Opening response

Lord, open our lips.
Our mouth will declare your praise.

Prayer of thanksgiving

Blessed are you, Sovereign God, creator of all,
to you be glory and praise forever.
You founded the earth in the beginning
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
In the fullness of time you made us in your image,
and in these last days you have spoken to us
in your Son Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.
As we rejoice in the gift of your presence among us
let the light of your love always shine in our hearts,
your Spirit ever renew our lives
and your praises ever be on our lips.
Blessed be God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Blessed be God forever.

The night has passed, and the day lies open before us;
let us pray with one heart and mind.

Silence is kept.

As we rejoice in the gift of this new day,
so may the light of your presence, O God,
set our hearts on fire with love for you;
now and forever.
Amen.

Hymn

Gracious Redeemer, Shake This Slumber

Charles Wesley

Gracious Redeemer, shake
This slumber from my soul!
Say to me now, "Awake, awake!
And Christ shall make thee whole."
Lay to thy mighty hand!
Alarm me in this hour,
And make me fully understand
The thunder of thy power.

Give me on thee to call,
Always to watch and pray,
Lest I into temptation fall,
And cast my shield away;
For each assault prepared
And ready may I be,
Forever standing on my guard,
And looking up to thee.

O do thou always warn
My soul of evil near!
When to the right or left I turn,
Thy voice still let me hear;
"Come back! this is the way,
Come back, and walk herein!"
O may I hearken and obey,
And shun the paths of sin!

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, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’

The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’
No other commandment is greater than these.
The whole law and the prophets depend 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 cloud,
like the dew that disappears early.
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 51

Refrain:
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.

Have mercy on me, God, according to your loving kindness.
According to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity.
Cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions.
My sin is constantly before me.
Against you, and you only, I have sinned,
and done that which is evil in your sight,
so you may be proved right when you speak,
and justified when you judge.
Behold, I was born in iniquity.
My mother conceived me in sin.
Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts.
You teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean.
Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness,
that the bones which you have broken may rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all of my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Renew a right spirit within me.
Don’t throw me from your presence,
and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation.
Uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways.
Sinners will be converted to you.
Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation.
My tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
Lord, open my lips.
My mouth will declare your praise.
For you don’t delight in sacrifice, or else I would give it.
You have no pleasure in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.
O God, you will not despise a broken and contrite heart.

Do well in your good pleasure to Zion.
Build the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will delight in the sacrifices of righteousness,
in burnt offerings and in whole burnt offerings.
Then they will offer bulls on your altar.

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 sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.

Psalm prayer

Take away, good Lord, the sin that corrupts us;
give us the sorrow that heals
and the joy that praises
and restore by grace your own image within us,
that we may take our place among your people;
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Psalm 54

Refrain:
God is my helper. The Lord is the one who sustains my soul.

Save me, God, by your name.
Vindicate me in your might.
Hear my prayer, God.
Listen to the words of my mouth.
For strangers have risen up against me.
Violent men have sought after my soul.
They haven’t set God before them. Selah.

Behold, God is my helper.
The Lord is the one who sustains my soul.
He will repay the evil to my enemies.
Destroy them in your truth.
With a free will offering, I will sacrifice to you.
I will give thanks to your name, LORD, for it is good.
For he has delivered me out of all trouble.
My eye has seen triumph over my enemies.

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:
God is my helper. The Lord is the one who sustains my soul.

Psalm prayer

O living God,
reach through the violence of the proud
and the despair of the weak
to create in Jesus Christ
a people free to praise your holy name,
now and forever.

Old Testament reading

Ezra 5

Now the prophets, Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem. They prophesied to them in the name of the God of Israel. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak rose up and began to build God’s house which is at Jerusalem; and with them were the prophets of God, helping them.

At the same time Tattenai, the governor beyond the River, came to them, with Shetharbozenai and their companions, and asked them, “Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this wall?” They also asked for the names of the men who were making this building. But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, and they didn’t make them cease until the matter should come to Darius, and an answer should be returned by letter concerning it.

The copy of the letter that Tattenai, the governor beyond the River, and Shetharbozenai, and his companions the Apharsachites who were beyond the River, sent to Darius the king follows. They sent a letter to him, in which was written:

To Darius the king, all peace.

Be it known to the king that we went into the province of Judah, to the house of the great God, which is being built with great stones and timber is laid in the walls. This work goes on with diligence and prospers in their hands. Then we asked those elders, and said to them thus, “Who gave you a decree to build this house, and to finish this wall?” We asked them their names also, to inform you that we might write the names of the men who were at their head. Thus they returned us answer, saying, “We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth and are building the house that was built these many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished. But after our fathers had provoked the God of heaven to wrath, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried the people away into Babylon. But in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, Cyrus the king made a decree to build this house of God. The gold and silver vessels of God’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple that was in Jerusalem and brought into the temple of Babylon, those Cyrus the king also took out of the temple of Babylon, and they were delivered to one whose name was Sheshbazzar, whom he had made governor. He said to him, ‘Take these vessels, go, put them in the temple that is in Jerusalem, and let God’s house be built in its place.’ Then the same Sheshbazzar came and laid the foundations of God’s house which is in Jerusalem. Since that time even until now it has been being built, and yet it is not completed.

Now therefore, if it seems good to the king, let a search be made in the king’s treasure house, which is there at Babylon, whether it is so that a decree was made by Cyrus the king to build this house of God at Jerusalem; and let the king send his pleasure to us concerning this matter.”

Silence may be kept.

New Testament reading

Romans 11:1-12

I ask then, did God reject his people? May it never be! For I also am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God didn’t reject his people, whom he foreknew. Or don’t you know what the Scripture says about Elijah? How he pleads with God against Israel: “Lord, they have killed your prophets. They have broken down your altars. I am left alone, and they seek my life.” But how does God answer him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” Even so too at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.

What then? That which Israel seeks for, that he didn’t obtain, but the chosen ones obtained it, and the rest were hardened. According as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, to this very day.”

David says,

“Let their table be made a snare, a trap,
a stumbling block, and a retribution to them.
Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see.
Always keep their backs bent.”

I ask then, did they stumble that they might fall? May it never be! But by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy. Now if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!

Silence may be kept.

The Benedictus (The Song of Zechariah)

Luke 1:68-79

Refrain:
Because of your tender mercy, O God,
the dawn from on high will visit us.

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
for he has visited and redeemed his people;
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David
(as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who have been from of old),
salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us;
to show mercy toward our fathers,
to remember his holy covenant,
the oath which he swore to Abraham our father,
to grant to us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies,
should serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.
And you, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the dawn from on high will visit us,
to shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death;
to guide our feet into the way of peace.

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:
Because of your tender mercy, O God,
the dawn from on high will visit us.

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.

Intercession and thanksgiving

Prayers may be offered for:

the day and its tasks
the world and its needs
the church and her life

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

Father, by your Spirit
Bring in your kingdom.

Silence may be kept.

Collect of the day

Lord, you have taught us
that all our doings without love are worth nothing:
send your Holy Spirit
and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.
Grant this for your only Son 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 Lord bless us, and preserve us from all evil, and keep us in eternal life.
Amen.