Fri. evening Oct. 31
All Hallows’ Eve
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Opening response
O God, make speed to save us.
O Lord, make haste to help us.
Your faithful servants bless you.
They make known the glory of your kingdom.
Prayer of thanksgiving
Blessed are you, Sovereign God, our light and our salvation, to you be glory and praise forever. Now, as darkness is falling, wash away our transgressions, cleanse us by your refining fire, and make us temples of your Holy Spirit. By the light of Christ, dispel the darkness of our hearts and make us ready to enter your kingdom, where songs of praise forever sound.
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
O For a Thousand Tongues
Music by The Hymnodist: Spotify, Apple, Amazon, iHeart, YouTube Music, Pandora, Boomplay, Deezer
Lyrics by Charles Wesley
O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer's praise
The glories of my God and King
The triumphs of his grace
My gracious Master and my God
Assist me to proclaim
To spread through all the earth abroad
The honors of thy name
Jesus, the name that charms our fears
That bids our sorrows cease
'Tis music in the sinner's ears
'Tis life, and health, and peace
He breaks the power of canceled sin
He sets the prisoner free
His blood can make the foulest clean
His blood availed for me
He speaks, and listening to his voice
New life the dead receive
The mournful, broken hearts rejoice
The humble poor believe
Hear him, ye deaf; his praise, ye dumb
Your loosened tongues employ
Ye blind, behold your savior come
And leap, ye lame, for joy
In Christ, your head, you then shall know
Shall feel your sins forgiven
Anticipate your heaven below
And own that love is heaven
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: My soul waits for the Lord.
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: My soul waits for the Lord.
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: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
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: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
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: The saints cried out with a loud voice: “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
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: The saints cried out with a loud voice: “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
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.
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He 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,
and is seated at the
right hand of the Father.
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.
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 saints on earth, that they may live as citizens of heaven
All people, that they may hear and believe the word of God
All who fear the winter months
All sovereigns and political leaders, that they may imitate the righteous rule of Christ
All who grieve or wait with the dying
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
Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: grant us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living that we may come to those inexpressible joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; 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
Uniting our prayers with the whole company of heaven, as our Savior taught us, so we 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,
forever. Amen.
Conclusion
May Christ, who has opened the kingdom of heaven, bring us to reign with him in glory.
Amen.
