Call to Worship – April 23, 2017

Holy Week is the most sacred season of the Christian year. Sometimes it seems as though we go through it too fast, and that important lessons are lost in the invariable rush. Today we return to the crucifixion, asking questions once again about what perhaps it does and does not mean. We do so in a quest for the deepest truths which we are capable of comprehending. Let us therefore worship the God whose spirit was crushed far more severely by the crucifixion of Jesus Christ than any of our human spirits.

 

Pastoral Prayer

 

We bow before Thee, loving God, with many unanswered questions which flood through our minds and hearts.  Inevitably we wonder why certain events happen, and what meaning, if any, might be ascribed to them. We are thrown by natural disasters and human-caused disasters. We ponder the seeming inexplicability of death, and why it comes to many who are young and in the peak of health, and why it takes so long to bring relief and release to many who are very old and have suffered for years with various ailments.

 

Lord God, today we are thinking again about the crucifixion of Jesus: what it meant to him, what it meant to his followers, what it meant to the early Church, and what it means to us today. Help us as we examine our own deepest thoughts about the cross as we think anew about the historical circumstances surrounding this never forgotten cosmic travesty of justice. As Thou canst bring good out of anything by the power of Thy spirit moving within us, we thank Thee for all the ways that great good has come about because of the traditions by which the cross has been interpreted. Enable us to see how we may personally be connected to it, and how we also may misinterpret our personal connections to it.

 

We ask Thy forgiveness of us for sins we did not individually commit, but in which collectively we are involved anyway. Thy Church in all its branches fails to act responsibly, and because all of us are members of the one holy catholic Church, we thus sin when the Church sins. Our government takes actions of which we personally disapprove, but because we are citizens, we are nevertheless tainted by those actions. We are citizens of a community which makes mistakes, we are members of groups which make bad decisions, and by those associations we engage in sin, even if never intentionally. Forgive us for the shortcomings of our humanity, and by the life of Jesus Christ within our lives, forge within us a new and more dedicated humanity. We ask it in Jesus’ name, now praying together as he taught us, saying, Our Father…..