March 5, 2025 - Ash Wednesday
Invitation to Observe Lenten Discipline
Every year, Christians remember Jesus dying on the cross and rising again. Today, called Ash Wednesday, is the start of Lent, the forty day period when Christians prepare for holy week.
…The week Jesus entered Jerusalem with people shouting “save us”
…the week that people then turned on Jesus and nailed him to a cross,
…the week the tomb was found empty because Jesus came back to life.
The forty days of Lent remind us of how other disciples like Noah spent forty days in the ark, how the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years, and how Jesus fasted while enduring temptation in the wilderness for forty days.
Lent is a time to consider the ways in which we separate ourselves from God and from each other. I invite you now, as Jesus invites us, to spend the next 40 days, this time called Lent, by praying to God, studying the scriptures, and listening carefully to what God wants us to do.
Prelude
Welcome & Call to Worship
[Isaiah 58]
This is the fast God chooses: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.
This is a day acceptable to the Lord: to share our bread with the hungry, to house the homeless, to cover the naked, and to care for our families.
When we do these things, our light shall break forth like the dawn, and our healing shall spring up quickly.
Then we shall call, and the Lord will answer; we shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
Let us worship the LORD!
Be Thou My Vision (Hymn 339)
Irish Ballad
Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Nought be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
Riches I heed not, nor vain, empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my treasure Thou art.
Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my true word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.
Confession
[Psalm 51]
Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out our transgressions. Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity, and cleanse us from our sin. For we know our transgressions, and our sin is ever before us. You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach us wisdom in our secret heart. Create in us a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within us. Restore to us the joy of your salvation, and sustain in us a willing spirit. Amen.
Silence
Create in Me a Clean Heart
Anonymous
Create in me a clean heart. O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Create in me a clean heart. O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from Thy presence, O Lord,
and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation,
and renew a right spirit within me.
[Psalm 51:10 –12]
Forgiveness in Jesus Christ
Peace
The peace of Christ be with you.
And also with you.
Scripture Reading: Psalm 51
Scott Starbuck
Homily: Not Spasmodic Petition but Repentant Interiority
Focus: “It is said that the age of a tree can be reckoned by looking at the bark—one can also truly know a person’s age in the good by the inwardness of the repentance.” —Søren Kierkegaard
Make Me a Channel of Your Peace
Temple
Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring your love.
Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord,
And where there’s doubt, true faith in you.
Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there’s despair in life, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, only light,
And where there’s sadness, ever joy.
O, Master, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled, as to console,
To be understood, as to understand,
To be loved, as to love, with all my soul.
Make me a channel of your peace.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving of ourselves that we receive,
And in dying that we’re born to eternal life.
Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper
Imposition of Ashes & Benediction
Sign Us With Ashes
Bringle/Rowan
Lisa Phillips
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