LoginHome » Ministers' resources » Worship Resources » Preaching Kits » Year B Mark » Kit 3 » Lent Five - April 6th
'Dying to Life' (Lent, a journey to Easter & beyond)
Lent Five - April 6th
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 51:1-12 or Psalm 119:9-16
Hebrews 5:5-10
John 12:20-33
With many of the focus Lenten passages exploring the nature of God's covenant with humanity, as we draw closer to the powerful and emotional events of passiontide, we are invited to explore today covenant as an internalized reality - God's movement within the human heart. Words like obedience, embodiment, encouragement, and empowerment come to mind.
Jeremiah....
Jeremiah looked forward to a 'new covenant'....one not written on stone tablets but written on the heart. This new covenant reaffirms the promise that 'I will be their God and they shall be my people.' The 'new covenant' differs from the old only in that now, people will do intuitively out of their hearts what previously they had done out of duty because the law required it of them. They will know God within their very being. This knowing, understood in the Hebrew sense of a relationship as close, intense and intimate as the sexual bond.
Psalm....
Psalm 51 is a radical penitential psalm, for it asks God not just for forgiveness, but for a new way of being. I find it's cry of 'Create in me a clean heart' and 'teach me wisdom in my secret heart' stand well along side the Jeremiah 'covenant' as the longings of someone seeking a new way of being with God. It is worth looking at the paraphrases offered in Eugene Peterson's 'The Message' or Leslie Brandt's 'Psalms Now'. These provide stand alone liturgy possibilities.
Psalm 119 is entirely devoted to praising the Law and the joys of keeping it BUT challenge us not to interpret the 'law' as legal code but rather as the inner power of conscience in a person who is persistently in touch with the scriptures and prayerfully in God's presence - one in whom the law is written on the heart.
Hebrews....
This passage is part of a theological treatise written for 'second generation' followers of Jesus Christ who are seeking to understand Jesus' death and resurrection by searching the Hebrew scriptures. The writer portrays Jesus as humble, devoted and obedient to God.
We can sometimes get stuck on the word perfection! Try the word 'completion' - Jesus has finished the journey and now can lead the way for all who follow him into a similar completion.
John....
The metaphor of dying to life that was used last week has some place here too. The old passes, the new emerges. The grain of wheat fall to the earth and dies - from it springs the stalk that in time produces new fruit. Just what is Jesus trying to say to his disciples - a theme he many time challenged his followers with - only in death comes life, only in spending do we retain it.
Was he simply talking of his own life - the dying to live the journey he is currently engaged upon - to set all personal aims and ambitions aside so that he could be of real use to God - to die and be thrown into the cold ground and buried there in the tomb in order to bear fruit? OR was he also seeking to convey the miraculous hope of the Easter story made available to us all through the sacrifice of his death, the promise that in living and dying we can find life?
Questions to ask....
- How do you understand 'covenant' as expressed in Jeremiah?
- Explore your understanding of death in relation to the word used in the gospel passage?
- Our world relies on evidence and outward signs in order to make decisions: statistics, scientific facts, opinion polls. Where do we look for evidence of God and signs of God's love?
- Reflecting on Psalm 51 - do we become so focused on externals like church growth or property and finance that we forget to look at the internals?
Prayer for today....
I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will,
rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing, put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you
or laid aside for you,
exalted for you, or brought low for you.
Let me be full, let me be empty;
let me have all things, let me have nothing;
I freely and whole-heartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
you are mine and I am yours. So be it.
Dedication prayer from the Methodist Covenant Service
Music....
- Be still and know that I am God - NJSB 14
- Come let us use the grace divine - MHB 749*
- Lift high the cross - AA 87
- Jesus I have promised - WOV 514
- Teach us O loving heart of Christ - AA 130
- When my love for Christ grows weak - WOV 270
This hymn written by Charles Wesley and is the traditional one sung by Methodists when they have their annual Covenant Service