Listening to the Prophets: A Five-Week Series for Lent, page 2 of 2

WEEK 5: THE FIFTH

SUNDAY OF LENT

We have come to the season of the year that illustrates the glory of the fullness of the Christian life. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” That’s going all out. Why would we want to do any less?

Song: “Day of Judgment, Day of Wonders!” PsH 614

God’s Parting Blessing

Song: “What Wondrous Love” (st. 3)

Gathering Song: “Holy, Holy, Holy, My Heart”

Responsive Reading from Isaiah 53

Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot,

and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,

nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.

Like one from whom men hide their faces,

he was despised and we esteemed him not.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

and by his wounds we are healed.


Prayer
Lord God, in whose wounds we find our healing, bring us into your presence. Allow us to see your suffering, your sacrifice, and your glory.

Amen.

Song: “O Jesus, We Adore You” PsH 472, TH 255

God’s Greeting

Call to Confession and Forgiveness (from Jeremiah 31)

Leader: The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord.

All sing: “O Christ, Our Lord, Dear Son of God” PsH 372 (st. 1)

Leader: But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

All sing: “O Christ, Our Lord” (st. 2)

Leader: No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

All sing: “O Christ, Our Lord” (st. 3)
[The words of Jeremiah 31, one of the passages from the common lectionary for this week, serve as a reminder of our faithlessness to God and of his faithfulness to us. The text of the hymn connects these Old Testament words of covenant directly to the Lenten story.]

Prayer for Illumination

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Sermon: Man of Sorrows

Notes: Who is the suffering servant Isaiah is talking about? Only Jesus Christ fits the description. But this passage is about more than just the shame of innocent suffering. It is about the substitutionary atonement of Christ, which was by God’s design, in our place, to allow us to be freed.
You and I need to put ourselves in the picture. Was the atonement of Christ for you?

Song: “What Wondrous Love”
God’s Parting Blessing

Song: “There Is a Redeemer” SNC 145  

Robert (rkeeley@calvin.edu) and Laura (laurakeeley337@gmail.com) Keeley are codirectors of children’s ministries at Fourteenth Street Christian Reformed Church, Holland, Michigan. Robert is also a professor of education at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Marvin J. Hofman (mhofman@macatawa.org) is pastor of Fourteenth Street Christian Reformed Church, Holland, Michigan.

 

Reformed Worship 70 © December 2003, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. Used by permission.