Fifth Sunday In Lent
Worship
Lectionary Worship Aids
Series VI, Cycle A
Object:
Words Of Assurance
In this be confident: that the grace of God is active enough to forgive, and the love of God is powerful enough to transform.
Pastoral Prayer
Gracious God, through whose faithfulness and providential care we are sustained from day to day, help us to come before you with complete honesty and sincerity. Your divine holiness and majesty strike us with awesome wonder. In the light of your presence show us a love that will vanish all our fears and doubts, and make us to be at home with you. Let us know your comforting compassion, your unconditional acceptance, however undeserving we may be. Seldom are we loved enough or valued enough, safe enough or powerful enough. Our needs are not only insatiable, they often conflict with one another. We often compete and fight with those whose love we most need and want. We sometimes use our powers to coerce and command, and we are left with empty hands and bleeding hearts. In our rage we discover how fragile is the gift of reason, how brittle the thread of sanity. We need serenity to discipline our passions. We need the quiet patience that nurtures friendship, the relinquishment of desires that quiets striving and brings peace and contentment.
As we continue this Lenten journey with Jesus Christ, give us the power to bring all of life, all of self under his guidance and control. Let us follow Jesus through his Gethsemane of anguish and temptation, feel the humiliation and rejection of his cross-bearing, the terror of his torture, the loneliness of his death. You know how we would rather sleep than watch, and we pray that we do not enter temptation. Always our flesh is weak. Help us never to betray our Lord with some kiss of death or deliver him over to his enemies for a purse of silver and gold. And if by chance or willful neglect we miss the mark of our high resolution and intent, then smile on us, O Christ, as you did to Peter when he followed afar off and swore to your enemies that he never knew you. See some solid rock of possibility within us as you did in him, and on that rock build your temple of the Spirit, a temple of love and forgiveness, light and hope.
Let this be a time truly of repentance and personal preparation to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. Make us mindful of the multiplied missions of people who have never heard the good news of salvation through him. As we share in the benefits of his suffering passion, give us grace to share your saving love with others. Only then will your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen.
Benediction
The salvation of God has been offered to you this day. By the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ receive now the wholeness that comes only from God, and walk in the light of his fellowship. Amen.
In this be confident: that the grace of God is active enough to forgive, and the love of God is powerful enough to transform.
Pastoral Prayer
Gracious God, through whose faithfulness and providential care we are sustained from day to day, help us to come before you with complete honesty and sincerity. Your divine holiness and majesty strike us with awesome wonder. In the light of your presence show us a love that will vanish all our fears and doubts, and make us to be at home with you. Let us know your comforting compassion, your unconditional acceptance, however undeserving we may be. Seldom are we loved enough or valued enough, safe enough or powerful enough. Our needs are not only insatiable, they often conflict with one another. We often compete and fight with those whose love we most need and want. We sometimes use our powers to coerce and command, and we are left with empty hands and bleeding hearts. In our rage we discover how fragile is the gift of reason, how brittle the thread of sanity. We need serenity to discipline our passions. We need the quiet patience that nurtures friendship, the relinquishment of desires that quiets striving and brings peace and contentment.
As we continue this Lenten journey with Jesus Christ, give us the power to bring all of life, all of self under his guidance and control. Let us follow Jesus through his Gethsemane of anguish and temptation, feel the humiliation and rejection of his cross-bearing, the terror of his torture, the loneliness of his death. You know how we would rather sleep than watch, and we pray that we do not enter temptation. Always our flesh is weak. Help us never to betray our Lord with some kiss of death or deliver him over to his enemies for a purse of silver and gold. And if by chance or willful neglect we miss the mark of our high resolution and intent, then smile on us, O Christ, as you did to Peter when he followed afar off and swore to your enemies that he never knew you. See some solid rock of possibility within us as you did in him, and on that rock build your temple of the Spirit, a temple of love and forgiveness, light and hope.
Let this be a time truly of repentance and personal preparation to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. Make us mindful of the multiplied missions of people who have never heard the good news of salvation through him. As we share in the benefits of his suffering passion, give us grace to share your saving love with others. Only then will your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen.
Benediction
The salvation of God has been offered to you this day. By the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ receive now the wholeness that comes only from God, and walk in the light of his fellowship. Amen.
