A devotion for New Years Eve (St. Andrew's) taken from Doran’s Minister’s Manual for 1931:
WATCH NIGHT DEVOTION
CALL TO WORSHIP: “Thou shalt keep the catch of the House of the Lord.” “Arise, Cry aloud in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him.”
INVOCATION PRAYER: LORD, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Tonight we shelter beneath the covert wings of thy love. Pilgrims, another stage nearer home, we would rest awhile beneath the shadow of the Rock of Ages. We beseech thee, O Lord, of thy great goodness, to grant unto us the heavenly vision; that we may behold not only the things of sense in their turmoil and transience, but also the things that endure in their rest and everlastingness. Grant us the sweet peace of the Eternal Years.
Almighty Father, as we keep holy time under the deepening shadows of the closing year, we thank thee for all that it has brought to us of mercy and truth. Receive our sorrow for our sins, and in thine infinite mercy blot them out of the Book of thy Remembrance. Let not the experience of our past days be lost upon us. Fix in our minds every lesson of faith and duty which thou hasrt been teaching us. Take from our hearts every veil that would hide the shining of the heavenly light. Grant unto us, before the record of this year has been finished and sealed, a fresh consecration, a very honest and deep desire to live according to thy will, as it has been made known to us in Jesus Christ our Lord. We ask in His Name. AMEN.
HYMN: “Day and Moments Quickly Flying.” By E. Carswell to the tune, St. Sylvester (J. Dykes)
Reading of Holy Scripture for the Day: “18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
20 But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. 21 I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. 22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. 23 Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also. 24 Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life. 26 These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. 27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
28 And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming. 29 If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.
1 John 2:18-29 (KJV)
WATCH NIGHT PRAYER: Deliver us, O God, in thy mercy from our fears and forebodings. Enable us to be quietly sure that the future is Christ’s, as the past has been His. We remember what He has been to us, how His love has gone every step of the journey beside us, and upheld us in many a trying day. And we recall all that the year has held for us – the brave and the good who have gone from us, the beauty that has faded, the joys that have died. Old friends have passed away, and new friends have come into our lives. As we say good-bye to the year that is going from us, lift up our hearts in hope and trust toward thee, sorrowing not for what the dead days took from us, fearing not what the unknown days may bring, but following thy Light, and rejoicing in thy promises that fail not, and in thy love that cannot die. Lead us, O LORD, through whatsoever paths thou choosest, safely to where thou art and our beloived await us.
Remember for good all those dear to us whom we bring before thee at this midnight hour in the House of God. Be with them where they are, in this or in other lands. Shield all who may be in danger, guide any who are in perplexity, comfort all who mourn, and lay thy hand on any wanderer from the path of peace. Be especially gracious, we beseech thee, to any to whom the past year has brough sorrow or disappointment.: do thou appoint some better thing for them. And help us all to tarry the Lord’s leisure.
O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgiver. Jesus of Nazareth, thou Christ of God, in thee have we trusted: let us never be confounded. O Lord, hear our prayer which we make in the night season, and hearken unto our cry. We ask in the Name of Christ. AMEN.
SERMON ON TEXT:
HYMN: “Ring out, Wild Bells” by Alfred Lord Tennyson
MIDNIGHT: Fellowship of Silence. Note: The passage from the old year to the new may most fitly be made in Fellowship of silence. At the beginning of the Silence, the lights should be subdued as in Candlelight service, and later brought to bright to acknowledge the New Year.
PRAYER AT BEGINNING OF SILENCE: Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and as thou dost pilot us over the bar of another year, so by thy great mercy do thou be with us when at last we cross from the sands of time to the Haven of thy Eternal Rest.
PRAYER AT ADVENT OF NEW YEAR: Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favor, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy Holy Name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life. Grant us, O Father, if it be thy blessed will, a happy New Year; as we have begun it in thy presence, so may we end it in thy peace: and when our little span of mortal days is over, grant us thy servants rest and re-union for ever in the Paradise o God. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. AMEN.
AFTER THE PRAYERS: The minister may well recite some encouraging Scripture verses such as these:
“As thy days, so shall thy strength be. The Eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the Everlasting Arms.” Deut 33:25b &27a.
“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.” John 14:1
“Behold, bless ye the LORD, all ye servants of the LORD, which by night stand in the house of the LORD. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the LORD. The LORD that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion.” (Psalms 134:1-3)
“At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments.” (Psalms 119:62)
“And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. 26 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed.” (Acts 16:25-26)
Our Lord came to set the prisoners free – even to break the iron bars of sin and death and even at the midnight hour!
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The New Testament states Andrew was the brother of Simon Peter, by which it is inferred that he was likewise a son of John, or Jonah. He was born in the village of Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee. Both he and his brother Peter were fishermen by trade, hence the tradition that Jesus called them to be his disciples by saying that he will make them "fishers of men" (Greek: ἁλιεῖς ἀνθρώπων, halieĩs anthrōpōn). At the beginning of Jesus' public life, they were said to have occupied the same house at Capernaum.
The Gospel of John states that Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist, whose testimony first led him, and another unnamed disciple of John the Baptist, to follow Jesus. Andrew at once recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and hastened to introduce him to his brother. Thenceforth, the two brothers were disciples of Christ. On a subsequent occasion, prior to the final call to the Apostolate, they were called to a closer companionship, and then they left all things to follow Jesus.
In the gospels, Andrew is referred to as being present on some important occasions as one of the disciples more closely attached to Jesus. Andrew told Jesus about the boy with the loaves and fishes (John 6:8), with Philip told Jesus about the Greeks seeking Him, and was present at the Last Supper.
Eusebius in his church history 3,1 quotes Origen as saying Andrew preached in Scythia. The Chronicle of Nestor adds that he preached along the Black Sea and the Dnieper river as far as Kiev, and from there he traveled to Novgorod. Hence, he became a patron saint of Ukraine, Romania and Russia. According to tradition, he founded the See of Byzantium (Constantinople) in AD 38, installing Stachys as bishop. According to Hippolytus of Rome, he preached in Thrace, and his presence in Byzantium is also mentioned in the apocryphal Acts of Andrew, written in the 2nd century; Basil of Seleucia also knew of Apostle Andrew's mission in Thrace, as well as Scythia and Achaia. This diocese would later develop into the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Andrew is recognized as its patron saint.
Andrew is said to have been martyred by crucifixion at the city of Patras (Patræ) in Achaea, on the northern coast of the Peloponnese. Early texts, such as the Acts of Andrew known to Gregory of Tours, describe Andrew as bound, not nailed, to a Latin cross of the kind on which Jesus is said to have been crucified; yet a tradition developed that Andrew had been crucified on a cross of the form called Crux decussata (X-shaped cross, or "saltire"), now commonly known as a "Saint Andrew's Cross" — supposedly at his own request, as he deemed himself unworthy to be crucified on the same type of cross as Jesus had been. "The familiar iconography of his martyrdom, showing the apostle bound to an X-shaped cross, does not seem to have been standardized before the later Middle Ages," Judith Calvert concluded after re-examining the materials studied by Louis Réau.
