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

Thee in the Watches of the Night

Charles Wesley

Thee in the watches of the night,
Do I not, Lord, remember still,
And meditate with calm delight,
On the dear counsels of thy will?

Thy will is my perfection here;
And sighs for this, my whole desire,
To attain the heavenly character,
And spotless in thy arms expire

Confession of sin

Let us admit to God the sin which always confronts us.

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

Almighty God,
patient and of great goodness:
I confess to you,
I confess with my whole heart
my neglect and forgetfulness of your commandments,
my wrong doing, thinking, and speaking;
the hurts I have done to others,
and the good I have left undone.
O God, forgive me, for I have sinned against you;
and raise me to newness of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

May the God of love and power
forgive us and free us from our sins,
heal and strengthen us by his Spirit,
and raise us to new life in Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Psalm 91

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress;
my God, in whom I trust.”
For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler,
and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his feathers.
Under his wings you will take refuge.
His faithfulness is your shield and rampart.
You shall not be afraid of the terror by night,
nor of the arrow that flies by day,
nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness,
nor of the destruction that wastes at noonday.
A thousand may fall at your side,
and ten thousand at your right hand;
but it will not come near you.
You will only look with your eyes,
and see the recompense of the wicked.
Because you have made the LORD your refuge,
and the Most High your dwelling place,
no evil shall happen to you,
neither shall any plague come near your dwelling.
For he will put his angels in charge of you,
to guard you in all your ways.
They will bear you up in their hands,
so that you won’t dash your foot against a stone.
You will tread on the lion and cobra.
You will trample the young lion and the serpent underfoot.
“Because he has set his love on me, therefore I will deliver him.
I will set him on high, because he has known my name.
He will call on me, and I will answer him.
I will be with him in trouble.
I will deliver him, and honour him.
I will satisfy him with long life,
and show him my salvation.”

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.

Psalm prayer

Keep us, good Lord,
under the shadow of your mercy
and, as you have bound us to yourself in love,
leave us not who call upon your name,
but grant us your salvation,
made known in the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Psalm 93

Refrain:
The LORD will reign forever and ever.

The LORD reigns!
He is clothed with majesty!
The LORD is armed with strength.
The world also is established.
It can’t be moved.
Your throne is established from long ago.
You are from everlasting.
The floods have lifted up, LORD,
the floods have lifted up their voice.
The floods lift up their waves.
Above the voices of many waters,
the mighty breakers of the sea,
the LORD on high is mighty.
Your statutes stand firm.
Holiness adorns your house,
LORD, forever more.

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:
The LORD will reign forever and ever.

Psalm prayer

Christ our King,
you put on the apparel of our nature
and raised us to your glory;
reign from your royal throne
above the chaos of this world,
that all may see the victory you have won
and trust in your salvation;
for your glory’s sake.

Old Testament reading

Judges 15:1-16:3

But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat. He said, “I will go in to my wife’s room.”

But her father wouldn’t allow him to go in. Her father said, “I most certainly thought that you utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Isn’t her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please, take her instead.”

Samson said to them, “This time I will be blameless in the case of the Philistines when I harm them.” Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the middle between every two tails. When he had set the torches on fire, he let them go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and the standing grain, and also the olive groves.

Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?”

They said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.” The Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire.

Samson said to them, “If you behave like this, surely I will take revenge on you, and after that I will cease.” He struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cave in Etam’s rock. Then the Philistines went up, encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.

The men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?”

They said, “We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he has done to us.”

Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in Etam’s rock, and said to Samson, “Don’t you know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?”

He said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”

They said to him, “We have come down to bind you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines.”

Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.”

They spoke to him, saying, “No, but we will bind you securely and deliver you into their hands; but surely we will not kill you.” They bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.

When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. Then the LORD’s Spirit came mightily on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire; and his bands dropped from off his hands. He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, put out his hand, took it, and struck a thousand men with it. Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck a thousand men.” When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone out of his hand; and that place was called Ramath Lehi.

He was very thirsty, and called on the LORD and said, “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant; and now shall I die of thirst, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi, and water came out of it. When he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived. Therefore its name was called En Hakkore, which is in Lehi, to this day. He judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

Samson went to Gaza, and saw there a prostitute, and went in to her. The Gazites were told, “Samson is here!” They surrounded him and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, “Wait until morning light; then we will kill him.” Samson lay until midnight, then arose at midnight and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city, with the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron.

Silence may be kept.

New Testament reading

Luke 18:15-30

They were also bringing their babies to him, that he might touch them. But when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. Jesus summoned them, saying, “Allow the little children to come to me, and don’t hinder them, for God’s Kingdom belongs to such as these. Most certainly, I tell you, whoever doesn’t receive God’s Kingdom like a little child, he will in no way enter into it.”

A certain ruler asked him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus asked him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good, except one: God. You know the commandments: ‘Don’t commit adultery,’ ‘Don’t murder,’ ‘Don’t steal,’ ‘Don’t give false testimony,’ ‘Honour your father and your mother.’ ”

He said, “I have observed all these things from my youth up.”

When Jesus heard these things, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor. Then you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was very rich.

Jesus, seeing that he became very sad, said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter into God’s Kingdom! For it is easier for a camel to enter in through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into God’s Kingdom.”

Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?”

But he said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”

Peter said, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.”

He said to them, “Most certainly I tell you, there is no one who has left house, or wife, or brothers, or parents, or children, for God’s Kingdom’s sake, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the world to come, eternal life.”

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 social services
All who work in the criminal justice system
Victims and perpetrators of crime
The work of aid agencies throughout the world
Those living in poverty or under oppression

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

Response

God of grace,
hear our prayer.

Silence may be kept.

Collect of the day

O God, the protector of all who trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:
increase and multiply upon us your mercy;
that with you as our ruler and guide
we may so pass through things temporal
that we lose not our hold on things eternal;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake,
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.