Ash Wednesday – February 14, 2018

7:00 p.m.

 

PART 1:  

  • Opening Words:  Rev. Joel Weible, Pastor
  • Prelude:   Kyrie (The Spheres) –   Ola Gjeilo

PART 2:  

  • Unison Prayer:
    • Creating God, Center of the world you have made, we come to you in this season of turning and returning. We do not know how to seek you with our whole hearts, but we know you are our source and our destiny. In the midst of life we return to you, we turn toward you. We thank you that you receive even the broken heart, the troubled conscience, the conflicted spirit. Seeking you in secret, may we turn around to honor you among humanity. Through Jesus Christ, our path homeward to you, Amen.
  • The Call to Discipleship
  • Hymn, No. 81:   Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days – ST. FLAVIAN

PART 3:  

  • The Burden of Idolatry Meditation: What are the idols that you and I put before commitment to God? What are the things that we want to happen before we follow Jesus?
  • The Burden of Violence Meditation: What are the ways we allow fear and anger to encumber us with hatred and violence – either hatred we carry within or violence we choose to act out on the outside?
  • The Burden of Selfishness Meditation: We also have been given power responsibility, authority, and strength. But how are we using them? How are we weighed down by not using our power with love and our responsibility with wisdom?

PART 4:  

  • Special Music:  Lamb of God – Twila Paris/arranged by Lloyd Larson
    • The Men’s Quartet:  James Bates, Richard Ray, Matt Killion, Bob Borders

PART 5:  

  • Forgiveness and New Life: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
  • The Ashes of Forgiveness: Psalm 51:1-4, 10-12
    • Pastor:  As the bread and cup are symbols, symbols of the unity intended for the body of Christ (the church) and of the communal cup we are meant to share, the ashes, too, are a symbol – of purification. As a fire burns, it can separate what is valuable from what is valueless, just as an assayer’s fire can separate a base metal from one that is precious. In this same way, these ashes are pure. They are a symbol of the new space that is now present within us for new life. Let us claim the new life Jesus offers us by praying to our God:
    • All:  God of love and mercy, we come to you in prayer, seeking to change our hearts and minds. We confess the baggage of idolatry, bitterness, and self-concern that we drag along with us, struggling under its weight all the while we attempt to follow Christ. Cleanse us from our attachment to these old things. Burn away their power in us and purify our hearts. In place of old ways fill us with the new fire of your Holy Spirit. Open up new opportunities for us to follow Jesus in loving you and our neighbors. In Jesus name we ask these things. Amen.
    • Pastor:  Friends, receive the good news of our faith, for in the name of Jesus, I announce our sins are forgiven. The old has died. Behold, the new is coming! 
  • Communion by Intinction and Imposition of Ashes (if desired)

PART 6:  

  • Communion Setting:  Vater unser im Himmelreich –  J.S. Bach

PART 7:  

  • Hymn, No. 85:  What Wondrous Love is This  – WONDROUS LOVE
  • Benediction

PART 8:  

  • Postlude:   Lacrimosa  – W.A. Mozart

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