Baptism of the Lord

Evening Prayer I

GREETING
O saving God, send your living waters to renew us. In Christ we have been born anew, to walk as sons and daughters of God.


DOXOLOGY



PSALM  68:2–21,25–36
God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.
God rises up, enemies of heaven scatter: they disperse like smoke, they melt like wax, they perish before God.


But the just are glad, they rejoice before God and celebrate with song.

Sing to God’s name, play hymns! God rides the clouds. Send up a song! “Lord” is God’sname. Rejoice! Father to the fatherless, defender of widows: God in the temple!

God gives the homeless a home, sets prisoners free to prosper, but the rebellious are banished to the wild.


God, when you led your people, when you marched in the desert, earth shook, heaven rained before you, Israel’s God, the Lord of Sinai.

You gave us downpours to refresh the promised land where you nourish your flock. Gracious God, you strengthen the weak. 

God speaks a word; a company of women spreads the good news.

Kings and their armies run and flee.

Housewives and shepherds all share the plunder: silver plated doves with bright gold wings.


The Almighty blew kings about like snow on Mount Zalmon.

Bashan is a sacred peak, a mountain of high summits. Soaring Bashan, why envy the mountain God chose as home, a place to live for ever?


With thousands and thousands of uncounted chariots
the Lord came from Sinai to Zion’s holy temple.

You ascended to the heights, you took captives and accepted tribute from those resisting you.


Bless the Lord each day who carries our burden, who keeps us alive, our God who saves, our escape from death.

People watched the procession as you marched into your house, my Lord, my sovereign God. Singers at the head, musicians at the rear, between them, women striking tambourines.


Bless God in the assembly, all who draw water from Israel’s spring. Little Benjamin leads the princes of Judah, Zebulun, and Naphtali.

Use your strength, God, as you did for us in the past
from your house above Jerusalem. May rulers bring you gifts!

Rebuke the beast of the Nile, wild bulls and their calves. Trample those who lust for silver, scatter the warmongers.


Envoys will come from Egypt, the Cushites will pray to God.

Rulers of earth, sing to God. Make music for the Lord who rides the clouds, whose voice is thunder.

Acknowledge the power of God who governs Israel, whose strength is in the storm clouds.

You inspire wonder
in your temple, God of Israel, as you fill your people with power and might.

Blessed be God!

 

EPHESIANS 1:3–10
God determined out of love to adopt us through Jesus Christ.

Bless God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us from heaven through Christ with every blessing of the Spirit. Before laying the world’s foundation, God chose us in Christ to live a pure and holy life. God determined out of love to adopt us through Jesus Christ for the praise and glory of that grace granted us in the Beloved. By Christ’s blood we were redeemed, our sins forgiven. With perfect wisdom and insight God freely displayed the mystery of what was always intended: a plan for the fullness of time to unite the entire universe through Christ.



READING
1 Corinthians 12:12 – 13
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.



CANTICLE OF MARY
He went about doing good, for God was with him.

I acclaim the greatness of the Lord,
I delight in God my savior,
who regarded my humble state.
Truly from this day on all ages
will call me blest.
For God, wonderful in power,
has used that strength for me.
Holy the name of the Lord!
Whose mercy embraces the faithful,
one generation to the next.
The mighty arm of God
scatters the proud in their conceit,
Pulls tyrants from their thrones,
and raises up the humble.
The Lord fills the starving
and lets the rich go hungry.
God rescues lowly Israel,
recalling the promise of mercy,
the promise made to our ancestors,
to Abraham’s heirs forever.


INTERCESSIONS
We have been baptized with water and the Spirit. May these gifts continue to refresh and direct our lives.

Be living water for our thirsty hearts:
~ Comfort us with your presence.

Be living water for our thirsty minds:
~ Enlighten us in our search to understand your word.

Be living water for our thirsty lives:
~ Refresh us with the assurance of your love.

Be living water for our thirsty world:
~ Soothe us with your peace.

Be living water for our thirsty earth:
~ Help us to live in harmony with creation.


THE LORD’S PRAYER

Prayer
Pour the power of the Spirit into our lives, O God, that we may be faithful to our baptismal commitments. We have been challenged to renounce the allure of evil; may we, through lives of justice and mercy, proclaim our belief in you. You have endowed us with the gift of faith; may we know ourselves as your children. We have been welcomed into the community of the church; may we contribute to the building up of your body. In company with our sisters and brothers we strain toward the coming of your reign when all will be one in you. Amen.


BLESSING
O Christ, well of living water, let us drink of wisdom. Amen.
O Christ, well of living water, let us drink of hope. Amen.
O Christ, well of living water, let us drink of mercy. Amen.

 

MORNING PRAYER


GREETING

O saving God, send your living waters to renew us. In Christ we have been born anew, to walk as sons and daughters of God.



DOXOLOGY



PSALM  95

And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.

Come, sing with joy to God, shout to our savior, our rock.
Enter God’s presence with praise, enter with shouting and song.


A great God is the Lord, over the gods like a king.
God cradles the depths of the earth, holds fast the mountain peaks.
God shaped the ocean and owns it, formed the earth by hand.


Come, bow down and worship, kneel to the Lord our maker.
This is our God, our shepherd, we are the flock led with care.


Listen today to God’s voice: “Harden no heart as at Meribah,
on that day in the desert at Massah.
There your people tried me,
though they had seen my work.


“Forty years with that lot! I said: They are perverse, they do not accept my ways.
So I swore in my anger:
They shall not enter my rest.”

 

DEUTERONOMY 32:1–12

May my words cling like dew, like gentle rain upon tender grass.


Hear me, heaven and earth, listen to what I say.

May my thoughts fall like rain, may my words cling like dew,
like gentle rain upon tender grass, like showers upon seedlings.
I will praise the Lord’s name, I will tell of God’s greatness.


God is the rock, whose works are perfect, whose ways are right, a God faithful and true, just and without deceit.

But the corrupt and headstrong treat God with contempt, they are no longer God’s children.


Is this how you thank God, you slow-witted fools? Did God not father you, create you, and provide for you?


Remember ancient times, think back to ages past.
Ask your parents; they will tell you, your elders will teach you.


When God gave the nations their land, dividing the human race,
the Most High set boundaries for peoples, equal to the number of gods.


The Lord adopted Jacob, claimed Israel as a people, finding them in the wilderness, in the wild and howling wasteland, enfolding them with care,
keeping a loving eye on them.


Like an eagle rousing its young, hovering over its little ones, spreading its wings to carry them, to bear them up in flight, the Lord alone guided Israel; there is no other God.

 

READING

Isaiah 61:1 – 2a

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

 

CANTICLE OF ZECHARIAH

This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.

Praise the Lord, the God of Israel,
who shepherds the people
and sets them free.
God raises from David’s house
a child with power to save. --
--Through the holy prophets
God promised in ages past
to save us from enemy hands,
from the grip of all who hate us.
The Lord favored our ancestors
recalling the sacred covenant,
the pledge to our ancestor Abraham,
to free us from our enemies,
so we might worship without fear
and be holy and just all our days.
And you child, will be called
Prophet of the Most High,
for you will come to prepare
a pathway for the Lord
by teaching the people salvation
through forgiveness of their sin.
Out of God’s deepest mercy
a dawn will come from on high,
light for those shadowed by death,
a guide for our feet on the way to peace.


INTERCESSIONS

In your baptism, Jesus, we know you as God’s chosen one. We rejoice in this revelation of your divinity, as we pray.


You requested baptism from John:


~ May we recognize in others the power to mediate your grace to us.

God claimed you as the beloved Son:

~ Help us to know ourselves as beloved of God.

You affirmed John’s ministry of penance and proclamation:

~ Give us the generosity to affirm and nurture the gifts of our partners in ministry.

Your baptism was followed by an experience of temptation:

~ We pray for your strengthening presence in our times of trial and temptation.

You invited us to be born anew through the waters of baptism:

~ Strengthen the faith of catechumens as they prepare to receive this sacrament.

 

THE LORD’S PRAYER



Prayer


Pour the power of the Spirit into our lives, O God, that we may be faithful to our baptismal commitments. We have been challenged to renounce the allure of evil; may we, through lives of justice and mercy, proclaim our belief in you. You have endowed us with the gift of faith; may we know ourselves as your children. We have been welcomed into the community of the church; may we contribute to the building up of your body. In company with our sisters and brothers we strain toward the coming of your reign when all will be one in you. Amen.