Christmas Eve Liturgy — 2010

Charlotte Christian Reformed Church Christmas Liturgy 2010
*–Congregation Stands

Prelude – Miss Rachel Bacon

*Call to Worship Psalm 98
1Oh sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done marvelous things!
His right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
2The LORD has made known his salvation;
he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.
3He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.
4 Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
5Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre,
with the lyre and the sound of melody!
6With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the LORD!
7 Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the world and those who dwell in it!
8Let the rivers clap their hands;
let the hills sing for joy together
9before the LORD, for he comes
to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.

Invocation

Benevolent Father we gather to offer up praise for sending forth, out of your great compassion for your name, the Redeemer and Savior of humanity, who, as your only begotten Word, was conceived by thy Spirit and born of a virgin. We exalt you O Sovereign God for providing Jesus as your reconciliation. We confess that we did not deserve your tender mercies and so we humbly exalt you that in the sending forth of Christ you are forever just and justifier unto those who have faith in Jesus – who you named “Jehovah is Salvation.” We thank you now that you have gathered with us to honor the incarnation of the Second person of the Trinity. Remind us, that even now, we are in your presence. Grant us thy Spirit to honor your name in our worship. — In Christ’s name we pray … Amen.

Special Music — Christian Timmis & Gary Douma – Cantique Noel

Creedal Affirmation – Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day XIV (pg. 28 Psalter)

Christmas Worship

Brothers and Sisters our Psalter’s Church Order informs us that “Worship services shall be held in observance of Christmas” as well as other high days on the Church calendar. The conducting and attendance of such worship provide one objective marker for us as well as those outside of the faith that we are a Christian people. By the conducting and attendance of such services we testify to all who have eyes to see that our understanding and celebrating of Christmas is distinct from the modern pagan who is reduced, at best, to singing Christ-less Winter Carols and to celebrating seasonal rituals that have no eternal meaning because they are not anchored to anything eternal. Mirth, Merriment, Large gathering of family accompanied with food, fun and festivity on 25 December makes little sense apart from the birth of God’s reconciliation with man.

By the marking of such days as Christmas for worship the ebb and flow of our whole lives, year in and year out, are Christ formed and Christ shaped by a calendar itself formed by Christ. Finally, our gathering gives us one more opportunity to publicly placard Christ as the only hope for the weary, the heavy laden, the alienated and the Christian.
On this Christmas Eve then, we gather together once more as Christians have done for centuries, and as the ever swelling numbers of newly converted will continue to do until our Lord Christ shall return. We do so to mark the birth of our Lord Christ and to together offer up praise that he made Himself of no reputation in order to glorify the Father, save His people from their sins, and to lead them from triumph unto triumph until the Kingdoms of this world increasingly become the Kingdoms our Lord. In keeping with the purpose of our gathering let us confess our undoubted Catholic Christian faith

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost;
the holy catholic church;
the communion of saints;
the forgiveness of sins;
the resurrection of the body;
and the life everlasting.

Amen.

Prayer

Benevolent and Sovereign Father, we thank thee for thy eternal covenant that predestined the coming of your Messiah for the redemption of the world. We thank thee that thou promised the Messiah upon mankind’s rebellion to reverse the effects of our treason. We exalt thee that thou deigned to gain your victory by crushing the serpent’s head and by overturning his Kingdom. We are humbled Father by how you ordered redemptive history so that coming of Christ was articulated by the patriarchs and prophets who spoke of the coming of your Messiah. We thank thee for all in Holy Scripture that limned the coming of Christ and we thank you that after ordering history for the coming of thy eternal Son in the fullness of time our Lord Christ came as one born under the law.

Father, we come humbly before to thank you for your faithful Church – that ark of Christ – which was guided by your Holy Spirit to embrace the full divinity and humanity of Christ while affirming his singular person. We thank you for your faithful Church that continues to speak Christ to us today and we ask of you Father that you would continue to build up your faithful Church so that future generations will have the nativity of Christ set before them in all its saving splendor that thy name may be honored among men. In the name of Jesus Christ our Savior, who taught us to pray, saying,

Our Father, who art in heaven: Hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

*Hark The Herald Angels Sing Brown Hymnal 184

Old Testament Reading – Isaiah 52:7-10

Special Music — Of The Father’s Love Begotten – Christian Timmis

New Testament Reading – John 1:1-18

*Come Thou Long Expected Jesus Brown Hymnal 168

Epistle Reading – Hebrews 1:1-6

Greensleeves – Brown 180

Offering General Fund

Offertory — Bacon Strings – Linda, Rachel & Sarah Bacon

Offertory Thanksgiving Adapted from the Book of Common Worship, 1906

O most merciful and gracious God, from whose open hand we all have received much: We ask you to accept this offering of your people. Remember in your love those who have brought it. Remember also those persons and purposes for which it is given. So follow this sacrifice with your blessing that it may promote peace and good will, and advance the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen!

Special Music – Anna McAtee, Rachel Bacon – Joy To The World

Homily

*Silent Night (Candle Light) 195 Brown Hymnal 316

*Benediction 2 Corinthians 13:14

What I learned at School today

A poster spied in a prominent place in a local elementary school,

Diversity

D – Different
I – Individuals
V – Valuing
E – Each other
R – Regardless of
S – Skin
I – Intellect
T – Talent or
Y – Years

I offer a couple modest revisions

Diversity

D — Dumb-arse
I — Idea
V — Voiding
E — Effort and
R — Resulting in
S — Students
I — Incapable of
T — Thinking or
Y — Yearning to be free

D — Dumbed-down
I — Intellect and a
V — Vice
I — Establishing
R — Ruination
S — Sameness
I — Idiocy
T — Totalitarianism and
Y — Yankees

Leave your own new Diversity poster in the comments section.

Abortion and the creation of demand

A abortion center can open and pay for itself in its first month and be a profit center every month after that. The slaughter of the unborn is a HUGE money making enterprise for those who operate and own the the clinics.

In order to drive demand for their product (abortions) the practitioners and owners of the clinics will go to schools and sell abortions to teens through the means of selling safe sex. The goal of the death merchants is 3-5 abortion per teenage girl between the ages of 13-18.

The whole family planning and sex education that is found in the schools around the nation facilitates the demand for abortion. Teaching children the hows of sex significantly spikes sexual activity among children.

Low dose birth control pills are often distributed knowing that young girls will not follow the precise instructions. The young girls, not following the precise instructions, increase their sexual activity having a false confidence in the birth control pills that they are given. The combination of increased sexual activity and a lack of precision necessary in taking the birth control pills results in increased pregnancy rates. Increased pregnancy rates helps the abortion industry reach its goal of each female having having 3-5 abortions between the ages of 13-18 thus staying profitable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1JhTJ00b_A&feature=related

What Do They Teach Those Kids At School

From a book written for teachers of preschoolers,

http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Heroes-Holidays-Multicultural-Development/dp/1878554174/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1292595152&sr=1-1-spell

This is paraphrased,

Daycare staff should re-write children’s books. The story of the three pigs and the big bad wolf is racist. The story implies that European brick houses are superior to third world straw and stick houses. The way to eliminate this racist narrative is to change the story so that we have a elephant instead of a big bad wolf. (Of course everyone knows how delicious pork is to an elephant — but never-mind [BLM].)Instead of a big bad wolf blowing down a house thus revealing the inferiority of third world dwellings, you could have an elephant spraying water. The straw and stick houses are thus seen as superior because the Elephant can’t spray his water high enough to reach those houses which are built on stilts. The European house is seen as inferior because it floods with the Elephants torrential water spray.

Interacting w/ R. Scott Clark On A Religious Liberty Issue

R. Scott Clark wrote on Heidelblog,

One might not have expected this Department of Justice to be advocating on behalf of religious liberty and one might not look at this case as good news but arguably one might be wrong.

The Department of Justice is suing a school district in the west suburbs of Chicago for refusing to allow a Muslim teacher to make a three-week pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca. Before you roll your eyes or moan about the growing cultural influence of Muslims in North America consider this: how might this case affect sabbath-keeping Christians?

First, religious liberty is what God says religious liberty is. Does God call it religious liberty to allow the growth, promulgation, and approval of ant-Christ religions “liberty”? Does the God of the Bible think it is a good idea to give Allah equal time and equal consideration with Himself?

So, I question Scott’s premise that what is being advocated here is, by God’s standard, religious liberty.

Second, religious liberty has always been the pretext that is used by a religion in the ascendancy to insure that the present ascendant religion won’t snuff out it’s progress in replacing the currently ascendant religion. For example, Christianity was once the ascendant religion in these united States but by the use of the mantra of “religious liberty” humanism, as the ascending religion, has replaced Christianity as the ascendant religion.

This work by the Obama administration to invoke religious liberty on the behalf of Islam, it could be argued, is a small stepping stone on the way to America becoming Sharia compliant. Don’t laugh. Twenty five years ago could one have predicted the Muslim influence in Western Europe?

Third, note here though the God that is the god to which Scott is turning. It is the god that is the State who is going to determine whether or not Allah’s subjects will be allowed to be obedient. Scott apparently finds it good news that the State will be the god of the gods determining how seriously the subjects of the respective gods will take the requirements of their gods. This reveals, once again, that there is no religious liberty in this country that is not consistent with the demands of the god of the public square … i.e. — The State. For Scott, it is hard to see how it is not the case that we live and move and have our being in the State.

R. Scott Clark writes,

“One of the great challenges of being a Christian in a post-Christian culture is the challenge of the sabbath. If the Barna studies from a few years back are accurate, that only about 10% of Americans really attend church weekly and only 50% of those attend twice weekly, then it seems likely that most Americans have never actually met anyone who observes the Christian sabbath as prescribed by the Westminster Standards. In such a case the traditional, confessional Reformed approach to the Christian sabbath is likely to lack plausibility in a 24/7 culture.”

First, I’m pretty sure that R2Kt doesn’t believe in such a thing as Christian culture. If that is true then there is no way that I can understand what Scott means when he say’s “post-Christian.” If it is not possible, by R2Kt standards, for a culture to be Christian than how can R2Kt adherents write in terms of “post-Christian?” Does Scott’s statement that we are in a post-Christian culture mean that he admits that there is such a thing as Christian culture?

Second, my biggest problem in the above blocked paragraph is a subtle underlying assumption beneath the idea of being a Christian in a post-Christian culture. This underlying assumption seems to be that it is possible for a culture to be post-Christian without being explicitly something else. All cultures are dependent upon a faith in order to give definition to a culture. So, since this is true, if a culture is post-Christian that means it is currently pinned on some other belief system. I would argue that we are in a post-Christian culture that is pinned on the faith of religious humanism (forgive the redundancy) that still retains a ever decreasing Christian memory. However, I do think there is a desire by some to broaden the influence of Islam, as this pursuit of the Justice department indicates.

R. Scott Clark writes,

“It is certainly true that Christians committed to Reformed sabbath observance face considerable pressure from their employers to work on Sunday. Supreme Court rulings on this are mixed. In Sherbert v Verner (1963) the court overturned the Supreme Court of South Carolina in favor of a Seventh-Day Adventist who was denied unemployment benefits because she was unable to work on Saturday. One might note it was Justice Brennan who wrote the majority opinion. In Thorton v Caldor (1985), however, the court held that a private employer who opened his business on Sunday (after the laws requiring businesses to close on Sunday were revised). Thornton was a Presbyterian who invoked a Connecticut law that states:

No person who states that a particular day of the week is observed as his Sabbath may be required by his employer to work on such day. An employee’s refusal to work on his Sabbath shall not constitute grounds for his dismissal.”

It is my conviction that Scott is mistaken to try and extrapolate this Justice department pursuit of Muslim “equity” to mean that Christians might be treated better in regards to sabbath observance. I believe this is a mistake because I don’t believe that there exists a social order that does not favor the religion that of which it is the incarnation. The fact that the Justice department is pursuing “equity” for Muslims, in my estimation, should be extrapolated to be seen as an open door to greater Muslim influence and Hegemony vis-a-vis Christianity and definitely not the harbinger of greater freedom for Christians. It is my conviction that such a pursuit by the Holder Justice Department for Hagjj for school teachers portends not promising consequences for Christians but rather further casting Christianity into the brackish backwaters of the social order.

R. Scott Clark wrote,

“Nevertheless, Justice Burger, who wrote the majority opinion, held that Thornton was protected from infringement by the state but not by a private employer.

Some observations:

# It’s interesting that an ostensibly “liberal” justice wrote in favor of religious liberty and an ostensibly “conservative” justice has arguably written against the interests of religious liberty (in favor of the interests commercial liberty?). Did the founders envision that an employer would have a right to require employees to work 7 days a week? Probably not. Did the founders envision the sort of no-holds barred market capitalism that has developed in the modern period? Probably not. Did they imagine that there would be conflict between religious liberty and commercial interests? I don’t know but a society necessarily expresses some hierarchy of values in legislation and court rulings and those rulings and laws occur on some basis. Which is a higher value for a society? Religious liberty or freedom of commerce? Late modern society has restricted freedom of commerce in other instances. Since 1964 a business cannot refuse to serve customers based on the color of the customers’ skin. That’s a limit and a hierarchy of values. I’ve argued before, in that case, private property seems also to be infringed and that could be a detriment to religious freedom.

First, I’m glad Scott called a SCOTUS Justice who voted in favor of Roe vs. Wade, and who authored the Court’s opinion upholding the right of trial judges to order busing as a remedy for school segregation, and who by his infamous “Lemon Test” drove Christianity out of the public square, “ostensibly conservative.” Warren Burgher was no conservative.

Second, it is not surprise at all that a liberal Justice would vote in favor of religious liberty because the intent of such votes has always been to dilute the influence of Christianity and to dismantle the remnants of a Christian social order. We are post-Christian, in part, because of liberal Justices voting for “religious liberty.”

Third, Scott wrote something very interesting in that above blocked paragraph that needs to be isolated and examined.

a society necessarily expresses some hierarchy of values in legislation and court rulings and those rulings and laws occur on some basis.

And the “some basis” is a people’s religion, whether explicitly or implicitly stated. The fact that somebody was required to work on the Sabbath was not primarily a “commercial interest,” as Scott tries to sell, but rather it was, at its foundation, a religious interest on the part of employer to require the employee to work. The employer’s religious interest in making the employee work was so that the employer could better serve his god (Mammon). And what is really interesting here is that Scott seems to believe that the “religious liberty” of the employer to require the employee to work on the Sabbath is less important than the “religious liberty” of the employee to not want to work on the Sabbath. This is an example of how one can’t grant “religious liberty” to one group without taking them from somebody else.

When looked at this manner, it is easy to see that it is never a matter of choosing “commercial interests” over “religious interests” as Scott posits but instead always a matter of choosing which religious interests of different people will be given hegemony. The school teacher has religious interests in going on Hajj. The School teachers employer has religious interests in making sure she works. Now, we don’t typically frame it this way but if one were to get to the nub of the matter we would see this as a contest between the gods.

R. Scott Clark wrote,

“# It’s also interesting that the Obama Justice Department is pursuing this case. Some cultural-religious-Christian conservatives may see this move as an attempt to further advance a “Muslim agenda” in the USA. Perhaps but, depending on the outcome, it may also yield benefits to Christians who want to work but who also want to observe a weekly sabbath. If the courts rule that Muslims have a right to take unpaid leave to go on a Hajj then might not Christians also be granted the right to take unpaid leave to observe the Sabbath? This possibility raises the question of whether Christians are willing to place their religious commitments above their commercial and financial commitments. Would Christians take that deal?”

It is my conviction that it would be most unwise for anyone to see this as anything but a revelation of the mindset of the Obama administration to advance a Muslim agenda. Scott, assumes that his version of “religious pluralism” will prevail but no other religion suffers from the weakness of thinking that it has to play fair with the adherents of religions that are contrary to the one that is informing the prevailing social order. As Scott himself has noted, we are living in a post-Christian culture, and one of the dynamics of a post-Christian culture is that Christians aren’t treated even-handily. The fact that Muslims are given unpaid time off to go on to Hajj will not translate into employers being required to give Christians unpaid Sabbath leave anymore then it being criminal to cause a woman to miscarry by assault and battery is translated into it being criminal to abort a viable baby. One set of laws that would seemingly imply another set of laws often don’t go together.

Now the question that Scott ends with in the blocked quote above reduces down to, “Will the Christian accept the honoring of false gods in their culture if it means that they can honor, without consequence, the true God.” If Christians work on the sabbath it is not because their commercial or financial interests are above their religious interests but rather it is because their true religious interests are above their stated religious interests. The fact that they might be bribed to gain the opportunity to practice their stated religious interests at the price of allowing the religious interests of false gods to prevail is to add the insult of making room for false gods in the social order to the injury of doing something (work on the Sabbath) that they say they are against.

Overall, Scott’s main problem is he keeps wanting to compartmentalize. Religious interests are compartmentalized from financial interests or commercial interests but at bottom all interests are religiously motivated interests.

R. Scott Clark wrote,

“Look, you can have Sundays off but we’re not going to close on Sundays and I have to hire someone to take your place so you’ll have to take unpaid leave on Sundays.

# This isn’t exactly spoiling the Egyptians but maybe in between the times this is the best for which we can expect, an unexpected blessing? Will Reformed Christians be prepared to capitalize (pun intended) on this opportunity or has our piety and practice become indistinguishable from generic American Protestant mainliners and evangelicals?

One thing that is sure is that this is the best that an amillennialist can expect. If Reformed people really believed that they shouldn’t work on the Sabbath then it wouldn’t take the allowance of the honoring of false gods as incentive for them to actually do what they said they believed.

Religious pluralism is a myth. The sooner people like Scott learn this the sooner we will have a higher best to expect.