Home Worship for the week of March 15 – 4th Sunday in Lent
Morning Prayer: Heavenly Father, You look beneath our outward appearance and see Your image in each of us. Banish the blindness in us that prevents us from recognizing truth, so we may see the world through Your eyes and with the compassion of Jesus Christ who redeems us. Amen. (Lectionary prayers, adapted)
Morning Hymn: #381 Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us
- Savior, like a shepherd lead us, much we need Thy tender care;
in Thy pleasant pastures feed us, for our use Thy folds prepare.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! Thou hast bought us, Thine we are.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! Thou hast bought us, Thine we are. - We are Thine, Thou dost befriend us, be the guardian of our way;
keep Thy flock, from sin defend us, seek us when we go astray.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! Hear, O hear us when we pray.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! Hear, O hear us when we pray. - Thou hast promised to receive us, poor and sinful though we be;
Thou hast mercy to relieve us, grace to cleanse and power to free.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! We will early turn to Thee.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! We will early turn to Thee. - Early let us seek Thy favor, early let us do Thy will;
blessed Lord and only Savior, with Thy love our bosoms fill.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! Thou hast loved us, love us still.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! Thou hast loved us, love us still.
Epistle Lesson: Ephesians 5:8-14
8 You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord, so live your life as children of light. 9 Light produces fruit that consists of every sort of goodness, justice, and truth. 10 Therefore, test everything to see what’s pleasing to the Lord, 11 and don’t participate in the unfruitful actions of darkness. Instead, you should reveal the truth about them. 12 It’s embarrassing to even talk about what certain persons do in secret. 13 But everything exposed to the light is revealed by the light. 14 Everything that is revealed by the light is light. Therefore, it says, Wake up, sleeper! Get up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Prayers of Intercession: (CORE, adapted) Let us lift our hearts and voices to the Lord in prayer, that He would be merciful to His people.
Father, thank You for the light of sun, moon, stars, streetlights, candles, and lamps. Thank You for these “created lights” that bear witness to the true and uncreated Light, Your Son, Jesus Christ. Lead us, even when eyes fail and earthly lights grow dim, to His kindly light, which no darkness can overcome.
Heal the blindness of Your Church. Give it eyes to see its own sin, and to repent. Give it eyes to see the world’s sins, and to offer Your forgiveness to any who will receive it. Give it eyes to see the plight of all who are afflicted by sin and death and to proclaim Your redemption, given through the Passion of Your dear Son.
Heal any spiritual blindness in this congregation. Give us eyes to see Jesus in one another. For His sake, help us love even people we don’t yet like. Give us eyes to see new opportunities for serving You. As we become braver in sharing our faith, make us lamps shining with Jesus’ love for everyone we encounter.
Let Your healing, blessing, and grace rest upon the blind and deaf, and those with impaired senses of touch, taste, balance, or movement. Give them strength and courage. Sharpen the perception of their other senses. Surround them with people whose respect and encouragement leads them to greater faith in You, their light and their life.
Heal the blindness of the nations, and all who are in positions of authority. Give them eyes to seek Your will, and hearts and hands to do it. Give them eyes to see injustice, deceit and cruelty, and the strength and courage to combat them. Make each of us into children of Your light, living in faith toward You and with fervent love toward one another.
As Your dear Son healed the man born blind, we pray that He would also bring healing, light, hope, and faith to everyone who suffers from any affliction. Lift them up from pain, sorrow, fear, or grief. And give them the joy of Your saving help, now and always.
We pray: Lord, let us receive our sight, so that day by day, we see You more clearly, love You more dearly, and follow You more closely. Into Your hands, gracious Father, we commend all for whom we pray, trusting in Your mercy; for the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who taught us to pray together by praying …
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us, not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Offering spotlight: This being the fourth Sunday in Lent, we are quickly approaching the joyous events and the tragic events in the life of Jesus our Savior. Palm Sunday is a joyous celebration of King Jesus. The crowds in Jerusalem didn’t understand; the disciples and close friends of Jesus didn’t understand. While none of us fully comprehend, even with hindsight and the wisdom of Scripture, we, too, celebrate.
Children from this area will joyously hunt for Easter eggs on Palm Sunday at Lightstreet Park. 10:00 am for ages 2-6. 10:30 am for ages 7-12. Celebrate! Bring the kiddos and celebrate with love and laughter.
Offering prayer: Radiant Shepherd, You walk beside us through valleys and over mountaintops, guiding us with grace and guarding us with love. In Your presence, we lack nothing that truly matters. Even in a world clouded by shadows, Your light shines through—inviting us to live as children of the day. Receive these gifts, O God, as signs of our desire to walk in Your ways, to live as Your people, and to shine with the goodness, justice, and truth that reflect Your image. Let our giving be more than ritual; let it be an act of trust, a response to Your faithfulness, and a testimony of Your light at work in us. In Christ’s holy name, we pray, Amen. (Discipleship Ministries)
Hymn of preparation: #454 Open My Eyes, That I May See
- Open my eyes, that I may see glimpses of truth Thou hast for me;
place in my hands the wonderful key that shall unclasp and set me free.
Silently now I wait for Thee, ready, my God, Thy will to see.
Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine! - Open my ears, that I may hear voices of truth thou sendest clear;
and while the wavenotes fall on my ear, everything false will disappear.
Silently now I wait for Thee, ready, my God, Thy will to see.
Open my ears, illumine me, Spirit divine! - Open my mouth, and let me bear gladly the warm truth everywhere;
open my heart and let me prepare love with Thy children thus to share.
Silently now I wait for Thee, ready, my God, Thy will to see.
Open my heart, illumine me, Spirit divine!
Message: Pastor Becky
This 4th week of Lent has us listening to a bunch of conversations. Conversations between Jesus and His disciples and the healed man born blind with his neighbors. They continue between the Pharisees and the man, the Pharisees and the man's parents. The conversations continue between the Pharisees and the man again, Jesus and the man born blind, and finally Jesus and the Pharisees.
It's in the conversations, the interactions we get the depth because there is always more there than mere conversation. I enjoy analyzing the conversations of Jesus. Well, honestly, not just the conversations of Jesus. I replay most conversations in my head. I listen for tone and innuendo. I look for word play and sarcasm. I'm a bit of an overthinker. Plus these conversations are stuck in my head. Rarely will my husband or one of our kids ever say to me, “When did I say that?” or “What makes you think” whatever it was that I was thinking? Well the reason is I can access a conversation in my head and cite what I was referring to. I believe words have value and I know that they have weight, especially if we're listening to what Jesus says. Because we have to get to the heart of why Jesus is saying what it is He's saying.
“As Jesus walked along, He saw a man who was born blind from birth. Jesus' disciples ask, ”Rabbi, who sinned so that this man was born blind? This man or his parents?” Jesus answered. “Neither he nor his parents. This happened so that God's mighty works might be displayed in him.” John 9:1-3
Jesus is pushing back on sinfulness being the reason for this man's physical blindness. In our present time, we don't understand the question. We don't see the correlation between his condition and sin. It falls under the idea of collective guilt, consecutive generations receiving punishment for a parent's or a grandparent's sin. We see it cited in Exodus 34:6-7. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”
The idea being that this man is paying for his parents' sin or is his blindness punishment for his own sin? The punishment ends up being multifaceted. The man can't see and this would lead him not to be able to care for himself. He would not have gainful employment. He would be cut off from having a family of his own, so he would have no lineage or legacy. The punishment would certainly look the same in some regards for his parents. They would have to continue to be responsible for his care. Without grandchildren, they've lost their legacy and their lineage also.
Jesus is proclaiming no. His blindness is so God may be glorified. He was born blind so that God's mighty works, God's healing might be displayed. Sin didn't cause this blindness. Had it been sin, then Jesus could not have healed his sight by physically touching him. The man’s sight would have been healed by Jesus offering forgiveness.
By healing this man's sight, Jesus restores him to wholeness and reunites him with his community. We see this healing. When Jesus takes the mud and combines it with his own saliva and makes a salve and places it on the young man's eyes and then instructs him to go and wash it off. Once it was washed off the man could see.
Now the community isn't too sure about this healing. They are concerned as to whether this is or is not the man that was born blind, and even the man tries to affirm to his neighbors that it is indeed. He the one that was blind but now can see. We look to verse 9, “Some said it is and others said no, it's someone that looks like him, but the man said yes, it's me.” The man tells of his healing to his neighbors. But the neighbors are still unsure about this and take him to the Pharisees.
His neighbors want to know how he got healed and so do the Pharisees. The Pharisees still don't believe the story that the young man tells about his healing. They summon his parents and ask them about this healing. His parents say yes, of course, this is our son and yes, he was born blind. We don't know how it is that he is now able to see. Go and ask him. So now the Pharisees go back another time to this man and ask him again, How is it that you have been healed? It's recorded in John 9:24-25 “So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” 25 He answered, “I do not know whether He is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
Here's the bottom line. For the Pharisees, their religious leaders, it is about sin. But not the sin of the man who was born blind. Or the sin of his parents. They want to get to the bottom of Jesus’ sin. Jesus just healed this man on the Sabbath. He broke Sabbath rest to heal and in their thinking, a sinner could never do the work of God. They needed to find proof that the blind man wasn't blind.
Through the conversation with the man born blind, we realize it is the religious leaders’ sin on trial here. Their sin is unbelief. Their sin is judgment. Their sin is love of power. Their sin is oppression. Their sin is elitism. Their sin is supremacy.
The Pharisees needed so badly for Jesus not to be who Jesus is. Jesus threatens everything they cherish, everything they believe about themselves, and everything they believe about God. Jesus reveals Himself in the testimony of the healed man. John 9:35-38 ”Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when He found him He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is He, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in Him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen Him, and the one speaking with you is He.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped Him.”
Physical sight put the healed man in relationship with Jesus. What had been a barrier, his blindness, is now what has become a bridge to his faith. Yet the religious leaders don't understand it. They don't get it. They believe their physical sight allows them to see. But Jesus is asking more from those who should know, those who are claiming relationship and connection to God to see differently, to respond differently.
Jesus is looking for them to respond to Jesus’ judgment. When we talk of Jesus judgment, we're not talking about good or bad, saved or condemned. We are talking about Jesus' very life and presence among us. How we respond to sin when we see it and experience it.
Because of Jesus, His compassion is a judgment on our indifference. His justice is a judgment on injustice. Jesus’s mercy is a judgment on condemnation. Jesus’s forgiveness is a judgment on guilt. Jesus' light is a judgment on darkness. His truth is a judgment on lies and falsehoods. As we listen to these conversations happen, as they unfold, we can hear the Jesus answer. We should see as we hear, the Pharisees developing discomfort. We should become uncomfortable too.
The Pharisees needed to have this healing story retold to them. How many times does a story need to be told before the teller is believed? It is in the unbelief we see sin clearly. But the nature of sin is we're blind to it. In order to proclaim Jesus a sinner, the religious leaders had to be blind to their own sin.
Oh, and so it is with us. We pick and choose what sin does or does not count. We think that because we know Jesus, our sin doesn't count or it does not matter as much as the sin of an unbeliever. But the opposite is true, the light Jesus judgment casts upon our lives, exposes our darkness, our sin. We can't choose to be blind to it. We have to name it, turn from it, and live.
Lent calls us to examine in our lives what the light exposes. It isn't always pleasant or fun. It's quite the opposite usually. It's painful. The light of Jesus calls us to sever ourselves from our sin. This transformation: for our striving for the image of God to be restored and reclaimed in us through the life, example and death of Jesus. The Holy Spirit will give us new life as resurrected people, when we name what the light exposes about ourselves.
What are we going to see this week? What will get exposed by the light? What will Jesus' judgment replace in our lives? We could see non violence replacing violence, prayer over self-sufficiency, welcome over exclusion, life over death. Jesus said I am the light of the world. Let us live in the light of His judgment. Amen.
Closing Hymn: #378 Amazing Grace
- Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.
- ‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.
- Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come;
‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.
- The Lord has promised good to me, His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be, and long as life endures.
- Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil, a life of joy and peace.
- When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’d first begun.
The blessing: May the Lord bless you as you repent of sins and make Lenten sacrifices.
Go Now in Peace: Go now in peace. Never be afraid. God will go with you each hour of ev’ry day. Go now in faith, steadfast strong and true. Know He will guide you in all you do. Go now in love and show you believe. Reach out to others, so all the world can see. God will be there, watching from above. Go now in peace, in faith, and in love.
