Love – Advent 2021

Third Sunday of Advent 12 December 2021 Readings And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. - 1 John 4:16 (NIVUK) 22 And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live for ever.’ 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. - Genesis 3:22-23 (NIVUK) 12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and ill-treated there. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterwards they will come out with great possessions. 15 You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.’ 17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking brazier with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates. - Genesis 15:12-18 (NIVUK) 1 The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 2 ‘I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’ - Genesis 12:1-3 (NIVUK) 12 As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. 13 Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk 14 and said to her, ‘How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.’ 15 ‘Not so, my lord,’ Hannah replied, ‘I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. 16 Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.’ 17 Eli answered, ‘Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.’ 18 She said, ‘May your servant find favour in your eyes.’ Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast. 19 Early the next morning they arose and worshipped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah made love to his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. 20 So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, ‘Because I asked the Lord for him.’ - 1 Samuel 1:12-20 (NIVUK) The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. - Psalm 146:9 (NIVUK) Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. - Revelation 3:19 (NIVUK) 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very n