A Fellowship of the Christian Church 
The Bass River Pastoral Charge
The Presbyterian Church in Canada
St. Mark’s, Bass River; St. James, Beersville; St. Andrew’s, Clairville & Zion, West Branch
Organists: Heather Morton, Marly Sutherland, Rodney Girvan, Dolly MacDonald, Shanece Wilson
Minister: Rev. Alexander [Sandy] D. Sutherland; B.A., B.Th. M.Div
Manse #: 506-785-4383 Cell #: 506-521-0705 Email: thebrpc@gmail.com Twitter: thebrpc
Bulletin Announcements:  Cathy Little @ Fillmore Trucking #785-1083
www.pccweb.ca/brpc
Welcome, and may God’s grace be yours this day and always
ORDER OF SERVICE
Advent II – Peace
December 4th 2011
Welcome & Announcements    
Bible Study: Tuesdays 10am  This is our last regular week until after Christmas. Next week is the Christmas party. Come out and bring a friend!
Bible School in Clairville – During Church
Choir practice starts again Wed. 7th of Dec. and again on 14th Dec at the Beersville church 7pm; Dec. 21st Choir Christmas party @ Heather’s and Garth’s
Christmas Bake/Craft Sale -Wednesday December 7th 1pm – 3pm @ the Rexton Lions Nursing Home Proceeds for the Resident’s Activity program. & Donations are greatly appreciated! Everyone is most welcome!
Thank You! Everyone who came out in support of St. Mark’s Tea & Craft Sale 
Stewards – The Stewards Group [for ages 11 to 13] continues to meet this Autumn on Wednesdays at 7pm. This week’s meeting is at Sandy‘s house in Beersville[3279 rte 465].  
BMHS Bengal Voices a Bonar Law Memorial Senior Choir will be performing "One Holy Night, A Christmas Musical" at the St. Andrew's United Church Rexton on Wednesday and Thursday December 14th & 15th at 7:00pm. Goodwill donation to the choir as well as a non-perishable food item in support of the local food bank will be collected.  If you have a candle and holder please bring it along., DVD's of the performance can be ordered for $10; proceeds to Restoration Fund. "Memorial Trees" St. James Presbyterian Church, Beersville, will be lighting a Christmas tree in memory of loved ones.  Memorial bulbs are available at $10 each; call Shelley Cail at 785-4323, Doreen Cail at 523-9357, or Audrey Glencross at 785-1983. 
The BRPC EMAILING LIST –email thebrpc@gmail.com to be added

Call to Worship – Advent II – Peace - Liturgy
Voice 1: The psalmist envisions a world where the king rules with righteousness and the poor are treated with justice.*

Voice 2: In this new creation, the needy are delivered, the oppressors are crushed and peace abounds.

Voice 1: Around our world, many men, women and children live with the violence of poverty, conflict and persecution. They yearn to know peace and model this peace in their lives.

Voice 2: We long to live in that world, where God’s glory is revealed on earth, through justice and peace. Today, on this second Sunday of Advent, we light the candle of peace as a prayer of longing.

The candle of Peace is lit.

Let us pray together:
Living God, help us to recognize your presence wherever people work for peace, and teach us to be peace-makers. Come, Lord Jesus. *Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

Opening Praise: BoP 131 The first nowell

Prayer of Approach & Confession & The Lord’s Prayer (NBoP 831; BoP 605)

Responsive Reading  - Psalm 147 [BoP 667] 

Children’s story – Safety – God’s protection
Children’s Hymn: BoP 136 Child in a manger      

Scripture Readings:
	            OT – Isaiah 40:1-11
1    Comfort, comfort my people,
    says your God.
2    Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and proclaim to her
    that her hard service has been completed,
    that her sin has been paid for,
    that she has received from the LORD’S hand
    double for all her sins.
3    A voice of one calling:
    “In the desert prepare
    the way for the LORD;
    make straight in the wilderness
    a highway for our God. 
4    Every valley shall be raised up,
    every mountain and hill made low;
    the rough ground shall become level,
    the rugged places a plain.
5    And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,
    and all mankind together will see it.
    For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
6    A voice says, “Cry out.”
    And I said, “What shall I cry?”
    “All men are like grass,
    and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.
7    The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    because the breath of the LORD blows on them.
    Surely the people are grass.
8    The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    but the word of our God stands forever.”
9    You who bring good tidings to Zion,
    go up on a high mountain.
    You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, 
    lift up your voice with a shout,
    lift it up, do not be afraid;
    say to the towns of Judah,
    “Here is your God!”
10    See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power,
    and his arm rules for him.
    See, his reward is with him,
    and his recompense accompanies him.
11    He tends his flock like a shepherd:
    He gathers the lambs in his arms
    and carries them close to his heart;
    he gently leads those that have young.

       Epistle – 2 Peter 3:8-15
8But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
10But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. 
11Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.
14So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. 15Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 

Hymn of Illumination: BoP 130 O little town of Bethlehem
Scripture Readings: 
      Gospel – Mark 1:1-8
1The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 
2It is written in Isaiah the prophet:
    “I will send my messenger ahead of you,
    who will prepare your way”—
3    “a voice of one calling in the desert,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
    make straight paths for him.’” 
4And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 6John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7And this was his message: “After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Sermon:  Still under construction!! 
On this second Sunday in Advent, the second Sunday in our traditional approach to Christmas, I would like to offer you a message of peace. We can talk about peace, we can ask for peace, but to be in a personal position and understanding of life that we can offer peace to others we have to be first in possession of peace ourselves.
	Following the example of the policing work done in 1948 in Israel, the 1956 formation of a UN peacekeeping force was led by a Canadian, Lester B. Pearson, who offered the idea as a way of stopping certain world struggles from growing to become world conflicts. I think that this idea coming from a Canadian is so very important. That peace should come from a place where peace, and peaceful living, and peaceful co-habituating is of the highest importance. Perhaps we do not realize just how unusual and profound the nature of our nation really is. No other country, on the whole earth, has as good a track record for internal peace as Canada. Yes, we had struggles, and we continue to have conflicts [i.e. Attawapistkat], but unlike so many nations of the world, we keep a real peace that comes from not dominating one group, or melting everybody’s culture into one universal imposed ideology for living, but we have woven together a tapestry of culture and ideas to make for a nation of incredible peace. 
	And it is from that peace that we were able in 1956 and onward these past five decades, to offer peace to other nations by first having such peace in abundance ourselves. The making, giving, sharing and keeping of peace is not something that is done, but is a process that is ongoing, but never before in history has it gained such momentum as the world was given through the work of Canadians, in our military and outside it to offer and keep peace in other nations, often at the cost of lives, often at the expense our own well being.
	The work of making and keeping peace is one that is not easy, it is not a short-term investment of time, resources, or personnel. Whether it is warning nations, or battles between cultures, or violence within the family, the work of peace is not something that is done over a couple of days at talks at tables, or the signing of treaties. Peace is the process, not simply an event, that goes on after all the ambassadors have gotten up from the table. 
	When Peter wrote to the church – likely the churches throughout the Mediterranean – he wrote to people in the midst of conflict, and who were about to undergo more conflict within themselves and certainly with the world around them. Peter wrote to them and he taught them how to be at peace, and how to offer peace.   
	Peter reminds the church that God is in the process of offering peace. God, creator of the universe, has the power to impose any kind of peace God wants, but the truth of it is that God does not come into our lives and order us and impose a peace. Instead God offers peace. 
God offered peace in the garden of Eden, and humanity chose differently. God offered the world peace in the law, but the world has not accepted the law. God offered the world His own begotten, his Son God’s very self made manifest among us,  and still the world struggles and wars to accept the peace it has been given in Christ. 
Whether you walk in to find yourself in the middle of a conflict, or if you have been observing from a safe distance the conflicts of others, you know that offering peace to other people is not an easy thing to do.	It means you are getting involved in their lives in a very personal way, and having them continue as a part of your life for a long time as well. 
Perhaps that is one of the reasons why so many Christians today are not sharing the peace of Christ as they should. We are becoming less and less accustomed to long-term ideas and solutions. We look for the quick-fix; the single solution; the fast turn around program that will bring people back to the church. But all those people who have drifted away, all of those young people who struggle to make these Sunday morning gatherings a part of their week, are not going to be convinced by one sermon, or an evening’s fellowship. 
Christ Jesus came to lay the foundations of the new beginning of what God was doing in the lives of all humanity. Christ Jesus came and offered himself as an atonement for sin, so that we could have peace. 
When – at the close of each worship  - I raise my hands and speak the words that come from the end of one of Paul’s letters ‘may the peace [or grace] of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be yours’ I am sending you out from worship with some goals to help you recognize God’s presence in your own lives. If you cannot look into your own life and see the peace of Christ, or the love of God, or the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, then you know that something very significant is missing in your life, or weak in you life.
It took a whole lot for you to grow and have the sense of peace in Christ you have today, and now that you have it would you ever want to let it go? So, when people ask you why you are so strong, so at peace with all the troubles the world has to offer you can tell them that the peace they see is something that is still under construction, an ongoing roadway project in your own life as you pave the way for peace, for you self, for you family, for the church, know that this is a long term project, that begins today and ends in eternity; but along the way, the peace you have is more than something to hold onto in yourself, but truly is something to share. 
	
Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession

God’s Tithes and our gifts
Doxology (NBoP 830; BoP 603)
Offertory Prayer

Commissioning Hymn: BoP 132 Hark! the herald angels sing

Benediction

Dismissal: Hope is a star [vs. 2 back of bulletin]
Peace is a ribbon that circles the earth,
giving a promise of safety and worth.
When God is a child there's joy in our song.
The last shall be first and the weak shall be strong,
And none shall be afraid.