Sundays at All Hallows (November 30, 2025)

Welcome to Sundays at All Hallows

This Sunday is Advent Sunday, the first Sunday of Adventide and the first Sunday of the new liturgical year. It is also the fourth Sunday before the Feast of the Nativity, commonly called Christmas Day.

This Sunday’s service follows the structure of the service for a Service of the Word outlined in the Church of Ireland’s The Book of Common Prayer (2004), as did last Sunday’s service.

In this Sunday’ message we unpack the three readings appointed for this Sunday and their implications for Christians of today.

GATHERED IN GOD’S NAME

Open this link in a new tab to hear Todd Marchand’s arrangement of the traditional Welsh melody LLANGLOFFAN for trombone and organ.

The Lord be with you.
The Lord bless you.

Through Christ, let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Hebrews 13:15

Open this link in a new tab to hear Johann Roh’s “Once He Came in Blessing.”

1 Once he came in blessing
all our sins redressing,
came in likeness lowly,
Son of God most holy;
bore the cross to save us,
hope and freedom gave us.

2 Still he comes within us,
still his voice would win us
from the sins that hurt us;
would to truth convert us
from our foolish error
ere he comes in terror.

3 Thus if we have known him,
not ashamed to own him,
nor have spurned him coldly,
but will trust him boldly,
he will then receive us,
heal us, and forgive us.

4 Those who then are loyal
find a welcome royal.
Come then, O Lord Jesus,
from our sins release us;
let us here confess you
till in heav'n we bless you.

Let us confess our sins to God our Father.

Silence

Heavenly Father,
we have sinned against you and against our neighbour
in thought and word and deed,
through negligence, through weakness,
through our own deliberate fault;
by what we have done
and by what we have failed to do.
We are truly sorry and repent of all our sins.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ who died for us,
forgive us all that is past;
and grant that we may serve you in newness of life
to the glory of your name. Amen.

Merciful Lord,
grant to your faithful people pardon and peace,
that we may be cleansed from all our sins,
and serve you with a quiet mind;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Open this link to hear Bruce E. Ford’s setting of “Holy God, Holy and Mighty” (Trisagion).

Holy God
holy and mighty
holy immortal one
have mercy upon us

Holy God
holy and mighty
holy immortal one
have mercy upon us

Holy God
holy and mighty
holy immortal one
have mercy upon us

Let us pray.

Silence

Almighty God,
Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD

A reading from the Book of Isaiah.
Isaiah 2: 1-5

Here is the message which God gave to Isaiah son of Amoz about Judah and Jerusalem:

In days to come
the mountain where the Temple stands
will be the highest one of all,
towering above all the hills.
Many nations will come streaming to it,
and their people will say,
“Let us go up the hill of the Lord,
to the Temple of Israel's God.
He will teach us what he wants us to do;
we will walk in the paths he has chosen.
For the Lord's teaching comes from Jerusalem;
from Zion he speaks to his people.”
He will settle disputes among great nations.
They will hammer their swords into plows
and their spears into pruning knives.
Nations will never again go to war,
never prepare for battle again.

Now, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light which the Lord gives us!

Silence

Open this link in a new tab to hear Marty Haugen’s “Let Us Go Rejoicing” (Psalm 122).

Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.

1 I rejoiced when they said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the LORD.”
And now our feet are standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem.

Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.

2 Jerusalem is built as a city
bonded as one together.
It is there that the tribes go up,
the tribes of the LORD.

Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.

3 For Israelʼs witness it is
to praise the name of the LORD.
There were set the thrones for judgment,
the thrones of the house of David.

Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.

4 For the peace of Jerusalem pray,
“May they prosper, those who love you.”
May peace abide in your walls,
and security be in your towers.

Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.

5 For the sake of my family and friends,
let me say, “Peace upon you.”
For the sake of the house of the LORD, our God,
I will seek good things for you.

Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.

A reading from Paul’s Letter to the Romans.
Romans 13: 11-14

You must do this, because you know that the time has come for you to wake up from your sleep. For the moment when we will be saved is closer now than it was when we first believed. The night is nearly over, day is almost here. Let us stop doing the things that belong to the dark, and let us take up weapons for fighting in the light. Let us conduct ourselves properly, as people who live in the light of day—no orgies or drunkenness, no immorality or indecency, no fighting or jealousy. But take up the weapons of the Lord Jesus Christ, and stop paying attention to your sinful nature and satisfying its desires.

Silence

Open this link in a new tab to hear George Wallace Briggs’ “Christ is the World's True Light.”

1 Christ is the world's true light,
its Captain of salvation,
the Daystar clear and bright
of every land and nation;
new life, new hope awakes,
for all who own his sway:
freedom her bondage breaks,
and night is turned to day.

2 In Christ all races meet,
their ancient feuds forgetting,
the whole round world complete,
from sunrise to its setting:
when Christ is throned as Lord,
all shall forsake their fear,
to plough-share beat the sword,
to pruning hook the spear.

3 One Lord, in one great name
unite us all who own thee;
cast out our pride and shame
that hinder to enthrone thee;
the world has waited long,
has travailed long in pain;
to heal its ancient wrong,
come, Prince of Peace, and reign.

A reading from the gospel according to Matthew
Matthew 24: 36-44

“No one knows, however, when that day and hour will come—neither the angels in heaven nor the Son; the Father alone knows. The coming of the Son of Man will be like what happened in the time of Noah. In the days before the flood people ate and drank, men and women married, up to the very day Noah went into the boat; yet they did not realize what was happening until the flood came and swept them all away. That is how it will be when the Son of Man comes. At that time two men will be working in a field: one will be taken away, the other will be left behind. Two women will be at a mill grinding meal: one will be taken away, the other will be left behind. Watch out, then, because you do not know what day your Lord will come. If the owner of a house knew the time when the thief would come, you can be sure that he would stay awake and not let the thief break into his house. So then, you also must always be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting him.

Silence

“And Christ will come again.”

A quiet, peaceful life may be a universal yearning of the human race, a life untroubled by violence and bloodshed. Archeological findings show that human beings have been waging war on a limited scale for at least 10,000 years, if not longer. Rock paintings depict clashes between rival groups of hunters armed with bows. Skeletons have been excavated with to stone arrowheads, spear points, and knife blades embedded in the bones or skulls crushed or bones broken from a blow with a blunt object. At one site all the skeletons were male, men and boys. Whover had killed them had carried off the women and girls.

The excavation of a rival city to Uruk, a city state in the Sumerian period, roughly from 4100 to 1750 BCE (before the Common Era) revealed that attackers had breached the wall of the city and then burned the city to the ground. Littering the ground outside the city wall were sling projectiles made from sun-hardened clay, both large and small. The large projectiles had been used to break down the city’s walls. The small ones had been used to kill the city’ defenders. The city had been a former trading partner with Uruk. It was on a lucrative trade route which the inhabitants of Uruk coveted for themselves. By destroying the city, they eliminated the middleman and gained direct access to the trade route.

In the ancient Mid-East where war was a too frequent occurrence, the prophesy recorded in today’s lesson from the Book of Isaiah would have resonated with the people of Judah and the inhabitants of its capital, Jerusalem. The northern kingdom of Israel and its capital, Samaria, had fallen to the Assyrians who threated the southern kingdom of Judah. The Assyrians were a warlike people who had a reputation for cruelty to the defeated as well as for ferocity in battle. Their kings were ambitious to add more territory to their empire. Judah and Jerusalem lived in fear of the Assyrians and longed for more peaceful times.

This prophesy also resonated with the early Christians particularly in times of fierce persecution at the hands of the Romans. They associated the prophesy with the second coming of Christ. The prophesy has resonated with subsequent generations of Christians particularly during times of war or civil unrest like our own times.

As we learn from this Sunday’ gospel reading, Jesus told his disciples that he did not know when he would return. Only the Father knew. He instructed them to always be on the watch for his return. It would be sudden and unexpected. They would have no advanced warning. Consequently, they must always be ready. In light of Jesus himself having no knowledge of when he would return, we can safely conclude that his instructions were intended not just for the apostles but also for succeeding generations of his disciples, including ourselves.

Jesus’ return is a core belief of the Christian faith, a belief that Christians affirm when they recite the Apostles’ Creed and say or sing this memorial acclamation, which forms a part of a number of eucharistic prayers, prayers of thanksgiving and consecration offered over the bread and cup at a celebration of Holy Communion, or the Lord’s Supper.

Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.

Drawing their attention to the eventuality of Jesus’ return and the strong possibility of its coming very soon, the apostle Paul urges the Christians at Rome to give serious thought to how they are living. He makes a distinction between living in the daylight and living in the dark. This is an important distinction that he repeats in a number of his letters. Th apostle John also makes a similar distinction in his writing. The apostle Peter writes about being called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light to proclaim the excellencies of God, God’s outstanding qualities, particularly God’s goodness. Paul goes on to urge the believers at Rome to stop paying attention to sinful nature and satisfying its desires.

Paul’s instructions are consistent with Jesus’ instructions to always be ready for his return. Paul repeats his instructions in various ways in his writings, urging believer to put on the new self, to live a life of love as Christ loved them, to be imitators of God as children loved by God, to do good and to shun evil, to walk in the light as children of light. In other words, to live lives that reflect our faith in Jesus Christ and our love for him, lives from which it is clearly evident that we are his disciples.

Jesus will return as he promised. We can trust what he said. In the meantime, it falls to those who are his faithful disciples to fashion and frame their lives upon his teaching and example and to go about the task that he has entrusted to them--to show and share God’s love in the world and to make more disciples. Let it be our prayer and our purpose throughout our lives on this earth that when Christ comes again in glory, he will find his Church faithfully doing what he commanded.

Silence

Open this link in a new tab to hear Trevor Thomson’s arrangement of John Brownlie’s “The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns.”

The King shall come when morning dawns
And light triumphant breaks
When beauty gilds the eastern hills
And life to joy awakes

Not as of old, a little child
To bear and fight and die
But crowned with glory like the sun
That lights the morning sky

O, brighter than the rising morn
When He, victorious, rose
And left the lonesome place of death
Despite the rage of foes

O, brighter than the glorious morn
Shall this fair morning be
When Christ our King in beauty comes
And we His face shall see

The King shall come when morning dawns
And light and beauty brings
Hail Christ the Lord, Thy people pray
Come quickly, King of kings
Come quickly, King of kings

The King shall come when morning dawns
And light and beauty brings
Hail Christ the Lord, Thy people pray
Come quickly, King of kings
Come quickly, King of kings

Let us confess our faith, as we say:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

THE MINISTRY OF PRAYER

Let us pray for all people and for the Church throughout the world.

Almighty God, your Son Jesus Christ has promised that you
will hear us when we ask in faith: receive the prayers we offer.

We pray for the peace of the world and the welfare of your holy Church.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

We pray for our Bishop N, and for all the clergy and people.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

We pray for [Charles our King][…… our President], for the leaders of the nations, and for all in authority.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

[We pray for seasonable weather, and for an abundance
of the fruits of the earth.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.]

[We pray that we may share with justice the resources of
the earth, and live in trust and goodwill with one
another.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.]

We pray for the aged and the infirm, for widows and
orphans, and for the sick and suffering.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

We pray for the poor and oppressed, for prisoners and captives, and for all who care for them.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

We pray for ourselves and for each other.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

We praise you, Lord God, for the communion of saints, and
for the glorious hope of the resurrection to eternal life.

Faithful God,
whose promises stand unshaken through all generations:
renew us in hope,
that we may be awake and alert
watching for the glorious return of Jesus Christ,
our Judge and Saviour,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Accept our prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who taught us to pray,

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,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

Open this link in a new tab to hear Lewis Hensley’s “Thy Kingdom Come, O God.”

1 Thy kingdom come, O God,
thy rule, O Christ, begin;
break with thine iron rod
the tyrannies of sin.

2 Where is thy reign of peace
and purity and love?
When shall all hatred cease,
as in the realms above?

3 When comes the promised time
that war shall be no more,
and lust, oppression, crime
shall flee thy face before?

4 We pray thee, Lord, arise,
and come in thy great might;
revive our longing eyes,
which languish for thy sight.

5 O'er lands both near and far
thick darkness broodeth yet:
arise, O Morning Star,
arise, and never set!

THE SENDING FORTH OF GOD’S PEOPLE

Eternal God and Father, by whose power we are created and
by whose love we are redeemed: guide and strengthen us by
your Spirit, that we may give ourselves to your service, and
live every day in love to one another and to you; through Jesus
Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

[Let us go now in peace to love and serve the Lord.
In the name of Christ. Amen.]