The
Build
Stacking the Tower Mark CR
Mark will invite us to bring the "bricks" from our seats forward as the music plays.
He will lift each brick up and show us the main label or burden it represents
before placing it in the "jenga" type structure.
Our suggestions of burdens for the labels
Addiction Worry Forgiveness Unspoken Anxiety Shame Depression Unemployment Future Finances Doubt Infidelity Regrets Infertility Sin Pride Perfection Grief Too Busy Gossip Time Difficult Relationships Time Greed Fear Exhaustion Selfishness Illness Bullying
Musical
Meditation Amy Gillingham
The Significance
Reading with John 10:11-18 Jennifer Hall & Russell Noss
Jennifer Hall:
Stones are what people wanted to throw at Jesus during his life.
Stones are also what surrounded him at the tomb
and through them he pushed his way back into life on the third day.
Could we ,
as we remember our Lord's death and see how he was crucified
by the action or the apathy of people like ourselves,
remember that it was for our sins he died?
Let us remember the wrong things in our life which burden us,
threaten each other and offend God.
And after we have recognized what these things are,
let us give them to God to take away.
For Jesus is the one who said,
"Give me your burdens."
and Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
We'll be silent for a moment and then we'll sing,
"We will lay our burden down"
and as we sing, we can, if we want to,
lay down the burdens of our hearts.
Musicians lead "We Will Lay Our Burden Down"
Listen to these words of Jesus, spoke directly to us:
Russ Noss:
I am the good shepherd
and I know my sheep
and I lay down my life for them.
There is no greater love than this
that a man should lay down his life for his friends
and you are my friends,
if you do what I have commanded.
Whoever believes in me,
I will never turn away.
Whoever has faith in me,
even though he or she dies, will live forever.
Now I am going to my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God,
but I shall come back and take you to myself,
that where I am, you may be also.
------"Laying Our Burden Down" from Stages Along the Way: Worship Resources for Lent and Easter. Wild Goose Resources Group through GIA, 2000.
Musical Offering Chancel Choir, FCC
"Behold the Lamb!" (Larson)
The
Story
Scripture Reading: Luke 23:26-549 (NIV) Peggy Horner, Ben Wilson & John Boling
At the asterisks *, the candles on the table are extinguished one by one until only the Christ candle is still burning. Tallia Frye and Ryan Biers are the candle snuffers.
Peggy Horner:
As the soldiers led him away, they
seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and
put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. A large
number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed
for him.*
Jesus turned and said to them,
“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves
and for your children. For the time will come when you will say,
‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the
breasts that never nursed!’
Then ‘they will say to the mountains,
“Fall on us!”
and to the hills, “Cover us!” For if people
do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is
dry?”
Two other men, both criminals, were
also led out with him to be executed.*
Ben Wilson:
When they came to the place called the
Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on
his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive
them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided
up his clothes by casting lots.*
The people stood watching, and the
rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him
save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”*
The soldiers also came up and mocked
him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, “If you are the king
of the Jews, save yourself.”*
There was a written notice above him,
which read: this is the king of the jews.*
One of the criminals who hung there
hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and
us!”*
But the other criminal rebuked him.
“Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same
sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds
deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me
when you come into your kingdom.”
Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell
you, today you will be with me in paradise.”*
John Boling:
It was now about noon, and darkness
came over the whole land until three in the afternoon,
or the sun stopped shining.* And the
curtain of the temple was torn in two.* Jesus called out with a loud
voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had
said this, he breathed his last.*
The centurion, seeing what had
happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.”
When all the people who had gathered to
witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and
went away. But all those who knew him, including the women who had
followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these
things.*
The
Darkness
Musical
Meditation with Scripture Amy Gillingham
"Quartet for the End of Time" Messiaen
Scripture: Isaiah 53:4-6(NIV) Amy Yaeger
Surely he took up our pain and bore our
suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by
him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our
transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment
that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
All the lights go out.
The Christ Candle leaves the room. Ryan Byers & Tallia Frye
The
Fall
The Tower Falls Mark CR
The
Rubble
The Christ Candle returns. Ryan Byers & Tallia Frye
Lights
come back up
Hymn Amy Gillingham, Brent Reed, & David Zeng
Closing Reading Anna Hope Curwood
Here
hangs a man discarded, a scarecrow hoisted high,
a
nonsense pointing nowhere to all who hurry by.
Can
such a clown of sorrows still bring a useful word
when
faith and love seem phantoms
and
every hope absurd?
Yet
here is help and comfort for lives by comfort bound,
when
drums of dazzling progress give strangely hollow sound:
Life,
emptied of all meaning, drained out in bleak distress,
can
share in broken silence my deepest emptiness;
And
love that freely entered the pit of life's despair,
can
name our hidden darkness and suffer with us there.
Christ,
in our darkness risen, help all who long for light
to
hold the hand of promise till faith receives its sight.
--#39 from Piece Together Praise. Brian Wren, Hope Publishing, 1995.
Closing Song Amy Gillingham, Brent Reed, & David Zeng
"Wonderful Cross" (reprise)
Benediction
We will depart in silence, accepting the peace of God's presence, for no matter how dark the moment, Immanuel, God is with us.
