Service for the Lord’s Day: 5th Sunday in Lent
Choruses from The Messiah by G. F. Handel
CARILLON, WELCOME,
REGISTRATION, ANNOUNCEMENTS
MINUTE FOR ONE GREAT HOUR OF
SHARING
THE PEACE
Leader: The peace of our Lord be with you all.
People: Peace be with you. (Worshipers share words and gestures of peace.)
PRELUDE Overture
Pastoral Symphony G. F. Handel
*HYMN # 93
Ah, Holy Jesus
*CALL TO WORSHIP
from Matthew
Leader: Jesus
says, “Come to me.
Get away with me and you’ll recover your
life.
I’ll show you how to take a real rest.
Walk with me and work with
me—watch how I do it.
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on
you.
Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live
freely and lightly.”
People: His yoke
is easy, His burden is light.
*LIGHTING THE
CHRIST CANDLE
Leader and
People: His yoke is easy, His burden is light.
READING Isaiah
52: 13-53:3 (NRSV)
Leader 1:
See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up,
and shall be very high.
Just as there were many who were
astonished at him—
so marred was his
appearance, beyond human semblance,
and his form beynd that of
mortals—
so shall he startle many nations; kings shall
shut their mouths
because of him; for
that which had not been told them they shall see,
and that which they had
not heard they shall contemplate.
Leader 2 &
People: Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been
revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young
plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no
form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should
desire him.
He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with
infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their
faces
he was despised, and we held him of no
account.
CHORUSES
Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs
And with His Stripes We Are Healed
All We like Sheep Have Gone Astray
Psalm 69: 16-21, 27-29 (NRSV)
Lamentations 1: 20-21 (The Message)
Leader & People: And you passersby, look at me!
Have you ever seen anything like this?
Ever seen
pain like my pain, seen what he did to me,
what God did to me in his
rage?
struck me
with lightning, skewered me from head to foot,
then he set traps all
around so I could hardly move.
He left me with nothing—left me sick, and
sick of living.
READING
Isaiah
53: 8-10 & Psalm
Leader 1:
By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the
living,
stricken for the
transgression of my people.
They made his grave with the
wicked and his tomb with the rich,
although he had done no
violence,
and there was no deceit
in his mouth.
Leader 2 & People: But God did not give his servant up,
or let the faithful one see the Pit.
God shows us
the path of life.
In God’s presence there is fullness of joy;
in God’s right hand are pleasures
forevermore.
CHORUS
Lift up Your Heads, O Ye Gates
PRAYERS OF DEDICATION:
PRAYERS OF THANKSGIVING AND
INTERCESSION, THE LORD’S PRAYER
READING
Psalm 2: 1-4 (NRSV)
Leader & People: Why do the nations conspire, and the people
plot in vain?
The rulers of earth set themselves, and take counsel together,
against the Lord and his anointed saying,
Leader:
“Let us burst their bonds asunder, and cast they cords form us.”
Leader & People: The one who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord has them in derision.
CHORUS Let
Us Break Their Bonds Asunder
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH
(unison) from Psalm 2:7-10, 11b (NRSV)
I will tell of the decree of the Lord,
who said to his anointed:
“You are my
Son; today I have begotten you.
Ask of me,
and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall
break them with a rod of iron,
and dash them in pieces like a potter’s
vessel.
Now
therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Blessed are
all who take refuge in God.
CHORUS Hallelujah!
*Congregation stands as able
Next Week’s Scriptures: Matt. 21: 1-11; Ps. 118:1-2, 19-29; Isa. 50: 4-9; Ps. 31:9-16