Opening response

Make haste, O God, to deliver me.
Hurry, O LORD, to help me.

Prayer of thanksgiving

Blessed are you, Lord God, creator of day and night:
to you be praise and glory forever.
As darkness falls you renew your promise
to reveal among us the light of your presence.
By the light of Christ, your living Word,
dispel the darkness of our hearts
that we may walk as children of light
and sing your praise throughout the world.
Blessed be God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Blessed be God forever.

That this evening may be holy, good and peaceful,
let us pray with one heart and mind.

Silence is kept.

As our evening prayer rises before you, O God,
so may your mercy come down upon us
to cleanse our hearts
and set us free to sing your praise
now and forever.
Amen.

Hymn

Father, God We Glorify

Charles Wesley

Father, God, we glorify
Thy love to Adam’s seed;
Love that gave thy Son to die,
And raised him from the dead:
Him, for our offenses slain,
That we all might pardon find,
Thou hast brought to life again,
The Savior of mankind.

By thy own right hand of power
Thou hast exalted him,
Sent the mighty Conqueror
Thy people to redeem:
King of saints, and Prince of Peace,
Him thou hast for sinners given,
Sinners from their sins to bless,
And lift them up to heaven.

Father, God, to us impart
The gift unspeakable;
Now in every waiting heart
Thy glorious Son reveal:
Quickened with our living Lord,
Let us in thy Spirit rise,
Rise to all thy life restored,
And bless thee in the skies.

Confession of sin

Come, Holy Spirit of God,
and search our hearts with the light of Christ.

Our Lord Jesus Christ said:
The first commandment is this:
‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind
and with all your strength.’

The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
No other commandment is greater than these.
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

Amen. Lord, have mercy.

After a period of reflection

Come, let us return to the Lord and say:

Lord our God,
in our sin, we have avoided your call.
Our love for you is like a morning mist,
like the early dew that vanishes.
Have mercy on us;
deliver us from judgment;
bind up our wounds and revive us;
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

cf Hosea 6

May almighty God,
who sent his Son into the world to save sinners,
bring us his pardon and peace, now and forever.
Amen.

Psalm 130

𝙍: My soul waits for the Lord.

Out of the depths
I cry to You, O LORD!
O Lord, hear my voice;
let Your ears be attentive to my plea for mercy.

If You, O LORD, kept track of iniquities,
then who, O Lord, could stand?
But with You there is forgiveness,
so that You may be feared. 𝙍

I wait for the LORD; my soul does wait,
and in His word I put my hope.
My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning—
more than watchmen wait for the morning. 𝙍

O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is loving devotion,
and with Him is redemption in abundance.
And He will redeem Israel
from all iniquity.

Glory 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.

𝙍: My soul waits for the Lord.

Psalm prayer

Father, we commend to your faithful love
those who are crying from the depths;
help them to watch and pray
through their time of darkness,
in sure hope of the dawn of your
forgiveness and redemption;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Psalm 131

𝙍: O Israel, put your hope in the LORD.

My heart is not proud, O LORD,
my eyes are not haughty.
I do not aspire to great things
or matters too lofty for me.
Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with his mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
both now and forevermore.

Glory 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.

𝙍: O Israel, put your hope in the LORD.

Psalm prayer

Eternal God,
calm and quiet our souls;
keep us humble and full of wonder
and trusting as we live in your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Psalm 137

𝙍: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the willows
we hung our harps,
for there our captors requested a song;
our tormentors demanded songs of joy:

“Sing us a song of Zion.” 𝙍

How can we sing a song of the LORD
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
may my right hand cease to function.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not exalt Jerusalem
as my greatest joy! 𝙍

Remember, O LORD,
the sons of Edom on the day Jerusalem fell:
“Destroy it,” they said,
“tear it down to its foundations!”

O Daughter of Babylon,
doomed to destruction,
blessed is he who repays you
as you have done to us.
Blessed is he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

Glory 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.

𝙍: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Psalm prayer

God of our pilgrimage,
you sent your Son to our strange land
to bring us home to you;
give us your songs to sing,
that even in our exile
we may be filled with the breath of the Spirit
of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Old Testament reading

2 Kings 19:20-36

Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria. This is the word that the LORD has spoken against him:

‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion
despises you and mocks you;
the Daughter of Jerusalem
shakes her head behind you.
Whom have you taunted and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes in pride?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
Through your servants you have taunted the Lord,
and you have said:

“With my many chariots
I have ascended
to the heights of the mountains,
to the remote peaks of Lebanon.
I have cut down its tallest cedars,
the finest of its cypresses.
I have reached its farthest outposts,
the densest of its forests.
I have dug wells
and drunk foreign waters.
With the soles of my feet
I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”

Have you not heard?
Long ago I ordained it;
in days of old I planned it.
Now I have brought it to pass,
that you should crush fortified cities
into piles of rubble.
Therefore their inhabitants, devoid of power,
are dismayed and ashamed.
They are like plants in the field,
tender green shoots,
grass on the rooftops,
scorched before it is grown.

But I know your sitting down,
your going out and coming in,
and your raging against Me.
Because your rage and arrogance against Me
have reached My ears,
I will put My hook in your nose
and My bit in your mouth;
I will send you back
the way you came.’

And this will be a sign to you, O Hezekiah:

This year you will eat
what grows on its own,
and in the second year
what springs from the same.
But in the third year you will sow and reap;
you will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah
will again take root below
and bear fruit above.
For a remnant will go forth from Jerusalem,
and survivors from Mount Zion.
The zeal of the LORD of Hosts
will accomplish this.

So this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria:

‘He will not enter this city
or shoot an arrow into it.
He will not come before it with a shield
or build up a siege ramp against it.
He will go back the way he came,
and he will not enter this city,’

declares the LORD.

‘I will defend this city
and save it
for My own sake
and for the sake of My servant David.’ ”

And that very night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies! So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.

Silence may be kept.

New Testament reading

Philippians 3:1-4:1

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.

Watch out for those dogs, those workers of evil, those mutilators of the flesh! For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself could have such confidence.

If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin; a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to righteousness in the law, faultless.

But whatever was gain to me I count as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God on the basis of faith.

I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.

All of us who are mature should embrace this point of view. And if you think differently about some issue, God will reveal this to you as well. Nevertheless, we must live up to what we have already attained.

Join one another in following my example, brothers, and carefully observe those who walk according to the pattern we set for you. For as I have often told you before, and now say again even with tears: Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and their glory is in their shame. Their minds are set on earthly things.

But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to subject all things to Himself, will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body.

Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you must stand firm in the Lord, my beloved.

Silence may be kept.

The Magnificat (The Song of Mary)

Luke 1:46-55

𝙍: You have done great things, O God, and holy is your name.

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!
For He has looked with favor on the humble state of His servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed.
For the Mighty One has done great things for me.
Holy is His name.
His mercy extends to those who fear Him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with His arm;
He has scattered those who are proud
in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones,
but has exalted the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped His servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful,
as He promised to our fathers,
to Abraham and his descendants forever.

Glory 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.

𝙍: You have done great things, O God, and holy is your name.

Brief silence.

The Apostle’s Creed

Let us unite in this historic confession of the Christian faith:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his 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,
is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and 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.

Thanksgiving and intercession

Thanksgiving may be made for the day.

Intercessions are offered
for peace
for individuals and their needs

Prayers may include the following concerns:

National leaders, public officials and the armed forces
Peace and justice in the world
Those who work for reconciliation
All whose lives are devastated by war and civil strife
Prisoners, refugees and homeless people

Other intercessions and supplications may be offered as the Holy Spirit leads.

Response

Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer.

Silence may be kept.

Collect of the day

O God, forasmuch as without you
we are not able to please you;
mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer

As our Savior taught us, so we pray

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and forever.
Amen.

Conclusion

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
be with us all evermore.
Amen.