The traditional Christian church calendar is comprised of seasons. We have reached the season of Lent. Lent is a forty-day period, not including Sundays, for contemplation, reflection, and making amends for past actions. We are given the freedom of choice and should consider why we make poor choices.
Brief Order For Confession and Forgiveness
Music to accompany this worship is on Spotify at:
Entrance Hymn
My Song is Love Unknown
Kyrie
Hymn of Praise
Prayer of the Day
Creator God, you prepare a new way in the wilderness, and your grace waters our desert. Open our hearts to be transformed by the new thing you are doing, that our lives may proclaim the extravagance of your love given to all through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
The First Lesson
Isaiah 43:16-21
16 Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters,
17 who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
18 Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.
19 I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
20 The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people,
21 the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.
Psalm
Psalm 126 (5)
1 When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.
2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.”
3 The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.
4 Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses in the Negeb.
5 May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.
6 Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.
The Second Lesson
Philippians 3:4b-14
4b If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more:
5 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;
6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.
8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.
10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death,
11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
13 Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
The Gospel Acclamation
Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what | lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God | in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3:13-14)
The Gospel
John 12:1-8
1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.
3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said,
5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”
6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)
7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.
8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
The Sermon
We Celebrate the Journey
The Hymn of the Day
Glory be to Jesus
The Creed
The Peace
Gathered in the Love of Christ
The Prayers
The Offering
Communion
The Lord’s Prayer
Communion Hymns
Christ, the Life of All the Living
Communal Blessing
Dismissal
The Bible readings are from the New Revised Standard Version. I wish to thank the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, ELCA, and its predecessor bodies for all their teaching throughout the years. I’ve used the Lectionary published on the ELCA website at elca.org in preparation for this worship.