Our Music Director Terry Shaw, Trudy Hoy, and Pastor Beth-Utto Galarneau have written a service for St. Mark to use during the Advent season, “The Advent of Love.” With Terry’s music, Terry’s and Trudy’s words, and Pastor Beth’s liturgy and prayers, we anticipate celebrating the Advent season with this gift, offered in love! Worship with our new Advent Vespers service takes place on Wednesdays, December 4, 11, and 18 at 6:30pm in the Parish Hall. A potluck supper precedes the service at 5:45pm.
The vespers service begins with, “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord,” as Isaiah and John the Baptist declared. Terry added music to their words. Trudy and Terry added words to the verses. “Make straight our crooked pathways, forgive our faltering steps. Make the rough ground level.” And what can our feet do then? Dance! “Our feet will join in the dance!” What other parts of us can join in the dance? Of course, our voices, our hearts, our very lives join in the dance.
The story of Jesus, God’s coming into the world, and God bringing us into this story of love is too much to understand, too much to comprehend. Yet God calls to us to be a part of this love. The phrase, “This is a story beyond all stories, beyond all that we understand” is the opening line and becomes a familiar phrase in the song “Advent of Love.” “Advent of Love” remembers the ancient voices proclaiming the birth of a child and the angel voices that sang the night of Jesus’ birth. They sang “Glory to God in the highest.” The next verse includes us. “We still long to hear the story.” Yet it’s difficult because of the burdens of life, “our minds are weary, and our hearts are heavy.” But we hear the angels’ voices singing this night, their song from above. “And they sing Glory to God in the highest.” The third verse brings us into the advent of love. “We long to live the story, the story of love.” We experience the love, we share love, love becomes us. And with great awe and reverence we too sing with the angels, “Glory to God in the highest and peace to all people on earth.”
“Love Is” our response to this ongoing advent of God in our lives. Think of all the examples of what love is. This song only highlights a few. Add your examples as you sing this song on your way through God’s world, since “We are God’s hands, we are God’s feet, we are Love’s living heartbeat.”
There will be time before the service for the congregation to offer prayers written on a piece of paper. These prayers will be gathered and offered up silently during the service. The Lord’s Prayer is sung responsively by the leaders and the congregation. Prayers and spoken messages lead us through to the end when “Glory to God” and “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord” are again sung with joy and excitement by all.