Opening response

Hurry, God, to deliver us.
LORD, come quickly to help us.

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

My soul and all its powers

Charles Wesley

My soul and all its powers
Thine, wholly thine, shall be;
All, all my happy hours
I consecrate to thee:
Me to thine image now restore,
And I shall praise thee evermore.

Long as I live beneath,
To thee O let me live;
To thee my every breath
In thanks and praises give:
Whatever I have, whatever I am
Shall magnify my maker’s name.

I wait thy will to do,
As angels do in heaven;
In Christ a creature new,
Most graciously forgiven;
I wait thy perfect will to prove,
All sanctified by spotless love.

Confession of sin

Seek the Lord when he can still be found;
call him while he is yet near.
Let the wicked abandon their ways
and the sinful their schemes.
Let them return to the Lord so that he may have mercy on them,
to our God, because he is generous with forgiveness.

cf Isaiah 55

A time of silence and self-examination may be kept.

Lord God,
we have sinned against you;
we have committed evil in your sight.
We are sorry and repent.
Have mercy on us according to your faithful love.
Wash us completely clean of our guilt; purify us from our sin.
Put a new, faithful spirit deep inside us,
and return the joy of your salvation to us
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

cf Psalm 51

May the Father of all mercies
cleanse us from our sins,
and restore us in his image
to the praise and glory of his name,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Bless the Lord,
because he has listened to our request for mercy.
Therefore our hearts will rejoice
and we will thank him with our song.

cf Psalm 28:7,9

Psalm 105

Refrain:
Remember the marvelous works the LORD has done.

Give thanks to the LORD! Call on his name!
Make his doings known amongst the peoples.
Sing to him, sing praises to him!
Tell of all his marvelous works.
Glory in his holy name.
Let the heart of those who seek the LORD rejoice.
Seek the LORD and his strength.
Seek his face forever more.
Remember his marvelous works that he has done:
his wonders, and the judgements of his mouth,
you offspring of Abraham, his servant,
you children of Jacob, his chosen ones.
He is the LORD, our God.
His judgements are in all the earth.
He has remembered his covenant forever,
the word which he commanded to a thousand generations,
the covenant which he made with Abraham,
his oath to Isaac,
and confirmed it to Jacob for a statute;
to Israel for an everlasting covenant,
saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan,
the lot of your inheritance,”
when they were but a few men in number,
yes, very few, and foreigners in it.
They went about from nation to nation,
from one kingdom to another people.
He allowed no one to do them wrong.
Yes, he reproved kings for their sakes,
“Don’t touch my anointed ones!
Do my prophets no harm!”
He called for a famine on the land.
He destroyed the food supplies.
He sent a man before them.
Joseph was sold for a slave.
They bruised his feet with shackles.
His neck was locked in irons,
until the time that his word happened,
and the LORD’s word proved him true.
The king sent and freed him,
even the ruler of peoples, and let him go free.
He made him lord of his house,
and ruler of all of his possessions,
to discipline his princes at his pleasure,
and to teach his elders wisdom.
Israel also came into Egypt.
Jacob lived in the land of Ham.
He increased his people greatly,
and made them stronger than their adversaries.
He turned their heart to hate his people,
to conspire against his servants.
He sent Moses, his servant,
and Aaron, whom he had chosen.
They performed miracles amongst them,
and wonders in the land of Ham.
He sent darkness, and made it dark.
They didn’t rebel against his words.
He turned their waters into blood,
and killed their fish.
Their land swarmed with frogs,
even in the rooms of their kings.
He spoke, and swarms of flies came,
and lice in all their borders.
He gave them hail for rain,
with lightning in their land.
He struck their vines and also their fig trees,
and shattered the trees of their country.
He spoke, and the locusts came
with the grasshoppers, without number.
They ate up every plant in their land,
and ate up the fruit of their ground.
He struck also all the firstborn in their land,
the first fruits of all their manhood.
He brought them out with silver and gold.
There was not one feeble person amongst his tribes.
Egypt was glad when they departed,
for the fear of them had fallen on them.
He spread a cloud for a covering,
fire to give light in the night.
They asked, and he brought quails,
and satisfied them with the bread of the sky.
He opened the rock, and waters gushed out.
They ran as a river in the dry places.
For he remembered his holy word,
and Abraham, his servant.
He brought his people out with joy,
his chosen with singing.
He gave them the lands of the nations.
They took the labour of the peoples in possession,
that they might keep his statutes,
and observe his laws.
Praise the LORD!
Praise the Lord!

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.

Refrain:
Remember the marvelous works the LORD has done.

Psalm prayer

God of our earthly pilgrimage,
feed your Easter people with the bread of heaven,
that we may hunger and thirst for righteousness
until we reach our promised land;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Old Testament reading

2 Samuel 11

At the return of the year, at the time when kings go out, David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed at Jerusalem. At evening, David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. From the roof, he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to look at. David sent and enquired after the woman. One said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, Uriah the Hittite’s wife?”

David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in to him, and he lay with her (for she was purified from her uncleanness); and she returned to her house. The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.”

David sent to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah had come to him, David asked him how Joab did, and how the people fared, and how the war prospered. David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” Uriah departed out of the king’s house, and a gift from the king was sent after him. But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and didn’t go down to his house. When they had told David, saying, “Uriah didn’t go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Haven’t you come from a journey? Why didn’t you go down to your house?”

Uriah said to David, “The ark, Israel, and Judah, are staying in tents; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open field. Shall I then go into my house to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing!”

David said to Uriah, “Stay here today also, and tomorrow I will let you depart.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next day. When David had called him, he ate and drank before him; and he made him drunk. At evening, he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but didn’t go down to his house. In the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. He wrote in the letter, saying, “Send Uriah to the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck and die.”

When Joab kept watch on the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew that valiant men were. The men of the city went out and fought with Joab. Some of the people fell, even of David’s servants; and Uriah the Hittite died also. Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war; and he commanded the messenger, saying, “When you have finished telling all the things concerning the war to the king, it shall be that, if the king’s wrath arise, and he asks you, ‘Why did you go so near to the city to fight? Didn’t you know that they would shoot from the wall? Who struck Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Didn’t a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’ then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.’ ”

So the messenger went, and came and showed David all that Joab had sent him for. The messenger said to David, “The men prevailed against us, and came out to us into the field; and we were on them even to the entrance of the gate. The shooters shot at your servants from off the wall; and some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.”

Then David said to the messenger, “Tell Joab, ‘Don’t let this thing displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Make your battle stronger against the city, and overthrow it.’ Encourage him.”

When Uriah’s wife heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. When the mourning was past, David sent and took her home to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.

Silence may be kept.

New Testament reading

Acts 8:26-40

Then an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise, and go towards the south to the way that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert.”

He arose and went; and behold, there was a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was over all her treasure, who had come to Jerusalem to worship. He was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah.

The Spirit said to Philip, “Go near, and join yourself to this chariot.”

Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

He said, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?” He begged Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of the Scripture which he was reading was this,

“He was led as a sheep to the slaughter.
As a lamb before his shearer is silent,
so he doesn’t open his mouth.
In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away.
Who will declare His generation?
For his life is taken from the earth.”

The eunuch answered Philip, “Who is the prophet talking about? About himself, or about someone else?”

Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture, preached to him about Jesus. As they went on the way, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Behold, here is water. What is keeping me from being baptized?”

He commanded the chariot to stand still, and they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.

When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, and the eunuch didn’t see him anymore, for he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus. Passing through, he preached the Good News to all the cities until he came to Caesarea.

Silence may be kept.

The Magnificat (The Song of Mary)

Luke 1:46-55

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

My soul magnifies the Lord.
My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior,
for he has looked at the humble state of his servant.
For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed.
For he who is mighty has done great things for me.
Holy is his name.
His mercy is for generations and generations on those who fear him.
He has shown strength with his arm.
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down princes from their thrones,
and has exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things.
He has sent the rich away empty.
He has given help to Israel, his servant, that he might remember mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and his offspring 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.

Refrain:
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:

The media and the arts
Farming and fishing
Commerce and industry
Those whose work is unfulfilling, stressful or fraught with danger
All who are unemployed

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

Response

Father, hear our prayer,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Silence may be kept.

Collect of the day

Almighty and everlasting God,
you are always more ready to hear than we to pray
and to give more than either we desire or deserve:
pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy,
forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid
and giving us those good things
which we are not worthy to ask
but through the merits and mediation
of 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.