Our setting included a rainbow stretched across between our galleries and a PowerPoint presentation of the Creation and flood sequences.

There are a lot of readers! This allows many people to take part - but you could manage with just a few! We chose hymns/ songs that would be familiar to most people there - or were easy to pick up. After the Intercessions, the Carnival princesses brought in helium balloons and distributed them to the congregation. The Mayor, Lady Mayoress, Carnival Queen and Princesses led everyone out and across to the Recreation Ground where the balloons were released.

In the beginning, all was darkness

and God said,

"let there be light"

AND BECAUSE GOD HAD SAID IT

THERE WAS LIGHT.

In the beginning, all was silence

and God sang the song of creation

AND BECAUSE GOD SANG
ALL THE STARS AND SPHERES

VIBRATED TO THE MUSIC OF GOD.

In the beginning, all was still

and God laughed

AND BECAUSE GOD LAUGHED

THE WATERS TOOK UP

THE ROAR AND THE RIPPLE OF IT;

AND EBBED AND FLOWED

AND SEEPED AND SWIRLED

AND DELIGHTED IN THE WAYS OF ITS BEING.

In the beginning, all was dull

and God painted

AND BECAUSE GOD PAINTED

THE SKY BECAME BLUE -
AND PURPLE - AND PINK
AND RAINBOWS HANG THERE.

THE GRASS BECAME GREEN

AND THE TREES BECAME MANY

AND FLOWERS AND BUTTERFLIES

DANCED IN THE DRIPS

AND SETTLED LIKE JEWELS

ON THE EARTH.

In the beginning, all was unconscious

and God breathed

AND BECAUSE GOD BREATHED

MEN AND WOMEN WOKE UP FROM THEIR  SLEEPING.

THEY BREATHED OF THE VERY LIFE OF GOD

AND STOOD IN WONDER

BEFORE THE WORK OF GOD'S HANDS.

THEY BEHELD THE GLORY OF GOD

IN ALL THAT GOD HAD MADE            

AND THEY SAW THAT IT WAS VERY GOOD.

Human beings stopped gazing in wonder –

and forgot to see God in the majesty of Creation

What was I thinking of?

My beloved people have eyes – but they do not see.

My beloved people have ears – but they do not hear.

Could I have been so mistaken?

It’s going to rain!

God                           

Looks like a lot of rain

And just as well God did…

for the tears of God’s sadness for the pain of the world fell on the earth

and a flood filled the earth and washed evil away –

for a time.

Reader                      

And to remind his beloved human creatures of his love for them,

God set a rainbow in the sky.
 

God says:

I am a God of tenderness and compassion,
slow to anger,
rich in kindness and faithfulness.
 

God says:

Do not be afraid – I am with you!

When you pass through fire and water, I shall be with you,

I love you and you are precious to me.

God says:

I took my people up in my arms:

but they did not know that I healed them.

I led them with the cord of human kindness,

with bands of love.

I was to them

like those who lift infants to their cheeks,

I bent down to them and fed them.

Yet my people are bent on turning awayfrom me…

How can I give you up?

God says:

I have loved you with an everlasting love;

therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.

What does the Lord require of you?

To do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God.

So many prophets –

so many messages…

In the beginning I created the heavens and the earth –

and human beings to enjoy it with me…

I so love the world…

I so love the world that I shall send my Son

the Word through whom everything has its being will come into the world –

the Word will take flesh – and live among my people.

But the world –

though it had its being through him

did not know him.

And some took the Son of God

who had spoken words of love

of peace

of joy.

Some took him – nailed him to a cross

and he died.

In pain beyond tears,

God mourned his Son…
 

for Jesus –

though he was in the form of God

did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

being born in human likeness.

And being in human form,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to the point of death –

even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him

and gave him the name

that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus

every knee shall bend,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth.  

and every tongue should confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

And our churches   stand as reminders –

that God loved the world so much        

that he sent his Son into the world

not to condemn it but to save it.

Jesus took all the sin and pain of the world to himself –

and the cross that could have been a symbol of the defeat of good became a sign of its triumph.

We can be fully conscious of the needs of our earth:

OF THE WONDERS IN OUR WORLD

AND THE NEED TO PRESERVE THEM;

OF THE CHALLENGES THAT FACE ITS PEOPLES

AND OUR ABILITY TO STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH THEM:

TRANSFORMING SADNESS AND DRABNESS

INTO HOPE AND DELIGHT.

© 2007 Wellspring