So our teaching scripture this morning comes from Luke chapter
1, verses 26 to 38. In the sixth month the Angel
Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph of the
House of David. The virgin's name was Mary, and
he came to her and said, greetings favored one, The Lord
is with you. But she was much perplexed by
his words, and pondered what sort of greeting that this might
be. And the Angel said to her, Do
not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God, and
now you will conceive in your womb, and bear a son, and you
will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be
called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to
him the throne of his ancestor David.
He will reign over the House of Jacob Forever, and of his
Kingdom there will be no end. Mary said to the Angel, How can
this be, since I'm a virgin? And the Angel said to her, The
Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High
will over shadow you. Therefore the child to be born
will be holy. He will be called Son of God.
And now your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also
conceived a son. And this is the 6th month for
her, who was said to be barren, For nothing will be impossible
for God. Then Mary said, Here am I the
servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.
And then the Angel departed from her.
This is the word of the Lord. It probably wouldn't surprise
any of you who know me to know that there has been a lot of
talk about babies in my house lately because I have a newborn.
And there's been a lot of explaining because of my
daughter, Edith, who is 5. And so we talk about the need
for gentleness and support for the baby's head.
We talk about holding babies and their sleep, the way they can
play and how they grow so quickly.
We infer that baby Hildegard's favorite activity is probably
eating, and we identify the cues Hildegard gives her when she's
hungry because she can't talk. During one afternoon of
questions, I made the statement everyone was a baby once, and
Edith pause thoughtfully as five year olds do now.
Some context here. She's in kindergarten.
She goes to a Catholic school that actually has like pretty
good religious Ed, and she comes home with worksheets about the
theology of the body, talking about how God made us and how
our bodies matter, not just our brains and our spirits.
She's learned the Lord's Prayer, which we sometimes pray together
as a family at bedtime. In rotation alongside art,
music, gym and library is catechesis where she engages in
play based story time and imaginative exercises bringing
Bible stories and the love of God to life and exactly the way
that young children can understand.
So with all of this, there has been an influx of fresh
theological observations and questions in our house as of
late. Really good questions.
And so during an afternoon of play and questions about baby
care in which I made the statement we were all babies.
Once she hit me with the banger, even God was a baby.
She said it in a way that a kid will respond if you said no one
knows everything. And the kid said even God, like
they had caught you in a trap or somehow managed to hit the end
of knowledge. When she said even God was a
baby, I think she was thinking about the creation of the world.
How could the God make the world and be a baby?
But of course, as confusing as it is, God was a baby because
Jesus came as a baby. I reminded her of this, and we
quickly moved on. But for a split second, you
could see the processing all right, Jesus is God, and God was
a baby too. This morning's text is that of
the Annunciation, a scene depicted in pieces of some of
the greatest artists in the history of the world, a scene
acted out by elementary school children and Christmas pageants.
Mary is always in blue and angels wear white robes with
feathers and sparkling gold pipe cleaner Halos.
The Angel Gabriel appears to Mary and tells her that she has
found favour with God and will bear a son who is to be named
Jesus, who will be great and called the Son of the Most High.
Everything about this encounter and exchange is extraordinary.
And today we're going to just sit with this passage and the
profound meaning that it carries, and we will really
linger with Mary considering the peace offered, received and
experienced in her encounter with the Angel.
In verse 26 of this morning's text, we enter into Mary's
story. God sent the Angel Gabriel to a
town in Galilee called Nazareth to a virgin engaged to a man
whose name was Joseph of the House of David.
Gabriel is the Angel of the Old Testament book of Daniel, who
helps Daniel understand overwhelming and intense
prophetic revelation about the rise and fall of empires in
exile, which happened some 550 years earlier, right at the
beginning of Luke. Earlier in this first chapter,
Gabriel appears to the priest Zachariah in the sanctuary, and
there Gabriel greets him, saying, Do not be afraid,
Zachariah, for your prayer has been heard.
Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him
the name John. You will have joy and gladness
and many will rejoice at His birth.
He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God
with the spirit and power of Elijah.
He will go before Him to turn the hearts of parents to their
children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous to
make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
Last week, Jared spoke of the ministry of Zechariah and
Elizabeth's child, John the Baptist.
That ministry was foretold by Gabriel even as it was initially
disbelieved or at the very least questioned by Zechariah, his
frightened father, who found himself face to face with a
mighty messenger of God. After Zechariah's questioning,
Gabriel said that Zechariah would be unable to speak until
such time as what he had prophesied came to pass.
And indeed, that is exactly what happened.
And here in verse 26, at God's direction, the Angel Gabriel
appears to Mary in the town of Galilee called Nazareth.
It's specific. It might as well say Mary.
In Ohio, Franklin County, we're told about the passing of time
in the sixth month. It doesn't mean June.
It means that it was the end of Elizabeth's second trimester,
just after her five months of seclusion, as was mentioned just
a little bit earlier in the passage.
And for clarity's sake, Luke tells us that Mary is a virgin
and that she's engaged to be to a man whose name is Joseph.
It's like that. The old iMovie templates from
the era when we all carried digital cameras on vacation, the
ones that began with the the slowly turning globe and then
zoomed all the way into the specific spot that we had
visited. Scripture is doing that here,
showing us exactly where Mary is and exactly who she is.
It's marking the time and the place within the context of
Elizabeth's miraculous pregnancy.
The story we're about to read is sandwiched within Elizabeth's
story, and that sandwiching is Luke's doing.
It's the way the narrative was recorded.
But the ordering of events is a very important part of Mary's
experience, of her encounter with the Angel, and of her
pregnancy itself. Greetings, favorite one, The
Lord is with you. This pronouncement from Gabriel
to Mary seems entirely tracking with the person of Jesus who
made a habit of spending time with those in the community who
lacked status, affluence, and power.
But remember, we're at the beginning of Jesus's story on
earth, and so there are no crowds following Jesus, no one
reaching for his robe to be healed, no, or breaking perfume
over his feet. Jesus hasn't told his confusing
parables because he hasn't been born yet.
And though in light of what we know comes later, it does make
sense that Jesus would come into the world this way.
Nazareth was a small agricultural village, not on any
major trade routes. The community worked in farming,
day labor, basic craft work and the like.
Mary was probably a non literate adolescent, her household living
hand to mouth in a substance economy.
All of the traditional markers of special were absent.
And yet the Angel who brought the revelation to Daniel stands
before her and says, greetings favored 1 It's so silly,
especially in comparison to the Annunciation to Gabriel coming
and proclaiming to Mary that she will carry in her womb the
Saviour of the world. But the image that comes to mind
is from the world of the children's Arthur.
Author Roald Dahl. Charlie Bucket is a poor, quiet,
seemingly unnoticed child among far more dazzling characters,
though he is meek and kind, and in the end, Mr. Willy Wonka
doesn't give his Chocolate Factory to the loudest, the
wealthiest, the smoothest, or the most clever.
Even caring old Grandpa Joe is passed over at the end of the
book. Mr. Wonka gives his factory to
Charlie. This is an extraordinary,
unexpected pronouncement in a fictitious story which, just
like the great glass Wonka Vader, go sideways and slant
ways and long ways and back ways and square ways and front ways,
as good literature is want to do, it pricks the imagination
and speaks to that which is profoundly human.
We do not expect favour on the lowly.
And yet to marry, Gabriel says. Greetings, favoured one, the
Lord is with you. This is a statement of divine
attention and of love. My child, you are beloved, and
the Lord on high not only sees you but accompanies you.
The Lord is with you. But she was much perplexed by
his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
This response is noteworthy. Perplexity seems appropriate.
Maybe also surprise. Ah, wonder.
Notably, her response is different from that of
Zechariah. When he met Gabriel in the
sanctuary, Zechariah was terrified and fear overwhelmed
him. The difference between Mary and
Zachariah's responses, and indeed their entire encounter
with Gabriel, are important. These two stories are side by
side, and yet they are so similar and also different.
It's like Luke is inviting us to compare and contrast the same
way a third grade teacher would invite his students to consider
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in something like James
and the Giant Peach, both fantastical children's books by
Doll. Bible scholar Deborah Middleton
points out that both Zechariah and Mary are faithful to God,
but it is Mary who is the favored one of the Lord.
John will walk before the Lord, but it is Jesus who will be
called Lord. And of course, Mary is the
foretold child's future mother, whereas Zechariah is the future
father. This particular point of
difference is exceptional even if we look at narratives of
miraculous births in Scripture more broadly.
Besides Jesus and John the Baptist, there are miraculous
births in Genesis. God promises Abraham a son, and
Sarah gives birth to Isaac. Isaac petitions God for a child
for Rebecca. In Judges, Samson's unnamed
mother is visited by an Angel and told that she will conceive,
and a second angelic visitation occurs, this time with her
husband Manoa present. There are a couple of other
miraculous births in Scripture, but based on what I've shared,
can you notice a trend? In most cases, the petition,
prayer, or encounter with the Lord related to the miraculous
presence Pregnancy is associated with the Father, with Hannah and
First Samuel being the notable exception.
And in every other case besides that of Mary, the miraculous
birth followed the earnest petitions and grief of at least
1/2 of a couple longing to conceive.
Thus, Gabriel's encounter with Mary is unprecedented, and we
haven't even gotten to the part about Jesus yet, though indeed
the Angel says, do not be afraid Mary, for you have found favor
with God, and now you will conceive in your womb and bear a
son, and you will name him Jesus.
He will be great, and he will be called the Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor
David. He will reign over the House of
Jacob Forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.
This is it. This is why God sent Gabriel to
Mary. This is the news that will
resolve her initial perplexity. And it is so much more than
that. It's the literal dawn of the
Messianic Age. Consider what dawn feels like
when you've been waiting. I remember waking up before dawn
on my wedding day. I was sleeping on the couch
because there were so many guests in my apartment that I
ended up without a bed. The living room was flooded with
light. Think of young children just
waiting for their like red, yellow, green light to turn
green, giving them permission to get out of bed in the morning.
Or if you're my house, waiting for it to turn yellow because
that means you can come snuggle with Mama.
Think of those same kids on Christmas morning.
One of my favorite artists, Tracy Chang, made an 8 painting
collection on motherhood Between the hours from dusk until dawn
called When light breaks in view, blue hues with small
shades of bright color move with lines that almost feel like a
pulse. Up and down they break in Grays
and purples as the lines lift and curve, almost daring to be
too bright. To me, the paintings feel like
they have words, like they say everything even though they
literally say nothing at all. Individually and alongside each
other, they show movement. Like the many movements of the
night when you are caring for a newborn.
They hold the anticipation at sundown.
They embrace the tiredness, love, and fear that move in
wordless motion across the unobserved hours of night.
They hold these physical and emotional movements as they
settle behind the infilling of light that comes with the sun.
Waiting is known in a particular way by our elders.
I think of Anna and Simeon, spirit LED, faithful followers
who had been waiting for the Messiah all their lives and who
met the baby Jesus and the Temple and who knew who he was.
Mary was an Israelite, but as an adolescent she did not know
waiting as Anna and Simeon knew waiting.
She hasn't grown all the way up. Her prefrontal cortex is still
developing. She hasn't seen all the ways
that the powerful and political make promises and fail to keep
them. As we age, we come to know what
it is to watch relationships come together and fall apart and
sometimes come back together again, to see hope fulfilled,
deferred, and dashed all the way to pieces.
We come to know what it is like to make it through the lean
years and enjoy a certain bounty and loss.
The young can no grief and lost, but the old almost certainly do.
When Gabriel came to Mary, Mary had not experienced all these
things that come with age, and while dramatic and traumatic
moments of hardship endured by the Israelite peoples would have
been known to her passed down, she would have known them as the
stories of her community, not as someone with first hand lived
experience. Her world was small, she knew a
strenuous life under the self-serving thumb of the Roman
Empire, but had no experience, personal experience, of war and
exile, and so her framework for waiting and longing would have
looked like that of a faithful young person, and the context
for it would have been domestic. So less about Washington, more
about the literal food on my table, the hours my father can
get at work, and the transmission going out in the
family car. And being born of Mary.
God is proclaiming love and care for the plane.
Yes, God loves the high and mighty, and God is on the side
of the poor and oppressed. I'd like to point out too that
Mary's experience of waiting and longing is not discounted.
As a young person, though she does not know the ache and
longing of waiting decades, the Angel comes to her.
Her experience of waiting for the Messiah, that which she
would come to know within her community and that's which she
would have personally held as a young person engaged to be
married in a small agricultural community, is implicitly met.
Her framework is praying for good weather and maintaining a
domestic space, the health and Wellness of the loved ones
around her, and in all of this longing for provision, relief,
sustenance, literally their daily bread.
And here the Messiah is coming to her, her literal body.
Do not be afraid Mary, for you have found favour with God, and
now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you
will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be
called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him
to the throne of his ancestor David.
He will reign over the House of Jacob Forever and of his Kingdom
there will be no end. Peace can be quiet and calm.
I think that that's. What comes to mind first when we
think of peace? But I can only imagine in this
moment, Mary's peace. Like the majestic roar of the
ocean or the sudden view of moving galaxies inside.
She is not still with this announcement.
She is flush with thoughts and feelings that overtake her
entire person, and with this announcement, the real and
present worries and longings set on top and the deeper aches that
run beneath them are relieved, stopped in an instant.
This is peace out loud. Mary said to the Angel, How can
this be, since I am a virgin? And the Angel said to her, The
Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High
will over shadow you, and therefore the child to be born
will be holy. He will be called the Son of
God. Friends, God is creator and God
is always leaning toward communion with creation.
And here in this scene, a cosmic story lies within a profoundly
physical experience. It's like going to a 3D movie
and taking your glasses off. You can see the same image but
in like 2 different ways. Separated.
They are confusing and it all makes more sense when they come
together at the cosmic level. This announcement is the
resolution to what was undone in Eden.
In creation, the Spirit of God hovered over the earth.
It was a creative act. There was a beauty and there was
order. And it was broken by our first
mother and father, Adam and Eve, as they listened to the serpent
and ate of the forbidden tree in the garden.
And from these first pages of Scripture, through the Abrahamic
story and now to the Gospels of the New Testament, to where we
are and the first pages of Luke, God moved toward God's people,
however perpetually wayward. And here in this announcement,
the resolution to the story begins in a new way.
Gabriel's words to Mary are an answer to the very first promise
God made after the Fall. Speaking to the serpent to evil
itself, God said that one day the offspring of a woman would
crush its head. This begins as the Holy Spirit
comes upon Mary and the power of the Most High overshadows her.
The coming upon Harkins back to the very beginning.
The word over shadow carries a meaning like that of the poetry
of Genesis 11, where the Spirit of God moves over the waters of
chaos in creation. These are both moments of
creation. In Genesis.
God creates the world, and here and Mary Jesus the new Adam, the
Redeemer comes forth. The child to be born will be
called the Son of God. And in all of that, Mary's
pregnancy was a pregnancy. Her body ached and slowed with
fatigue. She carried the Son of God as a
babe in the womb who kicked her at night.
She couldn't sleep comfortably on her back.
She needed to eat a lot and all of the time.
And slowly as the weeks were on, her belly grew and grew to the
point where it would have no longer been possible to keep it
a secret. The Angel said.
And now your relative Elizabeth, in her old age has also
conceived a son. And in this, the 6th month for
her who was said to be barren for nothing is impossible with
God. A few weeks ago I walked Edith
to the library after picking her up at the bus stop.
We played together in the children's area and I was
quietly resting on the soft couch on the side of the room.
The library was busy, as it often is after school, but this
was a calm corner. Most of the kids at this
specific branch were in high school, so they were over in the
teen area. As I fed Hildegard, I cast my
eyes back and took an all that was in the kids area.
There were a number of Playstations, learning activity,
sections of books grouped by age and theme, and then over along
the wall there were a few rooms, doors to staff spaces,
restrooms, and I spied and had made note of something labeled
family room or something like that.
I made note because if the kids area had been busier, I might
have preferred a private room to feed the baby.
Right after I spotted the room the door opened.
A tired mother with a baby that looked about the same size as
mine locked eyes with me immediately.
I think she literally reached toward me as soon as she opened
the door. She started walking forward and
realized the door was going to close behind her and was kind of
like and shoved a little trash can in the door to keep it from
locking behind her and she ran over and she said does your baby
spit up all the time? I just fed my baby and I think
she spit it all up and I asked her how old her little girl was.
It was almost the same age as Hildegard, and I affirmed that
my baby had just started spitting up a lot more too, and
the tense stress in the woman's shoulders softened immediately.
Now in this context, I did ask a lot of questions.
I clarified I had no medical expertise, that she should call
her doctor's office, but we had a long chat about sleeping and
feeding schedules, little developmental steps, birth
stories. She had an Uber dropper off in
front of the hospital and the Uber driver didn't know where to
go. And anyways, it's crazy.
But in the exchange, the urgency and fear of the moment melted
away. Urgency and fear that very
easily could have been my own if she had found me two hours
earlier. Pregnancy and postpartum days
are filled with every kind of up and down.
Before leaving. We took a selfie with our
babies, exchanged info and we've been texting ever since.
It's like a meet cute for moms. But the truth is.
Something important and powerful transpired in this happenstance
encounter at the Public Library. The intense vulnerability of
pregnancy and the 4th trimester was safely held as it was shared
with someone who knew the same experience.
Mary. Was just told that she's going
to carry the son of God. And that the.
Spirit of God is to over shadow her.
How magnificent, and how much for her shoulders.
Can you imagine the? Peace that Mary would have
known, knowing that while she was only to carry the Son of
God, that her much older relative was also carrying a
miraculous pregnancy. This older woman was.
Getting on in years, she experienced disgrace for her
barrenness that came with grief. She longed for a child, and she
experienced social stigma for not being a mother.
Childlessness was considered a source of shame and an indicator
of a lack of divine favor, and it produced economic
vulnerability there. Had to have been.
Comfort and knowing that Elizabeth was also carrying a
miracle. Elizabeth, who had endured the
sideways glances in the quiet rumors the years of whisper
judgement, was now just a few months ahead of Mary and a
miraculous pregnancy of her own. Mary is the new.
Eve, carrying the one who will crush the head of the serpent
and reign over the House of Jacob Forever, and the angels
very next word to her, is about an older relative whose life has
also been overturned by God's mercy.
Talk about comfort and joy. New creative life.
Was forming within Mary, and God immediately speaks to her about
someone she knows who is older, upright and trustworthy.
Someone who knows something of what it is to have her life
rewritten by divine intervention.
It is so incredibly human. God is giving Mary not only a
promise, but a person, a companion in the miracle.
What piece? It must have brought her to know
of Elizabeth's pregnancy even before she visits her.
We don't often think. Of waiting and peace together.
The spouse who walks. With their beloved, through a
diagnosis and rigorous, repetitive medical treatment,
knows waiting. They know what?
It is to sit. With their beloved experiencing
pain that they can't lessen, they know what it is to wait for
test results and openings in the specialist's calendar.
They know what it is to wait on insurance pre authorization and
to repeat the assessment three months from now.
They. Know how to wait?
And a literal waiting room. And that spouse?
Knows peace like a breaking dam when the Doctor gives the all
clear and their beloved rings the bell on their way out of the
building, hopefully for the last time.
Waiting and peace. Absolutely can have a kind of
inverse relationship where peace settles when the waiting is
done. But I would.
Want to remind us of where we started today?
God came. As a baby.
The new Adam was. Not a military leader or a
sophisticated front page politician.
He wasn't famous for performance or fine possessions.
Most of us sitting here in this old white church building on a
Sunday morning and 2025 are able to easily accept this.
The Jesus we've been taught about and encountered as in any
of those things. But when we think about Jesus,
we recall his ministry and miracles.
We appropriately cling to the image of the cross and the
proclamation of his resurrection.
But before any of that, he was a baby.
A baby who grew. In life and strength from inside
the womb of a poor young woman in an agricultural community in
the Middle East. And even then.
Jesus was God waiting and peace can come together.
On the second Sunday. Of Advent.
We will come to the Advent wreath later and light 2
candles. And today's candle is for peace.
We proclaim peace. Lately I've been reflecting.
A lot on the pandemic. I know it wasn't that long ago,
and it also feels like lifetimes ago.
We've lived through like 6 unprecedented since then.
But 2020 feels. Close to me now because 2020 was
the last time that I was pregnant and the last time that
I had a newborn. The first day that OSU banned
partners from OBBOBGYN offices was the day of my first
ultrasound. I went in by myself because
Thomas was stopped by security at the exterior door.
When? Edith was born No.
One visited us in the hospital because no one was allowed and I
was the worst kind of sleep deprived stir crazy in the first
weeks of her life because we couldn't go anywhere.
At the time. Thomas was working at the
hospital at nights and I had the baby by myself on weekends and
now I have a healthy baby and while on maternity leave we
slipped into uncrowded coffee shops.
We hosted our Central Community group in our home like normal
when she was less than two weeks old.
And I got so. Much joy from that.
Our experiences now are so different from my experiences
then, because the world is an entirely different place, even
though I find myself in the same tired postpartum haze.
So. This year when the.
Christmas trees went up and the lights of the season began to
burn at night. Another 2020 memory came back to
me strongly. It was right at.
The end of the year when Edith was a few months old that they
started getting close to an inaccessible COVID vaccine.
The first. Healthcare.
Worker in Ohio was vaccinated this week, five years ago and.
Access in those early. Weeks and months was tiered in
an effort to serve the most vulnerable, but I can remember
as somebody who was home with a newborn whose world was crashing
in and who missed her people that it.
Felt like there was. Something powerful and tangible
that was changing direction. And I remember that.
Year there was a way that that I hung on and some others hung on
to the phrase a weary world rejoices like we never had
before from the. Christmas hymn.
O holy Night, a weary world rejoices.
As we waited. It felt like a prophetic
proclamation of peace as it had never been before.
Peace breaking in in the most dramatic, necessary, physical
and also emotional kind of way. I.
Was still. Waiting.
Still keeping my baby at home. Still without backup child.
Care still. Living with a daycare.
Closing for 10 days all of the time.
We. Waited with caution.
And yet, for the first time since the world had closed down,
it felt like we could see something beyond the present
circumstance. We were still waiting.
And. We knew peace this morning as
we. Come into ministry time, I
invite us to. Hold on to whatever part of
Mary's story this morning that the Lord was speaking to you in.
That she was the favored. One that God saw her in her
average ways. That she was able.
To experience peace and comfort that God could speak to all that
was going on inside and her literal need for relationship
and friendship at the same time. And I would want.
To remind us. That peace the.
Peace of God is available to us even while we are waiting.
Jared, did you have? Anything to?
Add Yeah, just. For ministry time, you know,
we'll have some folks prepared to pray.
And I just had a sense from the scripture that you shared this
morning, Tori. What made it possible?
For Mary to bear this was the Holy Spirit came upon her and I
just had a sense that for some of you, you would love the Holy
Spirit to kind of over shadow you in the season that you're in
right now. We would love to pray for you.
Just that you would have an encounter with the Spirit to be
empowered for whatever it is that you're facing as you wait
expectantly for peace. So we're going to invite the
worship team back up here. Those who are going to be
praying this morning would love for you to kind of take your
station, so to speak. And we are going to light the
Advent candle as we head back into worship from the early
centuries of the church. Christians have marked the four
weeks before Christmas as a season of preparing our hearts
for the coming of Christ. The.
Lighting of the Advent. Candle emerged as a simple
practice to help the Church remember the growing light of
Christ in the midst of darkness, echoing the prophet's longing
and the church's hope. And so as we worship, each
candle reminds us that the story of Jesus draws near hope, peace,
joy and love. Breaking into the world.
The prophet Isaiah writes of the coming Messiah.
The Lord who formed me in the womb to be his servant, says, I
will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may
reach to the ends of the earth. Kelly is going to go and light
the 1st 2 candles. Not the pink one, that's.
Right. That's fine.
Yeah, good. Job Kelly, thank you.
So today we light. The candle of peace.
Thank you, Kelly. We remember the God.
Who speaks gently, Who comes not in force, but an invitation?
As Mary received the angels greeting, we open ourselves to
the peace that God longs to pour out into our hearts.
Come, Holy Spirit. Fill this room with your
presence over. Shadow us, God.
Give us peace beyond understanding.
Invite you to stand if you're able to.
Worship with us. Please come forward to.
Receive prayer for anything that you would need prayer for.