Service Sheet: Sunday 25th December 2022

ST. MICHAEL & ALL ANGELS’ CHURCH, HELENSBURGH  

Charity Registered in Scotland SC006468 

Christmas Day

INTROIT HYMN 107 (Omit vv2-4) Christians, awake!

COLLECT

O God, who wonderfully created and yet more wonderfully restored the dignity of our human nature: grant that we may share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

OLD TESTAMENT READING

Isaiah 52. 7-10
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’ Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices, together they sing for joy; for in plain sight they see the return of the Lord to Zion. Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem; for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

GRADUAL HYMN 254 (Omit vv3,4) God rest you merry, gentlefolk

GOSPEL

John 1. 1-14

The Word Became Flesh

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

OFFERTORY HYMN 559 O little town of Bethlehem 

COMMUNION HYMN 782 Unto us a boy is born

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

Father of all, tonight you have united earth and heaven in sending your Son to take our human nature. May we who have tasted heavenly things share in the life of his eternal kingdom. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

RECESSIONAL HYMN 409 Joy to the world! 

BLESSING

Scripture quotations from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA amended according to the Revised Common Lectionary in NRSV. Psalm from the Book of Common Worship of the Church of England. Collect, Prayer after Communion and Blessing from Scottish Liturgy 1982 with Propers and Revised Common Lectionary published by the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church, Edinburgh 2006.