Ash Wednesday: Our Deepest Night

Ash Wednesday Meditation

Music for Meditation

Please respect the wish of others to meditate or pray before service. Thank you.

Order of Worship

▲ = Stand as you are able ▼ = Sit

▼ Suggested Choir Anthem: Faith Be Our Light In Deepest Night (arr. Aaron David Miller)

Litany:

P: In the beginning

God began creating the heavens and the earth.

A: All was formless.

C: Void.

A: Empty.

P: And God's Breath began stirring the disorder.

A: Ordering the chaos.

C: Shaping the randomness.

A: And God said

P Let there be light!

C: And the light came into being.

P Let there be a dome in the midst of the void!

C: And the vault of the heavens came into being.

P: Let there be dry land amid the water!

C: And the seas and land came into being.

P: Let there be plants of every kind!

C: And the trees of the field, the green of the world came into being.

P: Let there be lights in the heaven!

C: And the stars and moon came into being.

P: Let there be living creatures of every kind!

C: And the animals and birds and fish, from the microscopic to the massive, came into being.

(Short silence)

P In the beginning

God began creating the heavens and the earth;

The Wind of God swept over the earth.

P: And God called the dust, and formed it, and breathed into it.

A: And God gave the dust life and will and purpose.

C: And humankind came into being.

P: And humankind came into relationship with God;

A: With each other.

C: And it was good.

Hymn: Before This Universe Began

Words: Lisa Frenz

Music: W. Michael Aguilar III

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Pew p. 2 JPG

Accompanment PDF

A: Face yourself, your life, your brokenness.

Face the wrongs you treasurer, the anger you hold dear, the hurts you preserve.

Face the darkness that holds you back.

P: Step forward in faith; look through the darkness.

See all of life, all people, all acts, in God's light.

Step into the light and see as God sees.

See yourself in God's face,

C: For we are the reflection of God.

Lesson: 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a, 11-13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. . . .When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Prayer

A: Accept yourself.

Accept the fact that you can't do it all.

Accept your humanness, your limitations, your helplessness.

P: Allow God to be God.

Allow God into yourself, your humanness, your limitations, your helplessness.

Allow God to fill you, complete you, re-create you.

Open yourself to God, all of God.

C: For then there are no boundaries, no limits to God's love and grace.

Hymn: In the Bleak Midwinter Vs. 1,2,4

Text Source: Text: Christina Georgina Rossetti, 1830-1894

Music Source: Music: Gustav Theodore Holst, 1874-1934

In the bleak midwinter,

frosty wind made moan,

earth stood hard as iron,

water like a stone;

snow had fallen, snow on snow,

snow on snow,

in the bleak midwinter,

long ago.

Heaven cannot hold him,

nor earth sustain;

heav'n and earth shall flee away

when he comes to reign;

in the bleak midwinter

a stable place sufficed

the Lord God almighty,

Jesus Christ.

What can I give him,

poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd

I would bring a lamb;

if I were a wise man

I would do my part;

yet what I can give him--

give my heart.

Imposition of Ashes

Prayer:

P: I have no wit, no words, no tears;

My heart within me like a stone

Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;

Look right, look left, I dwell alone;

I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief

No everlasting hills I see;

My life is in the falling leaf:

All: O Jesus, quicken me.

P: My life is like a faded leaf,

My harvest dwindled to a husk:

Truly my life is void and brief

And tedious in the barren dusk;

My life is like a frozen thing,

No bud nor greenness can I see:

Yet rise it shall--the sap of Spring;

All: O Jesus, rise in me.

P: My life is like a broken bowl,

A broken bowl that cannot hold

One drop of water for my soul

Or cordial in the searching cold;

Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;

Melt and remould it, till it be

A royal cup for Him, my King:

All: O Jesus, drink of me.

"A Better Resurrection" by: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) is reprinted from Goblin Market and other Poems.Christina Rossetti. Cambridge: Macmillan, 1862.

Suggested Choir Anthem: Breathe on Me (arr. Aaron David Miller )

Prayer

A: Invite the Spirit of Hope which brings change.

Invite the Spirit of Hope which provides endless possibilities.

Invite the Spirit of Hope which reveals a new reality.

P: Take hold of your God, who breathes life into all things.

Take hold of new pathways, new relationships.

Take hold of others that they might join you in newness and joy.

Drink deeply of new life in the waters of baptism, in the fountain of redemption.

C: For from God flows our life, our loves, our all.

Lesson: Hebrews 13:1-2

Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.

Hymn: Now We Join in Celebration vs. 1,3

Text Source: Text: Joel W. Lundeen, 1918-1990

Music Source: Music: Johann Cruger, 1598-1662

Now we join in celebration . . with his very life to feed us.

Lord, we share in this communion . . .mercy till you come in final glory.

Prayer

A: Time is the now, the then, the will-be.

Time is beyond and above.

Time is God's gift.

P: Live in a new place, God's place, God's time.

Live where the future is the past, and the past is future.

Live in a world of depth and breadth and infinite possibilities.

Claim this vast landscape of freedom to be yourself,

C: For God is always there with us.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 11a

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

He has made everything suitable for its time.

Hymn: Nothing Can Trouble

A: Healing is where sanctity is the center of peace.

Healing is freedom, lightness, and joy.

Healing is forgiveness, renewal, and wholeness.

P: Be filled with God's holiness of heart.

Be filled with God's serenity of mind.

Be filled with God's purity of soul.

Rejoice in the harmony of being a child of God,

C: For this is the way of all creation in God.

Suggested Choir Anthem: Prelude (Chopin arr. Patrick Liebergen)

▲ Lesson: Luke 17:11-19

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

▼ Homily

Prayer

Hymn: You Are Mine

Text Source: Text: David Haas

Music Source: Music: David Haas

1. "I will come to you in the silence, . . Be still and know I am here.

2. "I am hope for all who are hopeless, . . . Come and rest in me.

Rfrain: "Do not be afraid. . . you are mine:"

3. "I am strength . . . all will know my name"

4. "I am the Word . . . now walk, and live!"

Exhortation:

P: Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. (Isaiah 58:8-12)

Postlude

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