All Hallows Evening Prayer for Saturday Evening (October 23, 2021)

 

Evening Prayer

The Service of Light

Jesus Christ is the light of the world.
A light no darkness can extinguish.

Open this link to hear Carl P. Schalk’s choral arrangement “Joyous Light of Glory.”

Joyous light ,
joyous light, of glory
of the immortal Father,
Heavenly, holy, blessed Jesus Christ,
We have come to the setting of the Sun
And we look to the evening light.
We sing to God,
we sing to God,
we sing to God,
we sing to God
the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
You, you are worthy of being praised,
of being praised with pure voices forever.
O Son of God,
O Son of God,
O Son of God,
O Son of God
O Giver of life,
The universe proclaims your glory.

Thanksgiving

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.

Blessed are you, Creator of the universe,
from old you have led your people by night and day.
May the light of your Christ make our darkness bright,
for your Word and your presence are the light of our pathways,
and you are the light and life of all creation.
Amen.

Psalm 141 is sung and incense may be burned.


Open this link in a new tab to hear Psalm 141 from the Lutheran Service Book.

Let my prayer rise before you as incense,
the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

O Lord, I call you; come to me quickly;
Hear my voice when I cry to you.
Let my prayer rise before you as incense,
the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
Set a watch before my mouth, O Lord,
and guard the doors of my lips.
Let my heart not incline to any evil thing;
let me not be occupied in wickedness with evildoers.
But my eyes are turned to you, O God,
in you I take refuge.
Strip me not of my life.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Let my prayer rise before you as incense,
the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

Silence is kept.

May our prayers come before you, O God, as incense, and may your presence surround and fill us, so that in union with all creation, we might sing your praise and your love in our lives. Amen.

The Psalms

Silence is kept.

Open this link to hear Kiran Young Wimberly’s adaptation of Psalm 121, “I Lift My Eyes Up to the Hills.”

I lift my eyes up to the hills
where does my help come from?
I lift my eyes up to the hills
where does my help come from?


My help comes from the Lord above,
the Lord of heaven and earth.
The One who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleeps


[Instrumental interlude]

The Lord who watches over Israel
is your shade at your right hand.
The sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon harm you by night.


The Lord will keep you from all harm;
and will watch over your life.
watch over you as you come and go
now and forevermore.


[Instrumental interlude]

The Lord will keep you from all harm;
and will watch over your life.
watch over you as you come and go
now and forevermore,
now and forevermore.


Silence is kept.

Lord, ever watchful and faithful,
we look to you to be our defense
and we lift our hearts to know your help;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Proclamation of the Word

The Reading

Hebrews 7: 21-28 The Perfect High Priest

This means a “better” hope for us because Jesus has become our priest by the oath of God. Other men have been priests without any sworn guarantee, but Jesus has the oath of him that said of him: ‘The Lord has sworn and will not relent, You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’.

And he is, by virtue of this fact, himself the living guarantee of a “better” agreement. Human High Priests have always been changing, for death made a permanent appointment impossible. But Christ, because he lives for ever, possesses a priesthood that needs no successor. This means that he can save fully and completely those who approach God through him, for he is always living to intercede on their behalf.

Here is the High Priest we need. A man who is holy, faultless, unstained, beyond the very reach of sin and lifted to the very Heavens. There is no need for him, like the High Priest we know, to offer up sacrifice, first for our own sins and then for the people’s. He made one sacrifice, once for all, when he offered up himself.

The Law makes for its High Priests men of human weakness. But the word of the oath, which came after the Law, makes for High Priest the Son, who is perfect for ever!

Silence is kept.

May your word live in us
and bear much fruit to your glory

The Homily

Jesus, a Repairman?!

In the twenty-first century we can no longer presume that everyone knows what a priest is, much less a high priest. A word of explanation is needed. 

A priest is someone who has been trained to perform religious duties in some Christian churches such as the various branches of the Anglican Church, the various branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. A priest may also be someone with particular duties in some other religions.

The historic Jewish religion had priests. They were hereditary. The high priest was the chief priest. The Jewish high priests “belonged to the Jewish priestly families that trace their paternal line back to Aaron, the first high priest of Israel in the Hebrew Bible and elder brother of Moses, through Zadok, a leading priest at the time of David and Solomon.”

Although the modern-day Jewish religion has no priests, only rabbi, or teachers, the lineage of the priestly Jewish families has been preserved. Some Jews look forward to a day when the Temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem and sacrifices will once more be offered to God in the Temple.

Today’s reading from the Letter of the Hebrews draws attention to how Jesus’s office as our High Priest differs from that of the high priests who served in the Temple in Jerusalem. How then does his office differ from theirs?

Jesus was made a priest by the oath of God. Jesus has God’s sworn guarantee. Jesus has God’s promise or assurance, God’s pledge backing him. This means that we have a “better hope.” 

A hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen. It can also mean a feeling of trust. The Jews hoped that what their high priests did would atone for their sins. What Jesus did, accomplished its purpose. It set things right between us and God. We do not have to hope our sins are forgiven. They were forgiven.

Jesus’ appointment to the office of our High Priest is permanent. Jesus lives forever. Jesus is always interceding for us. As the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says, Jesus “can save fully and completely those who approach God through him.” The high priests of the Temple had to repeatedly offer sacrifices for their own sins and the sins of the Jewish people. Since Jesus has offered himself, once and for all time, on the cross, there is no need for anymore sacrifices. Jesus’ offering was the perfect offering.

I believe that it would be helpful at this point to make briefly explain “sin” and “sins.”

Sin is an attitude toward God which is reflected in our thoughts, desires, words, and actions. Sins are the thoughts, desires, words, and actions arising from this attitude. 

Sin is an attitude of willfulness and rebellion toward God. We reject God’s will, or wishes, for us and pursue our own will, or wishes. We put what we want before what God wants. Instead of God exercising supreme authority in our lives, our imagined self exercises that authority.

I say “imagined self” because what we imagine to be our self is not our true self. We do not experience our true self unless we are living in harmony with God. When we are living in harmony with God, God rules in our lives instead of our imagined self. 

If we set great store in being true to ourselves, then we need to let God assume his proper place in our life. One might say that when we rebel against God, we are rebelling against our true self. We will never find the realization of our self that we desire until we enter into a harmonious relationship with God.

Sins are the specific thoughts, desires, words, and actions that may arise from our attitude of willfulness and rebellion against God. They reveal a widening rift in our relationship with God. We are essentially choosing to live in disharmony with God, choosing not to trust his words, and choosing to make the same mistake to which the Old Testament story of Adam and Eve points.

Adam and Eve, the story in the Old Testament tells us, enjoyed a close, intimate relationship with God. They were living in harmony with God, with each other, and all creation. They were experiencing their true selves.

But the serpent encouraged them to not trust what God had said and to desire to become gods themselves, to believe what they were experiencing was less than their true selves. When they disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit, they did not discover their true selves. They did not max their potential. Instead, bam, they lost their true selves and found themselves in an impaired relationship with God.

I am no whiz with computers. I may buy a new laptop, listen to bad advice, make a mistake with the settings, and end up with a laptop that does not do what it is supposed to do. It works too slowly. I experience a host of other problems.

In explaining why we live in a less than perfect world and why human beings treat each other way that they do, the story of Adam and Eve tells us that is what happened to them. They did not follow instructions. Instead, they followed bad advice.

Among the consequences humankind ended up not operating the way that God intended us to operate. God promises Adam and Eve to send a repairman to their descendants.

In the meantime, we have been trying to fix things ourselves but only have made things worse. We had accumulated all kinds of additional problems.

Finally, the repairman arrives. It is Jesus. We learn from Jesus that before our laptop can be reset, it must be wiped of all these problems. He gives us instructions on what we are to do once he has wiped the machine. He then wipes the machine. The way he does it may to our minds be strange and rather painful: he suffers and dies for us on a cross. 

Bingo, our machine is ready to run. All we need to do now is trust Jesus and follow his instruction.

For the Jews the high priests were like inexperienced repairmen, not a God-certified Repairman like Jesus. All the Jews could hope for was a temporary fix.

But we have the Repairman, the God-certified Repairman. We will never need some other repairman. He has wiped away everything that impairs our relationship with God. The machine that we have, ourselves, is just like it is brand new. We are ready to go.

The first step is trust Jesus. The second step is to follow his instructions.

If a problem crops up, we can check his instructions and the places in the older manual that he has highlighted for us.

Jesus has also given us a help number where we can call him. He knows all the problems that we have had and which we may have.

He is now back at the head office, making sure everything is good at his end. 

He is the Man!

If we are struggling to find our true self, the one to whom we can turn for the best guidance is Jesus. Jesus is not just our “better hope. Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life.”

If we want to discover who we really are, we will discover our true self in him. I cannot think of any way of being truer to ourselves than living our lives in harmony with God, with Jesus, with our fellow human beings, with each other, and with the world which God gave us to tend and care for.

Silence is kept.

The Gospel Canticle

Open this link in a new tab to hear Ann Krentz’s choral arrangement of “My Soul Proclaims Your Greatness.”

My soul proclaims your greatness, O Lord;
I sing my Savior’s praise!
Great wonders you have done for me,
and holy is your name.


My soul proclaims your greatness, Lord;
I sing my Savior’s praise!
You looked upon my lowliness,
and I am full of grace.
Now ev’ry land and ev’ry age
this blessing shall proclaim—
great wonders you have done for me,
and holy is your name.

My soul proclaims your greatness, O Lord;
I sing my Savior’s praise!
Great wonders you have done for me,
and holy is your name.


To all who live in holy fear
Your mercy ever flows.
With mighty arm you dash the proud,
Their scheming hearts expose.
The ruthless you have cast aside,
the lonely throned instead;
the hungry filled with all good things,
the rich sent off unfed.

My soul proclaims your greatness, O Lord;
I sing my Savior’s praise!
Great wonders you have done for me,
and holy is your name.


To Israel, your servant blest,
your help is ever sure;
the promise to our parents made
their children will secure.
Sing glory to the Holy One,
give honor to the Word,
and praise the Pow’r of the Most High,
one God, by all adored.

My soul proclaims your greatness, O Lord;
I sing my Savior’s praise!
Great wonders you have done for me,
and holy is your name,
and holy is your name.


Intercessions

Let us complete our evening prayer to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.

For peace from on high and our salvation, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.

For the welfare of all churches and for the unity of the human family, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.

For (name), our bishop, and (name), our pastor, and for all ministers of the Gospel, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.

For our nation, its government, and for all who serve and protect us, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.

For this city (town, university, monastery…). For every city and community, and for all those living in them, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.

For the good earth which God has given us and for the wisdom and will to conserve it, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.

For the safety of travelers, the recovery of the sick, the care of the destitute and the release of prisoners, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.

For an angel of peace to guide and protect us, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.

For a peaceful evening and a night free from sin, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.

For a Christian end to our lives and for all who have fallen asleep in Christ, let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy.

In the communion of the Holy Spirit (and of all the saints), let us commend ourselves and one another to the living God through Christ our Lord.
To you, O Lord.

Free Prayer

In silent or spontaneous prayer all bring before God the concerns of the day.

The Collect

In darkness and in light,
in trouble and in joy,
help us, heavenly Father,
to trust your love,
to serve your purpose,
and to praise your name,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.


The Lord's Prayer

And now, as our Saviour has taught us,
we are bold to say,

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 trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory
for ever and ever.
Amen.


Dismissal

Open this link in a new tab to hear “The Seed Is Christ,” James Quinn’s translation of Seán Ó Riada’s "Ag Críost an síol, ag Críost an fómhar."

The seed is Christ’s, the harvest his
May we be stored within God’s barn
The sea is Christ’s, the fish are his
May we be caught within God’s net
From birth to age, from age to death
Enfold us Christ within your arms
Until the end the great rebirth
Christ be our joy in paradise


The Lord be with you.
The Lord bless you.
Let us praise the Lord,
Thanks be to God.


May God, Creator, bless us and keep us,
may Christ be ever light for our lives,
may the Spirit of love be our guide and path,
for all of our days. Amen.

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