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Word and Worship for the Fourth 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 107: 1-3, 17-22 (today’s Responsorial Psalm) 1O
give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever. 2Let
the redeemed of the Lord say so, those he redeemed from trouble 3and
gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. 17Some
were sick through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities endured
affliction; 18they
loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of
death. 19Then
they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress; 20he
sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from destruction. 21Let
them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind. 22And
let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices, and tell of his deeds with songs of
joy. |
Opening Prayer for the Fourth Sunday in Lent
O God, rich in mercy, by the humiliation of your Son
you lifted up this fallen world and rescued us from the hopelessness of death.
Lead us into your light, that all our deeds may reflect your love, through Jesus
Christ our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.
Ephesians
2:1-10
You were dead through the trespasses and sins 2in which
you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the
power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are
disobedient. 3All of us once lived among them in the passions of
our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature
children of wrath, like everyone else.
4But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved
us 5even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us
alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6and
raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ
Jesus, 7so that in the ages to come he might show the
immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For
by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it
is the gift of God— 9not the result of works, so that no one
may boast. 10For we are what he has made us, created in Christ
Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
Gospel Reading: John 3:14-21
{Jesus said} And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in
him may have eternal life. 16“For God so loved the world that
he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but
may have eternal life. 17“Indeed, God did not send the Son into
the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved
through him. 18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but
those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed
in the name of the only Son of God. 19And this is the judgment,
that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than
light because their deeds were evil. 20For all who do evil hate
the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be
exposed. 21But those who do what is true come to the light, so
that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”
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]
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·
God who
confronts, you call us to see what is really going on. Give us the courage to open our eyes, and
take in what you show us. In your
unbounded mercy, Hear our prayer.
·
God who
confronts, you ask us to be honest about what is happening. Give us the faith to admit our failures, so
we may be embraced by your forgiveness. In your unbounded mercy, Hear our prayer.
·
God who
confronts, open us to the sometimes painful process of healing. Show us what we need to see, and move us
toward you. In your unbounded mercy, Hear
our prayer.
·
God who
confronts, the cross confronts your church with its own complicity in its
grasping for power and serving itself.
Strengthen our trust that nothing will separate us from your love, so
that we may admit who we have been.
In your unbounded mercy, Hear our prayer.
·
God who
confronts, even when we turn from you, you do not turn from us. Remind us of your presence in our pain, our
loneliness, and our illness, and use us to touch those we name before you with
your confronting love. In your unbounded
mercy, Hear our prayer.
·
God who
confronts, give us the vision, give us the awareness, give us faith to trust
your confrontation.
In your unbounded mercy, Hear our prayer.
·
Holy God, we pray for our bishops,
Susan and Michael and the congregation of St. Paul Church, Leamington and their
pastor, Pr. Sylvia Swiatoschik. In your
unbounded mercy, Hear our prayer.
·
Holy 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, remembering. 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.
First Reading: Numbers 21:4-9
4From
Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of
Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. 5The people
spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt
to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this
miserable food.” 6Then the Lord sent poisonous
serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites
died. 7The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by
speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to
the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the
people. 8And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a
poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look
at it and live.” 9So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it
upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the
serpent of bronze and live.
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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just as Moses lifted up
the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that
whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
·
Isn’t it odd how vaccines work? A little bit of the
disease or some inert (read that as ‘dead’) part of the germ is injected into a
person, allowing that person’s body to prepare itself to fight off the disease by
being ready for it. It’s an odd thing but some call it an example of “like
curing like.”
·
Something on the same order is found in our Gospel
reading for today.
·
Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus as part of their
conversation in John’s Gospel. Nicodemus came to see Jesus “at night”, a
dramatic time element and a cloaked reference to the darkness or blindness
Nicodemus was living in.
·
Jesus uses the example of the bronze serpent lifted
up by Moses as a way to heal the Hebrews who had been bitten by the “fiery
serpents” during their desert wanderings. Those bitten could look at the bronze
serpent on its pole and be healed of the poisonous bite. Seeing the serpent on
the pole led to being cured of the serpent bite on the ground – like cures like.
·
In a poetically similar way, Jesus would be “lifted
up” on the cross that all who looked to him there would be healed and have
eternal life. The cross, an implement of shameful and humiliating punishment,
would become the symbol of new life. Those whose lives are surrounded with
death and even filled with death can be healed of death by looking to the
“lifted-up” cross.
·
For all time, death has often been our greatest fear
and our most troubling enemy. Here again, like cures like. In his death, Jesus
grants us new life. The cross was seen to be a humiliating punishment, but it
has become a triumphant image of life. Christians don’t hold to the cross
because of its pain but because of its victory, a topsy-turvy victory with all
things turned on their heads. (Should we expect something different from our
God?)
·
To say that faith in Jesus is an “inoculation”
against death might be a cheapening of what Jesus life, ministry, and death
really mean. The new life that comes to us in that faith touches every part of
our lives – behavior, thought, hopes, and even self-knowledge. His message of
the nearness of the Kingdom of God always carries with it the requirement of
repentance and ‘turning around.’ Nothing can be the same as it was.
·
As the Hebrews could look to the bronze serpent on
its pole to be healed of the bite of the poisonous serpents around them, so too
those who believe must look upon the cross of Jesus’ sacrifice and face the
horror of their own sinfulness and their own death. Once that is done (and it
continues to be done), the symbol of death becomes a symbol of life and
actually God’s deep and powerful love for all creation.
·
Our sisters and brothers of the Orthodox Churches
and of the Lutheran Church in Finland have an Easter verse sung in that season
that goes like this: “Christ is risen
from the dead. By death he conquered death, and to those in the tombs he
granted life.” It sings of the truth that in dying, Jesus conquered death. (One
version says “trampling down death by
death.”)
·
Here again, like cures like. It’s so simple to say
and it is so powerful and deep that it calls for contemplation and repeating.
just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
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