Here’s an advent litany of commitment from Bread for the World. It was posted on the Canadian Foodgrains Bank website. Visit that site for other good resources for Advent and Christmas worship.
Advent Litany
(based on Isaiah 40)
Prepare the way for the Lord!
Make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.
How will we make a straight pathway for our God?
By straightening the crooks and bends of our own hearts.
By removing the secret places we hide from God.
By exposing the failings of community and nation,
the failings that as a nation we hide from ourselves
but cannot hide from God or the rest of the world.
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
How will we comfort the people of the Lord?
By seeing and hearing the world’s anguish,
and by acting to relieve its sufferings.
By beating our swords into plows,
that the earth might support the Lord’s people and not its rulers.
A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I say, “What shall I cry?”
What shall we proclaim of the Lord’s coming?
We proclaim that the acceptable day of the Lord is here—
when we are delivered from sin and death.
When the meek shall inherit the earth.
When the blind will see and the deaf will hear;
when the hungry are fed and the oppressed delivered.
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!”
— from Banquet of Praise, copyright © 1990 Bread for the World. Posted on the Canadian Foodgrains Bank website.
Make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.
How will we make a straight pathway for our God?
By straightening the crooks and bends of our own hearts.
By removing the secret places we hide from God.
By exposing the failings of community and nation,
the failings that as a nation we hide from ourselves
but cannot hide from God or the rest of the world.
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
How will we comfort the people of the Lord?
By seeing and hearing the world’s anguish,
and by acting to relieve its sufferings.
By beating our swords into plows,
that the earth might support the Lord’s people and not its rulers.
A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I say, “What shall I cry?”
What shall we proclaim of the Lord’s coming?
We proclaim that the acceptable day of the Lord is here—
when we are delivered from sin and death.
When the meek shall inherit the earth.
When the blind will see and the deaf will hear;
when the hungry are fed and the oppressed delivered.
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!”
— from Banquet of Praise, copyright © 1990 Bread for the World. Posted on the Canadian Foodgrains Bank website.
