McPhail Weblog Christmas Eve

McPhail Baptist Church

Christmas Eve 2021

Prelude: “I Wonder As I Wander”

Carol: “O Come All Ye Faithful”

A Christmas Prayer

O God, let this Christmas find us full of awe and wonder as we turn again to Bethlehem. Here is the focal point of history. Here is where You stepped into the frame of time and joined the human race, above it, but yet in it. O God, let this Christmas deepen our sense of the Incarnation, the ‘Word made Flesh’ event of history.

Our shopping is over now, and soon it will be time for the birth of your Son. And just for a few hours the cash registers and wars around the world will grow strangely quiet. Then, O Lord, the world for a few moments will hear a mother’s sweet prayer and a baby’s low cry. Lead us to Bethlehem once again, we pray, and from there help us to keep the spirit of Christmas all year round. This we pray in the name of Jesus, the Babe of Bethlehem, and the Christ of the Cross. Amen.

Christmas Music: "One Child"

Lynda/Ernie Cox

Carol: “Angels We Have Heard On High”

Christmas Music:

“It Came Upon A Midnight Clear”

Owen Bueckert/Ernie Cox

Carol: “Joy to The World”

Christmas Music:

“Someone Will See The Star Tonight”

Ernie Cox

Children’s Time

A Christmas Declaration of Faith

We believe in Jesus Christ and in the beauty of the Gospel that began in Bethlehem.

We believe in Him whose spirit glorified a little town; of whose coming only shepherds saw the sign and for whom the crowded inn could find no room.

We believe in Him whom the kings of the earth ignored and the proud would not understand, whose paths were among the common people, whose welcome came from those of hungry hearts.

We believe in Him who proclaimed the love of God to be invincible; whose cradle was a mother’s arms, whose home in Nazareth had love for its only wealth, who looked at people and made them see what His love saw in them, who by His love brought sinners back to purity and lifted human weakness up to meet the strength of God.

We acknowledge the glory of all that is like Christ; the steadfastness of friends, the blessedness of homes, the beauty of compassion, the miracle of hearts made kind at Christmas, the courage of those who dare to resist all passion, hate and war.

And we acknowledge a faith in Christ that sees beyond the partial fact, a trust in life redeemed that looks beyond our present evil, and we pray that this redemption may begin in us this Christmas.

—Robert Louis Stevenson

Christmas Music: "The Birthday Of A King"

Laurel Tye/Lynda Cox