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Word and Worship for the First Sunday in Lent |
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The grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit
be with you all. And also with you. |
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Psalm 25 (today’s Responsorial Psalm) 1 To
you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. 4 Make
me to know your ways, O Lord; 6 Be
mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love, or my transgressions; 8 Good
and upright is the Lord; faithfulness, for those who keep his
covenant and his decrees. |
Opening Prayer for the First Sunday in Lent
Holy God heavenly Father, in the waters of the flood
you saved the chosen, and in the wilderness of temptation you protected your
Son from sin. Renew us in the gift of Baptism. May your holy angels be with us,
that the wicked foe may have no power over us, through Jesus Christ, our Savior
and Lord who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and
forever. Amen.
Gospel Reading: Mark 1:9-15
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by
John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of
the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove
on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son,
the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 He
was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild
beasts; and the angels waited on him.
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good
news of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled,
and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good
news.”
Sermon
(added at the end of the document)
Thanks and Offertory
The
Prayers of Church:
·
Relying on
the promise of God, we pray boldly for the world, the church, and all in need.
[Short pause]
·
Gracious God,
you are found with sinners. Remind us
that, no matter how we fail, no matter how often we fall, we are your beloved.
In your unbounded mercy, Hear our prayer.
·
Gracious God,
you are found with outsiders. Open us to
those who are strangers, that we may welcome them as beloved.
In your unbounded mercy, Hear our prayer.
·
Gracious God,
you are found with minorities. Set us
free from our assumptions, both about others and about ourselves. Help us interact with all people as beloved.
In your unbounded mercy, Hear our prayer.
·
Gracious God,
you are found outside the church. Give
us the faith to trust your presence among those who make different assumptions
about life, that we may remember that they, too, are beloved.
In your unbounded mercy, Hear our prayer.
·
Gracious God,
you are found with the ill. Use us to
support the sick and all who are cut off from friends and family, including
those we name before you.
May we remind them that they are also beloved. In your unbounded mercy, Hear our prayer.
·
Gracious God,
there is no one who is outside of your loving concern. Enable us to trust your presence in all, and
with all, for the sake of all your beloved.
In your unbounded mercy, Hear our prayer.
·
Gracious God, we pray for the
congregation of Redeemer Church, London and their pastor, Pr. Katharine Gohm, In your unbounded mercy, Hear our prayer.
·
Gracious God,
we pray in thanksgiving for those who lived and served in your name and who now
rest from their earthly labours, those saints who have been gathered into your
eternal embrace In your unbounded
mercy, Hear our prayer.
·
Into your
hands we commend all for whom we pray, trusting in your mercy; through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
Amen.
The
Lord’s Prayer
Let us pray as Jesus taught us:
Our
Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done, on earth as it is in
heaven.
Give
us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against
us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For
thine is the kingdom, and the power,
and the
glory, forever and ever. Amen.
1
Peter 3:18-22
18 For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for
the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the
flesh, but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which also he
went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, 20 who
in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah,
during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were
saved through water. 21 And baptism, which this
prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an
appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right
hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.
Benediction and Sending
Go forth into
the world to serve God with gladness;
be of good
courage; hold fast to that which is good;
render to no
one evil for evil;
strengthen
the fainthearted; support the weak;
help the
afflicted; honour all people;
love and
serve God, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Go in peace. Share the Good News. Thanks be to God
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(This reading is included for the sake of being complete.)
First Reading: Genesis 9:8-17
8 Then God
said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you
and your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the
birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as
came out of the ark. 11 I
establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by
the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the
earth.” 12 God
said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and
every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the
clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over
the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and
you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again
become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and
remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all
flesh that is on the earth.” 17 God
said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between
me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
Now after John was
arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and
saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come
near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
·
In a very, very busy passage from the beginning of
the Gospel of Mark, we hear of all these things happening to Jesus. There’s
plenty of action. The heavens are torn open and the Spirit of God fills Jesus,
not just landing gently on Jesus like a little bird, but crashing into him like
a storm and powering him up.
·
Jesus is then “driven” in to the wilderness by that
same Spirit. He struggles with the evil one’s temptations and contends with the
chaotic beasts that live out there. This is not squirrels, chipmunks, and the
occasional skunk, but wolves, lions, and who-knows-what else out there where
nobody sane lives. Angels come to wait on him which could be a way of saying
that God never abandoned him despite his situation in the wilderness.
·
Then Jesus begins his ministry, sounding a lot like
John the Baptizer as far as the message goes. The message is simple and
powerful – The Kingdom has come near. The time is fulfilled. This is Good News.
Turn around, make it your own, and live it.
·
As I said there is plenty of almost breathless
action at this point in Mark’s Gospel, all of it meaningful to the story of
Jesus. And how does it effect us?
·
There was no tearing of the heavens or descent of
the Spirit dove when I was baptized. There was no need of either. The heavens
were torn open when Jesus was baptized and the curtain of the Temple,
separating the Holy of Holies from the people of God was ripped in half when
Jesus died on the cross. The heavens cannot be mended and we don’t want them to
be. God’s Spirit is loose in the world and there is no turning back. When I was
baptized, these things had already been done and in baptism, I became part of
this event. All of us were and we remain so.
·
As far as being in the wilderness goes, I was not
bodily tossed into some wild place. Yet I have become aware of the wild places
within me, the temptations that confront me, and the dangerous things all
around and within me. Jesus had to confront the evil in the world before
proclaiming the Good News to all. He had to take evil seriously before sounding
his message. Evil is still around us and often within us, and the Gospel given
to us opposes it and ultimately defeats it. Still the struggle goes on.
·
The angels of God give us comfort and often come to
us as scraggly and out-of-place people, words, and ideas. God remains with us
as God was with Jesus in the wilderness, to comfort, to reassure, and for us
especially, to teach.
·
The time remains fulfilled and the Kingdom is still
near. This Kingdom calls to us and motivates us as disciples of Christ. Jesus
tells his listeners to “Repent and believe in the Good News.” “Repent” is
English for the original word that can also mean “turn around.” To repent means
to turn away from something and turn to something else. It is
nothing less than the Good News of the Kingdom of God in Jesus that calls us to
turn from our sins, our prejudices, our injustice, or our selfishness and turn
to the ways of the Kingdom. Prayer and action are needed, both for ourselves
and for the sake of God’s Kingdom on earth. How that prayer will sound and what
those actions might be will depend on so many things in and around us. Still we
must turn and believe. That is how it is done.
·
So what do we do when the heavens are torn open?
Repent and believe.
·
What do we do when the Spirit descends on us? Repent
and believe.
·
What do we do when we’re thrown into the wilderness,
to be tempted by the devil and endangered by wild beasties? Repent and believe.
·
What do we do when angels wait on us? (First, call
me because I want to see that.) Repent and believe.
·
What do we do when the time is fulfilled and the
Kingdom has come near? Repent and believe.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
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