old

As with gladness men of old,
Did the guiding star behold,
As with joy they hailed its light,
Leading onward, beaming bright;
So, most gracious Lord, may we
Evermore be led to Thee!

As with joyful steps they sped,
Saviour, to Thy lowly bed;
There to bend the knee before
Thee, whom heaven and earth adore.
So may we with willing feet
Ever seek the mercy seat.

As they offered gifts most rare
At the manger, rude and bare;
So may we with holy joy,
Pure and free from sin’s alloy,
All our costliest treasures bring,
Christ, to Thee, our heavenly King.

Holy Jesus, every day
Keep us in the narrow way;
And when earthly things are past,
Bring our ransomed souls, at last,
Where they need no star to guide,
Where no clouds Thy glory hide.

In the heavenly country bright
Need they no created light;
Thou its light, its joy, its crown,
Thou its sun which goes not down;
There for ever may we sing
Hallelujahs to our King!

Words & Music: Conrad Kocher, William Chatterton Dix © Public Domain

Reflection on The Three Wise Men

Let us pray for others and ourselves

God of new life, and old lives;
God of fleeting, human life and of eternal life,
we see all of life coming together
in a sacred moment witnessed only
by a young couple, two aged saints,
and a child full of hope and promise.

We give thanks for the inclusiveness
of this story, and of your concern for those
whom we so often undervalue,
or simply fail to notice:
the very old and the very young;
the ordinary and seemingly unremarkable ones.

They are not invisible to you, and must not be to us
if we are to follow in the footsteps
of the child whose birth we have just celebrated;
the man whom the powerful rejected
and the poor received gladly;
the one who noticed us, and showed us our worth,
and enables us to do the same for others.

Gracious God, this is not a story
about powerful heroes, but vulnerable ones:
the very old and the very young.
We pray for our children and our old people
(for ourselves, if that’s who we are).

May they know kindness from those
on whom they depend for care.
May they not be overlooked.
May they be valued, not for what they once were
or what some day they will be,
but for who they are now.

May their wisdom be sought, their gifts values
and their stories heard.
We pray for new parents in these strange
and troubling times; for grandparents
separated from their grandchildren;
friends unable to meet as they would like to;
and for those who consider them lucky
because they have no-one close,
or are estranged from those who once were.

We pray for children who have never known
the security that Jesus had from loving parents;
for those who have reached old age
without their prayers being answered
or their dreams fulfilled.

We pray for any who, like Mary, have known
the heart-piercing joy of loving another human being
so much that the thought of any harm coming to them
is far worse than being hurt themselves.

God, who loves us with that kind of love,
multiplied more times than we can calculate,
hold us in your arms, we pray,
with gladness and a song of praise,
and a promise of good things yet to be.

Amen.

Our closing hymn: Love came down at Christmas

Love came down at Christmas,
love all lovely, Love divine;
Love was born at Christmas;
star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, Love divine;
worship we our Jesus,
but wherewith for sacred sign?

Love came down at Christmas,
love all lovely, Love divine;
Love was born at Christmas;
star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, Love divine;
worship we our Jesus,
but wherewith for sacred sign?

Benediction