Coming Home | JOY IS OUR TRUE HOME

Reading Notes

NRSV texts, artwork and Revised Common Lectionary Prayers for this service are available at the Vanderbilt Divinity Library.
Leccionario en Español, Leccionario Común Revisado: Consulta Sobre Textos Comunes.
Lectionnaire en français, Le Lectionnaire Œcuménique Révisé

Calendar Notes

Advent 3: JOY IS OUR TRUE HOME
The color for Advent is either blue or purple. Some congregations choose a pink candle and pink paraments for Advent 3, but this is not strictly necessary nor universally followed. The colors for Advent 4 (December 24 in the morning) remain Advent colors. Christmas colors are white and gold, beginning December 24 after sunset.

For your Planning Team

In the Series

If last week was about settling in, this week is about rejoicing together and going out with joy.

Joy is not happiness. Happiness is fleeting. Joy abides.

Neither is joy in any way a denial of reality, grief, or pain. Rather, it is the “blessed assurance” than enables us to face and endure every form of evil, injustice, and oppression we may encounter in this age as we anticipate and live from the age to come where Christ makes all things new.

So today we rejoice continually; we pray fervently; and we give thanks. And we do so recognizing, with gratitude, that in Christ, God makes it possible for joy to be our true home.

This Week’s After Church/Afternoon Activity: Christmas Caroling

Get out your wassail bowls and figgy pudding to send folks off to an afternoon of caroling in your church’s neighborhood(s), healthcare facilities, homeless shelters, group homes, or, if you can arrange it, jails or prisons. Then come back for an evening of Advent Lessons and Carols at your church, mall, or town square.