Worship Service for February 4, 2024
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Welcome!
Open your hearts to God’s love this day!
P: Praise be to God who has called us here!
L: Let the words wash over you and offer you
healing and hope.
P: Praise be to God who continually blesses
us!
L: Place your hope and trust in God!
P: With joyful hearts, we come to worship and
praise God who continually blesses and provides for us. AMEN.
Opening Hymn – Great Is Thy Faithfulness #276/139
Prayer of Confession
How can we look at this world
and not sing of Your praises, O God? The
beauty and majesty of the world is overpowering! Yet we have a tendency to take all that You
do for us for granted. We treat the
world with callous indifference, using its resources carelessly and with little
regard to the future. We insist on war
as solutions for problems rather than peaceful striving. We turn our backs on people in need, the weak
and downtrodden go unnoticed in our midst.
We always believe that someone else will care for those in need. How foolish we are, O God! How ignorant we have become! You have given to us all that we need. You have blessed us with the witness of Jesus
Christ who came so that we might learn how You would have us live, in honor and
peace. Forgive us. Heal our hearts and spirits. Make us fully aware of all our blessings and
our responsibilities. Give us again a
spirit of joy in serving You. Help us be
agents of peace and hope to others. We
offer this prayer in Jesus’ name. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Jesus has come to heal our spirits and our
souls. The demons of arrogance,
indifference, and apathy are being cast out.
New life is offered to you in Jesus.
P: Let us rejoice and be glad for God’s love
is poured out to us this day and always.
Thanks be to God! AMEN
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
Tragedies abound, O Lord. Our newspapers, television, newscasts, and
media all report the troubled happenings in our world. War and strife seem to be the order of the
day. And we are caught up in the midst
of this chaos. Calm our spirits, Lord. Help us focus on the love You have given to
us in Jesus Christ. Remind us again that
His healing mercies extend to us this day as surely as they did to the people
of long ago. We have gathered this day
to hear Your word, to hear of Your forgiveness, and to be healed, to find ways
in which we may serve You in peace. We
have lifted names of those near and dear to us who stand in need of Your
healing mercies and compassionate love.
Some names we have spoken aloud; and others we have uttered only in our
hearts. You hear all our prayers this
morning.
We especially pray for ….
You know our needs and concerns before our
voices can frame them. Let us accept the
love You give to us. Empower us to take
that love and use it for good in Your world.
Let the message of hope and compassion flow forth from us again to this
world which focuses on tragedy and turmoil.
And once again, let us know fully that You are with us. Hear now our heart-spoken prayers in this
moment of silence.
Lord, hear all our prayers this day and turn your ear to our cries. We unite with one voice saying…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. 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.
Hymn – God
of Grace and God of Glory #420/435
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Isaiah
40:21-31
Second Scripture Reading – Mark
1:29-39
Sermon –
Great and Wonderful,
Wise and Kind
(based on Isaiah
40:21-31, Mark 1:29-39)
This morning, I want to talk about
both of our scripture texts. The Old
Testament reading which comes from Isaiah was written concerning the close of
Israel’s exile in Babylon. It is a
passage that is filled with hope as the prophet is instructed in the first two
verses of this chapter to “comfort my people”.
This period of exile in
Babylon had lasted 70 years – not extremely long if you compare it to the years
of slavery in Egypt which were over 300 years, longer than our country has even
existed as a country, but for the purpose of understanding imagine who was
living 70 years ago today. Some of us
weren’t even born yet, while others of us were mere infants, children, or young
teenagers. So, our entire lives would
have been during the exile and only our parents or grandparents would have
remembered what life was like before the exile.
But how life had been before the exile was in their collective memory. God told Isaiah to go to my people and speak
tenderly to them – speak to their hearts.
Isaiah goes to them
and recounts for them what they may have known or heard about from their
parents and grandparents, what they were told about the beginning, about all
the wonders God had done. In answer to
their prayers for God to hear them in their exile, now that it is over, God
asks them to recall the ancient stories.
To remember who God is and what God has done for them.
Verse 22 reads, “It is
He who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like
grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them
like a tent to live in…”
The ancients believed
that the earth was covered by a great dome.
The Israelites believed that God had created that dome, fixed the sun,
moon and stars upon it and that God reigned above the dome looking down on creation. Those of other faiths, who worshiped other
gods like the Babylonians, had similar ideas.
The earth was covered by a great dome, but for them the sun, moon, and
stars were the manifestation of the gods, each representing a different
god.
Isaiah tried to remind
them in this passage that their God was above all other gods, that God reigned
supreme, beyond and above the dome, looking down on all of creation like
grasshoppers. That no matter what happened,
no matter what the other religions might belief about the greatness of their
gods, the Israelite God was greater still who “brings princes to naught, and
makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.”
Isaiah goes on to ask
the freed exiles, who can even compare to that kind of god? Who then is God’s equal? Lift up your eyes and see all that the Lord
has created. Isaiah says in verse 26, “God
knows all of them by name, and not a single thing is missing from God’s eyes.” And he continues, “How can you possibly say,
‘My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God?’”
Isaiah builds up the
people coming out of exile who feel discouraged and depleted, “The Lord is the
everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.” He tells those who are returning home, “God does
not faint or grow weary.” In other
words, He is always watchful, always present, always there for you. Even this most awesome God, the Creator of
the earth, knows your name, you have been heard and not counted among the
missing. He is present for you. And this amazing God will give power and
strength to those who feel weak and powerless.
In verse 31 it says,
“…those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.” The word wait in Hebrew is qavah,
which literally means to twine around something in order to bind it that which
has strength. If you think of a vine
that grows without support, after a bit it just flops over because it can’t
support itself. Here, in this passage
the idea is that if you “wait for the Lord”, grow and twine around the Lord for
support, you will have all the strength you need. But this takes time. It isn’t immediate. A vine grows season after season around its
support structure. I saw grapevines in Italy that were well over 100
years old, the trunk of the vines were thick, but weren’t more than a foot or
two high while the branches wound around their supports reaching out for long
stretches. Or a Wisteria that grows over
a patio. It doesn’t grow to cover the
patio in one summer. Friends of my
family owned an old plantation home in Maryland and their back patio was
covered in an old Wisteria vine. It was
so dense that you could hardly see the sun through the leaves. I remember Ondene telling us that her
grandmother had planted it when she was just a little girl.
I always thought that
waiting for the Lord was just about having patience, to wait for God to do
something. But that’s not it at
all. It is so much more than that when
you really understand the meaning behind the word – qavah in
Hebrew. It is being active in that
waiting. It isn’t passive. You, the vine, have to be growing and twining
around the Lord who gives you strength, who supports you and allows you to grow
even more.
Those who qavah
for the Lord; those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like
eagles. What an amazing image. In time, as you grow with God, you will have
renewed strength. With the support and
strength of God, you will have the ability to stretch your wings…and fly.
Now, let’s move on to
the New Testament passage. When we read
the gospel story on Sunday mornings week after week, one passage from this
gospel, another passage from another gospel, you may not have a complete picture
of these gospel writers. But when you
compare all the gospels against one another they are all very different.
Matthew begins with
the heritage of Christ, but it is filled with miraculous beginnings – angel
appearances and wise men following a star.
Luke is more historical, shares more details of Christ’s beginnings, but
no less miraculous. There are still visitations
and early announcements, angels and shepherds.
John begins his gospel in poetry, reaching back to the beginning trying
to connect the threads of creation with the birth of Christ and immediately
Jesus performing a miracle at the wedding in Cana turning water to wine. Mark doesn’t do any of that. Mark doesn’t even mention Christ’s birth.
In Mark, John the
Baptist announces that there is someone coming who is greater than he is and
then all of a sudden Jesus appears to John in order to be baptized. From then on, in the beginning of Mark, it’s
just about Jesus collecting disciples, teaching in the synagogues or by
parables to the people that gather around him outside, and healing people who
were afflicted with various diseases.
And there’s a lot of that in Mark.
Jesus heals more people in Mark, than he does in all the other gospels
put together. But there is nothing
really spectacular until almost chapter 5 and there are only 16 chapters in all
of Mark, half the size of the other gospels.
Matthew, Luke and John have miraculous things and over the top miracles
happening from the beginning of their narratives.
Instead, Mark seeks to
define Christ by the many ways in which he proclaims the Good News of the
Kingdom of God as he goes about doing everyday things – preaching and
teaching. That included being alone with
God in prayer. Mark mentions this in the
first chapter. Matthew and John both
allude to the idea that Jesus goes off to a lonely place, but they don’t say he
does so to pray. They don’t talk about
Jesus actually praying until the end of their gospel accounts. Luke does a little bit better of a job about
Jesus praying because in Chapter 6 Luke mentions that shortly before he
collected his twelve disciples he spent the night in prayer with God. However, it’s an important aspect of Mark’s
gospel. He mentions Jesus taking time
away to pray right from the beginning.
Mark wants the readers
to fully engage with Christ right from the beginning of his gospel, not in a
miraculous/spectacular way, but rather in an everyday way. For Mark, Jesus doesn’t have to turn water
into wine, Jesus doesn’t have to walk on water, Jesus doesn’t have to feed five
thousand people from two loves of bread and five fish. Instead, Jesus engages with people in their
everyday lives and teaches them. Jesus
engages with people while they are sick, afraid, ostracized from their
community because of their disease or their demons. And Jesus is able to do those things because
he grounds himself in prayer. I think
Mark knows and understands that this is more important than the
spectacular. That Jesus embodies the
idea of what we read about in Isaiah this morning. Jesus “qavah” on the Lord. He waited on the Lord through his time with
God in prayer each day and therefore was renewed in strength each day to be
present in the lives of those around him to teach and preach and heal them.
May God give you the
opportunity and the motivation to wait (to “qavah”) upon him in prayer,
as well.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
We thank You, Gracious God for our of the
blessings you bestow upon us and we give back a portion of those gifts for You
to use. Take them, O Lord, and multiply
their usefulness in the world that others might be blessed through our
giving. Amen.
Closing
Hymn – Amazing Grace
#280/343
Benediction –
Friends, we
are being sent into a world in need of healing.
We have been given all that we need to be God’s messengers of
peace. Go now into the world, rejoicing
in God’s presence with You. Bring the
news of peace and hope to all you meet. AMEN.
Postlude
