Advent Week 2 | Mary's Peace

So our teaching scripture this morning comes from Luke chapter

Luke 1:26–38

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.