December 31, 2017 - New Year’s Eve Prayer and Sixth Day of Christmas

A Prayer for December 31, 2017 - Day 365

1. Across the sky the shades of night
This New Year’s Eve are fleeting,
We deck Your altar, Lord, with light,
In solemn worship meeting;
And as the year’s last hours go by,
We raise to You our earnest cry,
Once more You love entreating.

2. Before the cross subdued we bow,
To You our prayers addressing,
Recounting all Your mercies now,
And all our sins confessing;
Beseeching You this coming year
To keep us in Your faith and fear
And crown us with Your blessing.

3. We gather up in this brief hour
The memory of Your mercies;
Your wondrous goodness, love and power
Our grateful song rehearses;
For You have been our strength and stay
In many a dark and dreary day
Of sorrow and reverses.

5 Then, gracious God, in years to come,
We pray Your hand may guide us,
And, onward through our journey home,
Your mercy walk beside us
Until at last our ransomed life
Is safe from peril, toil, and strife
When heav'n itself shall hide us. Amen.
(Across the Sky the Shades of Night, Lutheran Service Book, CPH 2006, LSB #899)

THE SONG

♬ On the sixth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Six Geese a Laying
Five Golden Rings
Four Calling Birds
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

Why Six Geese a-laying on the Sixth Day of Christmas? 

Six Geese a-Laying represent the six days of creation:

In the very beginning of the Bible we read:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...  And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (Genesis 1:1, 3-5 ESV)

God continued to create during the next 5 days. On day 6 He created the crown of His creation:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness... So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."(Genesis 1:26-27 ESV)

And how did He do?
"And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good." (Genesis 1:31 ESV)

Heavenly Father, help me to take comfort in the fact that You created everything, 
including me. May I celebrate and defend Your precious gift of life! In the saving name of Jesus. Amen.

HAPPY AND BLESSED NEW YEAR to you and your family! 

“See” you at the Communion table today... (9 am for St. Paul’s - Brown Deer)

Pastor David Paape