I started the first Longest Night worship service at Elmwood Church in 1996 after a year where our little congregation experienced many losses. In a candle lit sanctuary with Advent hymns and Lee Dreamer singing beautiful songs and we remembered those we had lost and missed. We sat in the silence making room for a few moments of sadness and grief during a season when we were expected to be happy and joyful.

This Advent season, as a world community and as individuals, we experience great loss, sadness, grief and uncertainty. Advent and Christmas do not feel happy and merry. The holidays loom over many as a more than just one long night but as several long and lonely days.

As we complete the second week of Advent and move towards the third Sunday let us pray for all who find this holiday season exceedingly difficult and lonely.  Let us find ways to bring light into the darkness of the days ahead.

God of mercy, hear our prayer in this Advent season for ourselves, for our family, for our friends and for our neighbors but near and far, who live with the struggles of isolation and loneliness.  Hear our prayers for those who experience these days the pain of loss and grief.  We ask for strength for today and for hope and light for tomorrow and for the days ahead. We ask these things in the name of Christ, who shares our life in joy and in sorrow, death and new birth, despair and promise. Amen.