Anticipating Advent: Liturgical Resources
Loren McGail
The seasons of Advent and Christmas are saturated with sentimental images: sweet baby Jesus, Mary meek and mild, the town of Bethlehem lying still and unperturbed. Familiar hymns, like Phillip Brooks’ “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” beloved by many, have created and continue to reinforce these images, while belying the brutal colonial context into which Jesus was born and the resistance that the injustices perpetrated by imperial rule provoked and required.
Under Israel’s apartheid rule, the current reality in the streets of Bethlehem, in Jenin, and throughout the West Bank is similarly brutal. This year, for example, the Israeli army has been engaged in “Operation Break the Wave,” a massive military campaign in the West Bank. The intent? To quash Palestinian resistance to Israel's oppression. Since the beginning of October alone, Israeli forces have killed at least 10 Palestinians.
The injustices -- dispossession, racism, military domination, denial of human rights and dignity – rampant in present day Palestine, are of course here in our own country, and were there in Jesus’ day as well. The flight into Egypt was a direct response to state sanctioned, life-threatening violence. Such injustice is the ‘through line,’ the connecting thread over time of realities, for which Mary’s Magnificat and the Advent themes of hope, peace, joy, and love are faith’s radical and requisite response.
In anticipation of Advent, UCC PIN will be offering some liturgical resources. Our first offering is the prayer below by Loren McGrail, for Advent I, incorporating themes from the Matthew 24:36-44 Gospel lesson for that Sunday.
Coming soon: an Advent ritual, for each of the four Sundays, that can be used for congregational worship and at home.
Prayer for Advent One, 2022
Come Human One, advent our lives.
Come like a thief in the night and disturb
our sleep, our comfortable realities that say
you can have peace without justice,
that say taking someone else’s land or life is not our concern,
that says it is okay to violate human rights,
to break international laws.
Break into our lives, Son of Man,
challenge our certainties,
make us vulnerable to the urgency of your Call
for a new Jerusalem, a Beloved Community here and now
in this place where the streets still run with the blood of the martyrs,
in this place all call holy, all call home.
Help us, unexpected One, to become insomniacs
to keep awake, alert, and watchful
for the ways that your coming can be thwarted, obscured, or denied
by theologies that privilege certain groups as Chosen,
by peace processes that deny the right of return,
that don’t demand the freezing of settlement building,
or walls that separate and divide.
Christ the thief, come take away our fears and insecurities.
Prepare our hearts, our minds, our spirits
for your indwelling presence,
your incarnation as a baby, a refugee,
our brother, our redeemer.
May we become uneasy and alive,
unafraid and able to hear angels announcing or singing.
May we become your advent lights
of hope, peace, faith, and love.
