Sunday Worship – 17th March 2024 – Passion Sunday, Lent 5

(All our songs this morning are from Singing the Faith (StF) Mission Praise (MP) or Hymns & Psalms (H&P) numbers will be given where available)

Welcome to our Sunday Service, today shared on paper across our circuit and with the congregation at Allerton Methodist Church and led by Rev Nick Blundell one of our Circuit Ministers. Today is the fifth Sunday of Lent, traditionally known as Passion Sunday, or the first Sunday of Passion-tide.

Click on the blue links to follow them for bible readings and associated links

Call to worship

Jeremiah 31:31-33

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.

“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord.

Song – StF 82 or MP 506 – O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder consider all the works thy hand hath made   

Lord God, are with us as we come to worship you.
You have promised us so much and your call to us has brought us here.
Accept our worship, our words and thoughts, our confessions and our promises;
for you are ours and we are yours, this and every day.       Amen.

Eternal, Holy God, our God who reigns supreme, forgive us that, although your promises are steadfast and sure, we have so often broken our covenant promises to you;
we have strayed and failed you and our neighbours; we have thought and said things we ought not to have done; we have sat on our hands when we should have been active and involved.
Forgive us, and let us renew our covenant promise to you,
to live as your people to the best of our abilities.                  Amen.

You Lord have spoken; your voice has been made known.  You no longer remember our wrongs or hold them against us.   You know us inside out, you have heard our confession, and our sins you have forgiven.                                                                                Amen.

Reading        

John 12:20-33

Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival.  They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.”  Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.

Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be.  My Father will honour the one who serves me.“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.   Father, glorify your name!”

Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”  The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.

Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.   And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

Song – StF 306 or H&P 204 – Now the green blade rises from the buried grain

 Reflection 

As the end of Lent draws into view, the sellers of Palm Leaves make ready their stalls for next Sunday’s procession, and we nerve ourselves to face once more the disappointments and distress of Holy Week, the lectioneers (I might have invented a word there) give us Jeremiah 31 and John 12 to chew over.

So let’s chew.   The three verses from Jeremiah (we used two of them in our call to worship) speak of a new covenant God is making with humankind.  In the verse we didn’t use the prophet writes,’It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord.’   Here God is promising a new thing, with the implication that human action and choice has derailed the previous attempts to forge the kind of relationship God intends. 

This time, “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.’
This time, ‘I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

And what is different this time?  Different from the rainbow promise to Noah.  Different from the promise to Abraham and Sarah of numerous descendants.  Different from Moses’ promised land.  This time God will be on both sides of the covenant – this time humanity has a champion.  And his name is Jesus.

Which moves us to John 12, with it’s poetry and promise.

Here we have Gethsemane, and Jesus’ acceptance of the Father’s will – “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.’

Here we have Calvary – ‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

And here we have Easter, albeit a little obscurely – ‘unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

And all this is about the making of the new relationship, new covenant, between God and creation, God and humankind, God and you and me.  And Jesus is the key.  He is the one lifted up.

He is the solution to the puzzle.

Some of you will play wordle each day.  It’ s a puzzle in which the answer is a five-letter word, which you have six attempts to work out, each attempt revealing, hopefully, correct letters in the wrong or right places. I recommend it. 

Can we think of Jesus as that five-letter word which solves the puzzle of covenant, which answers the question as to how God will write God’s law on our hearts?  Not with a list of rules but a name of love – Jesus.  And Jesus is written on our hearts as we see the depth and breadth and height of his love, as he is willingly lifted high on that cross, taking all our hurt and fear and loss into himself. God allowing his own heart to be broken that our hearts may be whole.   ‘Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?’

Amen.

We respond with a time of quiet, and then John Bell’s verse at

Song – StF 781 – Take, oh take me as I am

We sing or listen to Michael Forster’s hymn 

Song – StF 615 – Let love be real, in giving and receiving  with the refrain:   

As God loves us, so let us love each other: with no demands, just open hands and space to grow.

Prayers

Heart-broken God, we thank and praise you for your unconditional and unlimited love, love which we see most clearly in the passion of Jesus Christ.  As we journey through this passion-tide, help us to respond to your love with generosity and thankfulness.  May your love lifted high on the cross set us free  to love both ourselves and our neighbours near and far.

Christ lifted high, hear our prayer and touch our hearts.

We pray for your church in this place and in every place.  May our common life speak to those around us of your love for them, and our welcome truly represent your forgiving and accepting grace. Guide our decision-making, and enable and inspire those carrying the burdens of responsibility, that such burdens may become gifts to be shared, that freedom might be found in service.

Christ lifted high, hear our prayer and touch our hearts.

We pray for those known to us who are living with conditions which limit freedom, or in relationships in which they are not valued.  For those who know their days are numbered, and those awaiting diagnosis or decision.  For those caring for loved ones, especially where external support is missing or limited. 

Christ lifted high, hear our prayer and touch our hearts.

We pray for those places where human failing and foolishness has led to violence, destruction and deep distress.  We include the holy land – Israel, Palestine, particularly Gaza, and its neighbours; Ukraine; Yemen; Sudan.  We take a few moments in silence to lift these places, and others which come to mind, to God, asking that the ways of peace and the work of the peacemakers might overcome.

Christ lifted high, hear our prayer and touch our hearts.

We pray for those who are grieving, whether their loss be the result of human action or natural process.  Help them through the struggles and heartaches of their journey, and let your light of love shine even in their darkness.

Christ lifted high, hear our prayer and touch our hearts.

We pray for the planet we inhabit, and all life upon it.  As together we face the climate emergency, we pray for those already experiencing its consequences in extreme weather and lost habitats, homes and livelihoods.    We pray for an opening of hearts and minds in leaders of governments, industry and commerce to the need for changed policy and  behaviour.    May those who are old learn to listen to those who are young, and those with power hear the wisdom of those without.

Christ lifted high, hear our prayer and touch our hearts.

We pray for ourselves, acknowledging our need for forgiveness and repentance, while at the same time knowing that the name of love written on our hearts means forgiveness is granted and repentance truly possible. So we turn once again to the broken-hearted God, who rejoices at our return, then sends us to share the good news with our neighbour.

Christ lifted high, hear our prayer and touch our hearts.

In your name we bring these prayers.                                                 Amen.

We bring our prayers together, as we pray, with all God’s people,

The Lord’s Prayer

We close with Charles Wesley’s great hymn, from which we quoted earlier,

Song – StF 345 or H&P 216 – And can it be that I should gain    

We go in peace, in the power of the Spirit, to live and work to God’s praise and glory. Amen.

We bless one another, and all those we have brought to mind this day, as we share the Grace:                    

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all, now and always.  Amen.        

 (CCLI 1094975 Service prepared by Rev’d Nick Blundell)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.