3 24 2005
Call to Worship
We love the Lord because God has heard our voices.
God has turned his ear on us.
We will call on God as long as we live.
O Lord, we pray, save our lives.
Announcements
Welcome
CCU Good Friday Services
Easter Sunday: CCU Sunrise Service, YMCA Easter Pancake Breakfast, FCBC Easter Services
Newly received church members are participating in tonight’s service to symbolize their gifts to the church and servanthood to God.
We ask that you silent your cell phones at this time. After the service is over, we invite you to quietly leave the room without turning on the lights. This would maintain the significance of the passion of Christ.
Opening Prayer
O God, from the dark streets in our lives and dark secrets of our souls, we come together in the upper room face with the challenges that this night presents. We come with good intentions to see what this service is all about, to be with friends, to sing in the choirs. But now that we are here, we realize that tonight is a time to remember the heritage of our faith, to remember the saving drama of the Passover, and to celebrate Jesus’ last meal with close friends. When we hear the events that led you to the cross, O Lord, we will again tremble at the thought of the meaning of discipleship for ourselves. Incline your ear to us and hear our petitions for forgiveness.
May we seek to glorify you, and find mercy at your hand, and treat others with the same grace and compassion you have shown us in Christ. Lead us this night into a deeper commitment in Jesus Christ, our Crucified Lord and living Savior who taught us to pray together.
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be they 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 debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.
Powerful Servant
In John 13:1-17, we have the story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. In verse 3, it reads, “Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God.” Jesus had come to some important understandings about his own identity and his future. Jesus knew that the Father had given him complete power.
Complete power in the movies would be some kind of science fiction doomsday scenario from outer space. Complete power can be seen in “tyrants” or “dictators” who do horrible things to his people. Complete power could take the form of vengeance. And we wonder why Jesus with his powers didn’t just lash out at the Pharisees, Sadducees and maybe the oppressive Romans too.
Jesus with complete power did not do any of that but with his remarkable self-understanding of himself, didn’t take up the sword but tied a towel around his waist, poured water into a basin and began washing his disciples’ feet. Jesus with complete power became the “Powerful Servant” to begin changing lives and then the world.
Jesus makes it clear to us that with true power, we are to use this power to serve, to disarm, to comfort, to heal, to reconcile. True power is to help those in need expecting nothing in return.
Later on in this chapter in verse 34-35, Jesus said to the disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Love one another is not a new commandment to the disciples. The Hebrew Scriptures taught that as well. But what is new is that we are to love others as Jesus loves them. Jesus redefined love and power by saying to us that if we are to love Jesus, we are to give up whatever power that we have and to love everyone like Jesus did, even if it is against our own self-interest.
Be clear, however, that Jesus is not inviting us to place ourselves into positions where we allow those in power to abuse us as we are quiet to unjust and unloving demands. The love that Jesus teaches us is to act toward others with both the same compassion and same honesty as Jesus acted toward the people he encountered each day.
Our Maundy Thursday Tenebrae Service tonight is to demonstrate and remind ourselves once again the Powerful Servant Jesus is and how he is calling us to use our new power to become his servants today.
Introduction to the Service
Read.
The Lord’s Supper
Read Luke 22:7-16
Bread & Prayer
Cup & Prayer
Eat together and Closing Prayer
Christ Candle
Read John 1:1-18
John 8:12 in bulletin
Benediction
We came to this table as we are. We leave the table transformed. Here we are fed and forgiven, drawn near by the Almighty God. Christ’s farewell supper yields symbol, which yields feast, which yields forgiveness. Jesus departs from us now, but he does not leave us in sorrow for long. We believe that Jesus Christ is the light of the world. We know the comfort of the Holy Spirit and of one another will prevail with us until on the third day, Christ is risen.
Rejoice and be glad; death does not have the last word.
What is good and right and true prevails.
God’s glory will be seen in the risen Christ.
We go out in full confidence, upheld by God’s love. Amen.