Robert T. Young - "Our Prayers Are Answered" (November 30, 1975)
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| - | The birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. | 0:03 |
| When his mother, Mary, had been betrothed to Joseph | 0:09 | |
| before they came together, she was found to be with child | 0:14 | |
| of the Holy Spirit. | 0:20 | |
| And her husband, Joseph, being a just man | 0:23 | |
| and unwilling to put her to shame | 0:29 | |
| resolved to divorce her quietly. | 0:33 | |
| But as he considered this, | 0:38 | |
| behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him | 0:40 | |
| in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, | 0:43 | |
| do not fear to take Mary your wife, | 0:50 | |
| for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. | 0:55 | |
| She will bear a son | 1:02 | |
| and you shall call his name Jesus, | 1:06 | |
| for he will save his people from their sins. | 1:12 | |
| All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken | 1:18 | |
| by the prophet. | 1:21 | |
| Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son | 1:24 | |
| and his name shall be called Emmanuel, | 1:28 | |
| which means God with us. | 1:34 | |
| When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel | 1:39 | |
| of the Lord commanded him. | 1:41 | |
| He took his wife but knew her not until she had born a son. | 1:44 | |
| And he called his name Jesus. | 1:51 | |
| That is the good news. | 1:57 | |
| Thanks be to God. | 2:00 | |
| And now let us remain standing | 2:04 | |
| and affirm our faith together. | 2:06 | |
| (organ music) | 2:11 | |
| (congregation sings) | 2:20 | |
| We are not alone. | 2:56 | |
| We live in God's world. | 2:59 | |
| We believe in God who has created and is creating, | 3:02 | |
| who has come in the truly human Jesus to reconcile | 3:08 | |
| and make new, who works in us and others by the Spirit. | 3:13 | |
| We trust God who calls us to be the church, | 3:20 | |
| to celebrate life and its fullness, to love | 3:25 | |
| and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, | 3:29 | |
| to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen | 3:35 | |
| our judge and our hope. | 3:39 | |
| In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. | 3:42 | |
| We are not alone. | 3:49 | |
| Thanks be to God. | 3:52 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 3:54 | |
| (congregation responds) | 3:57 | |
| Let us pray. | 3:59 | |
| Let our first prayer be one of thanksgiving for Advent. | 4:11 | |
| Oh God, for the day of whose power the world has watched | 4:16 | |
| and waited through the years, we thank thee | 4:20 | |
| for all prophetic spirits who have seen the promise | 4:24 | |
| of the better day and by faith have served it. | 4:29 | |
| We thank thee for stout-hearted men and women | 4:35 | |
| who in the days of discouragement have still believed | 4:39 | |
| in thy goodness and in thy desire to lead thy people | 4:43 | |
| from darkness into light. | 4:47 | |
| We thank thee for all who when the night was dark about them | 4:52 | |
| have watched for the morning and trusted in the coming dawn. | 4:56 | |
| We thank thee for the folk of faith | 5:03 | |
| who in the dim centuries dared believe in the coming of one | 5:07 | |
| who should bear man's burdens and redeem them | 5:13 | |
| from their sins and reveal to them the light of thy Spirit. | 5:17 | |
| For their vision of a redeemer and for thy response | 5:24 | |
| to their desires, we give thee thanks | 5:28 | |
| and we pray for like faith in this our day | 5:33 | |
| as we approach the anniversary of his birth. | 5:39 | |
| And let us offer unto God a prayer | 5:45 | |
| of intercession for others. | 5:47 | |
| Almighty God who dost expect thy children | 5:53 | |
| to remember one another before thy face, we present | 5:56 | |
| unto thee for thy blessing all kinds and conditions of folk. | 6:01 | |
| We remember this world with its joy and its sorrow, | 6:10 | |
| its humor and its bitterness, | 6:16 | |
| its assurance and its despair. | 6:20 | |
| We remember this country with its splendid heritage | 6:25 | |
| and its many problems. | 6:31 | |
| Help us to help it. | 6:35 | |
| Especially do we bear in our hearts before thee | 6:39 | |
| folk known to ourselves in our neighborhood, | 6:43 | |
| in our congregation, | 6:49 | |
| the children, the young people. | 6:53 | |
| And in a special way the middle-aged, | 6:59 | |
| pray that life may not be for them flat and unprofitable. | 7:04 | |
| We remember the aged, those who have reached the top | 7:12 | |
| of the hill and are walking a road as it descends | 7:16 | |
| into the valley. | 7:20 | |
| Be thou their strength in the latter years. | 7:23 | |
| And we remember one of our own faculty | 7:30 | |
| whose wife has been taken from him | 7:34 | |
| in the last day or two. | 7:39 | |
| Lead the dying gently and safely over Jordan | 7:44 | |
| and then in thy mercy, return to us who are left. | 7:49 | |
| And a short prayer of supplication for ourselves. | 7:58 | |
| Almighty God whose Son we remember specially at this season | 8:03 | |
| of the year, grant that we may know him more clearly, | 8:07 | |
| love him more dearly and follow him more nearly | 8:13 | |
| for thy sake and ours. | 8:21 | |
| And let us offer a prayer of dedication. | 8:26 | |
| May thy will, oh God, be done by us. | 8:30 | |
| May thy love, oh God, be shared by us. | 8:36 | |
| May thy children, oh God, be served by us. | 8:43 | |
| And may this be our honest prayer each day. | 8:50 | |
| And now as our Savior Christ hath taught us, | 8:58 | |
| we pray together saying, | 9:01 | |
| Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, | 9:05 | |
| thy kingdom come, thy will be done | 9:11 | |
| on earth as it is in heaven. | 9:15 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread | 9:18 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those | 9:21 | |
| who trespass against us. | 9:25 | |
| And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, | 9:28 | |
| for thine is the kingdom and the power | 9:33 | |
| and the glory forever, amen. | 9:37 | |
| And our preacher this morning | 9:43 | |
| is the Reverend Robert T. Young, | 9:45 | |
| the minister to the University. | 9:49 | |
| - | I greet you in the name and in the spirit | 10:06 |
| of Christ our Lord and give thanks to God for your presence | 10:08 | |
| in this place of worship on this holy day. | 10:14 | |
| The words of Malachi, behold, I send my messenger. | 10:19 | |
| Prepare the way before me. | 10:25 | |
| And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come. | 10:28 | |
| The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, | 10:33 | |
| he is coming. | 10:36 | |
| Return to me and I will return to you, | 10:39 | |
| says the Lord of hosts. | 10:42 | |
| The words of Matthew, | 10:45 | |
| now, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. | 10:47 | |
| Mary was found to be with child. | 10:53 | |
| She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, | 10:57 | |
| for he will save his people from their sins. | 11:02 | |
| His name shall be called Emmanuel, which means God with us. | 11:08 | |
| Herein, my brothers and sisters in Christ, | 11:17 | |
| our prayers are answered. | 11:22 | |
| Presently, surely, | 11:26 | |
| eternally, yes, | 11:29 | |
| personally, yes, | 11:32 | |
| corporately, indeed. | 11:35 | |
| On this first Sunday of Advent with the awesome majesty | 11:38 | |
| and indeed the mystery of the Advent Old Testament | 11:44 | |
| and New Testament lessons singing in our ears, | 11:48 | |
| I want us to reflect for a few minutes on how the prayers | 11:54 | |
| of all ages have been answered, | 11:57 | |
| indeed, how our prayers are answered today. | 11:59 | |
| What is this prayer of which I speak? | 12:05 | |
| The prayer that I dare to say has been uttered | 12:07 | |
| throughout all history. | 12:10 | |
| I don't think I am presuming upon our past | 12:13 | |
| or upon the present to say that there is one prayer | 12:17 | |
| that all of humanity as individuals and as communities | 12:21 | |
| and as one people has cried longingly and hopefully, | 12:25 | |
| oh God, deliver us. | 12:30 | |
| God, deliver us. | 12:35 | |
| This has been the cry, this is our prayer, | 12:38 | |
| this will always be the plea of sinful men and women | 12:43 | |
| in the eons which are to come. | 12:47 | |
| The Hebrew peoples for years were slaves in Egypt, | 12:51 | |
| were treated perhaps only as animals doing the work | 12:55 | |
| of their slave masters of Egypt, digging, building, | 12:59 | |
| hauling, moving, groveling, sweating and yearning. | 13:02 | |
| And they cried, oh God, deliver us. | 13:06 | |
| And God delivered them from slaves to nomads. | 13:11 | |
| After wandering for 40 years or so, | 13:16 | |
| they settled in the land of Palestine. | 13:18 | |
| They lived there for some 400 years or so. | 13:20 | |
| And then the historians of the Old Testament tell us | 13:24 | |
| the Assyrian army came toward their country. | 13:27 | |
| Sennacherib, the ruthless cold-blooded, power-hungry, | 13:31 | |
| war-mad leader of the Assyrian army brought 185,000 soldiers | 13:34 | |
| to gather around the walls of Jerusalem. | 13:40 | |
| This was in 701 B.C. when Hezekiah was king | 13:43 | |
| and he was ready to submit, but he prayed. | 13:48 | |
| And listen to the words of Hezekiah. | 13:51 | |
| Incline thine ear, oh Lord, and hear, | 13:53 | |
| open thy eyes, oh Lord, and see | 13:57 | |
| and hear all the words of Sennacherib which he has sent | 14:00 | |
| to mock the living God. | 14:03 | |
| Of a truth, oh Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste | 14:05 | |
| all the nations and their land. | 14:09 | |
| So now, oh Lord, our God, save us from his hand. | 14:10 | |
| Deliver us, oh God, cried Hezekiah. | 14:16 | |
| And God did deliver them from the wrath which was at hand. | 14:22 | |
| And then in the New Testament in the gospel of Luke, | 14:29 | |
| we read of the faith of one who saw God's love | 14:31 | |
| which had come to deliver us. | 14:33 | |
| In Luke chapter 2, verse 25, | 14:36 | |
| there's an old man named Simeon. | 14:38 | |
| And Luke writes, and it had been revealed to him, Simeon, | 14:43 | |
| by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death | 14:49 | |
| before he had seen the Lord's Christ. | 14:53 | |
| He was an aged man near his death, | 14:57 | |
| one who had seen his people suffering and persecuted, | 15:00 | |
| had seen them searching and longing. | 15:03 | |
| He along with them had cried, oh God, deliver us. | 15:06 | |
| And now in this young man, Jesus, | 15:12 | |
| Simeon saw that God's deliverance was indeed at hand. | 15:15 | |
| Simeon could with faith and assurance say, | 15:19 | |
| oh Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, | 15:23 | |
| for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. | 15:30 | |
| Prayer is answered. | 15:35 | |
| Prayers are answered. | 15:38 | |
| Our prayers are answered. | 15:40 | |
| They are, aren't they? | 15:43 | |
| Surely, those who have eyes to see, let them see. | 15:47 | |
| Those who have ears to hear, let them hear. | 15:50 | |
| Answers to prayers may very well be compared to the kingdom | 15:54 | |
| of God, the kingdom of God as it has been defined | 15:57 | |
| by a contemporary word from one Colin Morris. | 16:00 | |
| Morris writes in his book, The Hammer of the Lord, | 16:05 | |
| the kingdom, he says, is for the desperate | 16:08 | |
| and the expectant, for those who know | 16:11 | |
| that nothing short of a miracle will meet their need. | 16:15 | |
| For the desperate and the expectant, for those who know | 16:21 | |
| that nothing short of a miracle will meet their need. | 16:26 | |
| Desperate, expectant? | 16:31 | |
| Are we, are you, am I either desperate or expectant? | 16:34 | |
| Desperate, well, not really. | 16:40 | |
| Perhaps weary or tired or worn down or frustrated or worried | 16:43 | |
| or concerned or drained emotionally and physically | 16:48 | |
| and spiritually or beaten or intimidated or frightened | 16:51 | |
| or uneasy or anxious. | 16:55 | |
| Maybe some or all of these at times, but desperate? | 16:57 | |
| No, not just yet. | 17:02 | |
| Expectant, oh, maybe, | 17:06 | |
| but not exactly. | 17:12 | |
| Looking, searching, waiting, eager, yearning, | 17:14 | |
| wishing, dreaming, wanting. | 17:18 | |
| Oh, I wish it would happen. | 17:21 | |
| Oh, how I'd like for it to be so. | 17:23 | |
| Oh, how much I want it to take place. | 17:26 | |
| Maybe even eagerly longing and desirous, | 17:28 | |
| but never quite to the point of realizable anticipation | 17:31 | |
| or heightened expectancy. | 17:36 | |
| Surely, I like the analogy. | 17:41 | |
| The kingdom of heaven is indeed like the answers to prayers, | 17:45 | |
| for they may well be for those | 17:52 | |
| who are desperate and expectant. | 17:54 | |
| Desperate, expectant, Morris speaks | 18:00 | |
| to a desperate expectancy or to an expectant desperation | 18:04 | |
| when he writes, only those who know what hell is like | 18:09 | |
| can appreciate the wonder of our salvation. | 18:12 | |
| And as I wandered through some stores this week, | 18:23 | |
| I guess this is one reason that the plastic and the tin foil | 18:30 | |
| and the cardboard paper toys and bells and games and candles | 18:34 | |
| and balls and lights and decorations and games, | 18:38 | |
| all of the so-called Christmas gifts this year, | 18:41 | |
| this year more than ever before for me make me realize | 18:45 | |
| the gross incongruity that exists | 18:48 | |
| between our crassly commercialized Christmas | 18:51 | |
| and the good news event of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. | 18:55 | |
| What we see around us only confounds and confuses the hell | 19:01 | |
| that many of us know already | 19:07 | |
| and offers salvation to no one at all. | 19:09 | |
| All that lines the shelves and fills the aisles of most | 19:15 | |
| of our stores just now is not an answer to anybody's prayer. | 19:18 | |
| Oh, some of it may be the answer | 19:24 | |
| to some little boy's fanciful visions | 19:26 | |
| or to some little girl's dreams, | 19:28 | |
| but pray tell me what do holster sets and BB guns | 19:30 | |
| and dominoes and Barbie dolls with elevators that go up | 19:34 | |
| and down and plastic candles have to do with these words, | 19:37 | |
| you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people | 19:41 | |
| from their sins, his name shall be called Emmanuel, | 19:45 | |
| which means God with us | 19:49 | |
| or the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come? | 19:51 | |
| Our prayers are answered not by shelves crammed | 19:56 | |
| with make-believes which will get stuffed | 19:59 | |
| under Christmas trees, but our prayers are answered | 20:01 | |
| by the eternal become the present by the Alpha and the Omega | 20:04 | |
| which has become the now by the desperate cries of those | 20:08 | |
| who depend, who do not depend on their own strength | 20:13 | |
| but who are being transformed with expectant hopes | 20:16 | |
| which see God's love eternally and presently revealed | 20:20 | |
| in Jesus the Christ. | 20:23 | |
| Our prayers are answered, yes, even now. | 20:26 | |
| William W. Kenney tells how this is so. | 20:29 | |
| He writes, a Christmas card I received | 20:34 | |
| broke through my sense of futility | 20:36 | |
| and suddenly reawakened my slumbering trust | 20:38 | |
| that God is the Lord of this world, that God's purpose | 20:42 | |
| is being worked out, mysterious as that purpose may be, | 20:45 | |
| and that there are for me as well as for all the world | 20:50 | |
| simple gifts from God that promise to make life human, | 20:54 | |
| sane and joyful if we would only receive them. | 20:57 | |
| The card had portrayed on it the rustic stable scene | 21:01 | |
| with the Christ child in the center. | 21:05 | |
| And all around the cradle, | 21:07 | |
| there were gathered children representing races | 21:08 | |
| and cultures from every corner of the world. | 21:11 | |
| And inside, he writes, the message read, Christmas, | 21:14 | |
| God still loves the world. | 21:18 | |
| Or as John Powell puts it | 21:25 | |
| in A Reason to Live! A Reason to Die! the challenge | 21:27 | |
| of the word of God is that it not only looks | 21:31 | |
| beyond this world, but looks deeply into this world. | 21:33 | |
| Oh God, deliver us. | 21:38 | |
| Deliver us, we cry as God looks deeply into this world. | 21:44 | |
| Oh God, deliver us. | 21:52 | |
| Our prayers are answered. | 21:55 | |
| And at this point, about halfway through the preparation | 21:58 | |
| of this sermon, one of our daughters comes in and asks, | 22:01 | |
| "What are you preaching about this Sunday, Dad?" | 22:03 | |
| And I said, our prayers are answered. | 22:07 | |
| And she stood there for a moment and she said, | 22:09 | |
| "That's not so. | 22:11 | |
| "Our prayers are not answered, at least mine are not. | 22:14 | |
| "And I know a lot of others | 22:21 | |
| "whose prayers are not answered too." | 22:22 | |
| Well, how's that for a stopper? | 22:29 | |
| You talk about football players being clotheslined | 22:33 | |
| or basketball players getting a jump shot crammed | 22:35 | |
| down their throat. | 22:38 | |
| "Our prayers are not answered," | 22:41 | |
| she said very firmly but honestly. | 22:43 | |
| I send my messenger, the Lord whom you seek | 22:47 | |
| will suddenly come, you shall call his name Jesus, | 22:50 | |
| his name shall be called Emmanuel, which is God with us. | 22:53 | |
| "Our prayers are not answered," she said. | 22:56 | |
| And I sat there, for I knew exactly what she meant. | 23:02 | |
| I heard her, I felt the truth of the words which she spoke. | 23:08 | |
| I could sense what was going on inside her mind | 23:13 | |
| and inside my own mind. | 23:17 | |
| If our prayers are answered, | 23:19 | |
| then our Jewish friends would not be condemned | 23:21 | |
| by the United Nations. | 23:23 | |
| If our prayers are answered, | 23:26 | |
| then our young 25-year-old friend would not have died | 23:27 | |
| with leukemia last summer. | 23:30 | |
| If our prayers are answered, then the starving millions | 23:33 | |
| for whom we have prayed over and over | 23:36 | |
| and over again would not be dying this morning. | 23:38 | |
| If our prayers are answered, then a very dear friend | 23:42 | |
| of ours would be being healed from her siege | 23:45 | |
| of leukemia right now. | 23:48 | |
| If our prayers were answered, then the mother of one | 23:51 | |
| of our own children's friends would not have died suddenly | 23:54 | |
| at a young and crucial age this week. | 23:57 | |
| If our prayers are answered, sure, I knew what was going on | 24:00 | |
| in her mind and what was going on in my mind. | 24:03 | |
| If our prayers were answered, then the sick and the lonely | 24:06 | |
| and the oppressed of the world would not be forgotten. | 24:09 | |
| Have we not prayed for them many, many times? | 24:11 | |
| If our prayers were answered, then some friends of ours | 24:15 | |
| where the husband has been unfaithful would know peace | 24:21 | |
| and reconciliation in their family. | 24:24 | |
| Our prayers are answered, you say? | 24:27 | |
| And so I've had to rethink this | 24:33 | |
| to try to rethink how this is so. | 24:38 | |
| And I offer you this at least | 24:43 | |
| as a tentative and perhaps even a partial answer. | 24:48 | |
| Our prayers are answered not necessarily by miracles | 24:54 | |
| of healing or feeding or intruding upon the experience | 24:57 | |
| of life and death as we know them, | 25:00 | |
| but our prayers are answered by a presence. | 25:03 | |
| A presence, the presence of God | 25:09 | |
| that does not leave us comfortless, | 25:12 | |
| that says, lo, I am with you always, | 25:15 | |
| that says I will be with you. | 25:18 | |
| It says, I come to you, that says come to me all who labor | 25:21 | |
| and are heavy laden. | 25:26 | |
| A presence come from God, seen in others, experienced by us, | 25:27 | |
| a presence seen uniquely in Jesus the Christ, | 25:32 | |
| a presence such as that described by Alan Paton, | 25:36 | |
| writer of Cry the Beloved Country | 25:44 | |
| and other meaningful works. | 25:46 | |
| As he looked upon his son, he wrote these words. | 25:50 | |
| I see my son is wearing long trousers. | 25:54 | |
| I tremble at this. | 25:58 | |
| I see he goes forward confidently. | 26:01 | |
| He does not know so fully his own gentleness. | 26:03 | |
| Go forward, my son, eager and reverent child. | 26:09 | |
| See, here I began to take my hands away from you. | 26:14 | |
| I shall see you walk careless on the edge of the precipice, | 26:18 | |
| but if you wish, you shall hear no word come from out of me. | 26:23 | |
| My whole soul shall be sick with apprehension, | 26:28 | |
| but I shall not disobey you. | 26:33 | |
| Life sees you coming. | 26:35 | |
| She sees you coming with assurance toward her. | 26:38 | |
| She lies in wait for you. | 26:41 | |
| She cannot but hurt you. | 26:43 | |
| Go forward, go forward, | 26:47 | |
| I hold the bandages and the ointment ready. | 26:50 | |
| And if you would go elsewhere and lie alone | 26:55 | |
| with your wounds, why, I shall not intrude upon you. | 26:58 | |
| If you would seek the help of some other person, | 27:02 | |
| I shall not come forcing myself upon you. | 27:05 | |
| If you should fall into sin, innocent one, that is the way | 27:08 | |
| of this pilgrimage, struggle against it, | 27:12 | |
| not for one fraction of a moment concede its dominion. | 27:16 | |
| It will occasion you grief and sorrow. | 27:20 | |
| It will torment you, but hate not God | 27:23 | |
| nor turn from him in shame or self-reproach. | 27:27 | |
| He has seen many such. | 27:30 | |
| His compassion is as great as his creation. | 27:33 | |
| Be tempted and fall and return. | 27:38 | |
| Return and be tempted and fall. | 27:43 | |
| A thousand times and a thousand, | 27:46 | |
| even to a thousand thousand, | 27:49 | |
| for out of this tribulation there comes a peace deep | 27:51 | |
| in the soul and surer than any dream. | 27:55 | |
| God's presence, the presence of someone | 28:02 | |
| who says I hold the bandages and the ointments ready. | 28:06 | |
| Our prayers are answered, yes. | 28:15 | |
| How can we experience this answer? | 28:19 | |
| Let's hear a word from a contemporary theologian | 28:24 | |
| of our day, namely Charles Schulz, | 28:27 | |
| as he writes and draws in one of his Peanuts cartoons. | 28:32 | |
| Charlie and Lucy are leaning against a tree | 28:38 | |
| and Lucy asks, what do you think security is, Chuck? | 28:40 | |
| Charlie Brown says, security? | 28:48 | |
| Security is sleeping in the backseat of the car | 28:52 | |
| when you're a little kid and you've been somewhere | 28:54 | |
| with your mom and dad and it's night. | 28:58 | |
| You're riding in the car and you can sleep in the backseat. | 29:02 | |
| You don't have to worry about anything. | 29:05 | |
| Your mom and dad are in the front seat | 29:07 | |
| and they're doing all the worrying. | 29:09 | |
| They take care of everything. | 29:12 | |
| Lucy smiles and says, that's real neat. | 29:15 | |
| But then Charlie Brown begins to get a serious look | 29:20 | |
| on his face and he raises his finger and says, | 29:22 | |
| but it doesn't last. | 29:25 | |
| Suddenly, you're grown up | 29:28 | |
| and it can never be that way again. | 29:31 | |
| Suddenly, it's over and you'll never get | 29:34 | |
| to sleep in the backseat again, never. | 29:36 | |
| Lucy gets a sad and frightened look on her face | 29:41 | |
| and she says, never? | 29:44 | |
| And Charlie devastated with the terrible truth | 29:47 | |
| that he has just spoken replies, never. | 29:49 | |
| Lucy stricken with this new knowledge of the real world | 29:54 | |
| reaches over and says, hold my hand, Chuck. | 30:00 | |
| Oh God, deliver us. | 30:08 | |
| What our world needs, my friends, | 30:13 | |
| what I would dare to presume this morning you and I need | 30:18 | |
| is someone who will hold your hand | 30:25 | |
| or my hand in the midst of all the insecurity | 30:32 | |
| which surrounds us, | 30:36 | |
| someone who can hold our hand | 30:41 | |
| and give us a sense of hope and assurance. | 30:46 | |
| For hope, as someone has written, means | 30:50 | |
| to keep living amid desperation | 30:52 | |
| and to keep humming in the darkness. | 30:56 | |
| Hoping is knowing that there is love, it is trust | 31:00 | |
| in tomorrow, it is falling asleep | 31:05 | |
| and waking again when the sun rises. | 31:09 | |
| In the midst of a gale at sea, it is to discover land. | 31:13 | |
| In the eyes of another, it is to see | 31:18 | |
| that someone understands you. | 31:20 | |
| As long as there is still hope, there will also be prayer. | 31:25 | |
| And God will be holding you in loving hands. | 31:31 | |
| Sometimes, when I hurt the most | 31:40 | |
| and my need is the greatest, I reach out. | 31:47 | |
| I feel alone, alone but for the presence of God. | 31:54 | |
| Sometimes, there is someone else. | 32:02 | |
| Sometimes, there is only God and me. | 32:07 | |
| Sometimes, that is all there is. | 32:15 | |
| Sometimes, that is enough. | 32:23 | |
| Amen, | 32:34 | |
| amen. | 32:37 | |
| (organ music) | 32:42 | |
| (congregation sings) | 33:40 | |
| (organ music) | 35:59 | |
| (organ music) | 36:54 | |
| (soloist sings) | 37:31 | |
| (organ music) | 43:28 | |
| (congregation sings) | ||
| - | Almighty God, our heavenly Father, accept these our gifts, | 44:50 |
| the symbols of ourselves for the service of thy church | 44:57 | |
| in our University community and grant that our gratitude | 45:04 | |
| to thee may always be as great as our need of thy mercy | 45:09 | |
| through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 45:16 | |
| (organ music) | 45:22 | |
| (congregation sings) | ||
| Unto God's gracious mercy and protection do we commit you. | 49:01 | |
| May the blessing of God come upon you abundantly. | 49:08 | |
| May it keep you strong and tranquil in the truth | 49:13 | |
| of his promises through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 49:19 | |
| (organ music) | 49:31 |
