Worship on Palm Sunday
10:00 am      March 29, 2026
Minister: The Rev. Brad Childs      Music Director: Binu Kapadia
Vocalist: Lynn Vaughan     Welcoming Elder: Andrea Gartrell
Children’s time presenter: Brad     Reader: Samantha Fort

We gather to worship God

Music Prelude

Greeting
L: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you
P: and also with you

Lighting of the Christ candle
Welcome and announcements
Preparation for worship

Call to worship:
L: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
P: Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.
L: Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.
P: Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.
L: Therefore, God has exalted him and given him the name above every name.
P: Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.
L: Let us worship God in the name of Jesus Christ, our Servant Lord.

Opening praise: Hosanna (Praise is rising)

Prayers of approach and confession
God of majesty and mercy,
we worship You today as the cross draws closer.
We praise You for Jesus
the King who came riding in humility
to set us free from everything that holds us captive.
He came in mercy to free us from the sins we know about,
and even the ones we try to ignore.
He came to show us the full depth of Your love, mercy, and justice.
You who rule with wisdom and compassion, receive our praise and our longing hearts.
We thank You for Your kindness
for the strength You give us and for carrying our burdens on Your shoulders through Jesus.
We come before You with humble hearts, knowing You have given us everything,
and we worship You –  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You are our shelter in storms, our hope in weakness, and our guide when paths are unclear.
God of mystery and mercy,
Your forgiveness often feels like a mystery to us.
We mean to follow You, and we try to do good,
but life is messy, the world is broken, and we stumble along the way.
We fail to speak up for the vulnerable, we choose the easier path,
and even our best intentions sometimes hurt others.
We want to show mercy, but anger and fear hold us back.
We lose patience with loved ones, ignore the cries of the hurting, and protect comforts that keep us from loving boldly.
Fogive us, Lord.
Teach us to accept Your mercy when we fall, and to extend it when others fail.
Fill us with the same courage and compassion Jesus showed as He walked toward the cross,
and help us to follow in His footsteps amid the mess and the mistakes.
Remind us that repentance is a steady journey, not a single act, and that grace meets us in the middle of our failures.

Lord, give us clearer eyes to see where we have contributed to harm,
gentle tongues to offer apologies and truth, and strong hands to repair what we can.
Help us to learn humility from our mistakes rather than hiding them in shame.
Where we have been quick to judge, make us quick to listen.
Where we have withdrawn, give us the courage to engage.
Where we have been selfish, renew within us a heart for sacrifice.
Make our communities places of healing, not places that magnify failure.
each us how to bear one another’s burdens honestly and lovingly.
When the world seems loud with injustice and pain, steady our feet to work for justice with mercy.
When hope feels distant, remind us that the cross speaks of a love that transforms suffering into redemption.
Sustain those who are broken, give wisdom to leaders, comfort to the grieving, and patience to the exhausted.
Empower us by Your Spirit to act with practical kindness, to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, and speak for the voiceless.
Let our lives reflect the mercy that was poured out for us — not perfectly, but faithfully — as we trust You to make beauty from our brokenness.
We come again to Your feet, grateful for forgiveness we do not earn.
Renew our hearts, strengthen our wills, and shape our hands for faithful service.
May our mistakes teach us compassion; may our failures lead us back to You; may our striving be marked by dependence on Your grace.
We worship You now and always — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Response: We come to ask your forgiveness

Assurance of God’s love
Who can condemn us? Only Jesus — and He died for us.
He rose for us, He rules in power for us, and He prays for us.
Believe this good news of the gospel:

In Jsus Christ, you are fully forgiven and set free by God’s amazing grace.

We listen for the voice of God

Song: Jesus, we are gathered

Children’s time

• This is the Day
• Can you name some special days, Birthdays, Summer days, School days, Snow days, What are your favourite days?
• What about sick days? What about sad days?
• Not every day is perfect or easy. Some days are harder than others, but every day is a gift from God.
• Psalm 118:24 says, “This is the day the LORD has made”.
• When we remember that God made this day, we can choose to be happy, grateful, and excited, no matter what happens.
• This is the day that the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it.
• Closing Prayer: “Dear God, thank you for making this day. Thank you for every day. Even if I am sad or tired, I can choose to be glad because I know you love me and are with me. Help me to make today a day to be glad in. Amen.”

The Lord’s Prayer (535)

Song: This is the day (78)

Scripture readings:  Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 and Matthew 21:1-11

Response: Jesus remember me

Message: Coats and Palms

Think about it for a moment. Imagine a powerful world leader is coming to visit Canada. The government spends tens of millions on security. Hotels are fully booked. Police are everywhere. You see motorcades with flashing lights, armoured limousines, crowds waving flags, and people chanting. Some may even believe this person is extremely special, or even the one they hope will fix the economy or solve their deepest problems. Some treat political figures almost like saviours. The crowd is mixed, some excited, some skeptical, some just along for the spectacle. People place enormous hope in human leaders, sometimes bowing low, sometimes nearly worshiping. Now open your eyes to a scene two thousand years ago. The true King of kings rode into Jerusalem… but not on a warhorse or in a chariot of conquest. He came on a borrowed donkey. And everything changed.

Let me read Matthew 21:1-11 slowly. These eleven verses are soaked in emotion, prophecy, and a personal invitation that still stands for every one of us today.

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of the Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet: 

“Tell the daughter of Zion, 
Look, your king is coming to you, 
humble and mounted on a donkey, 
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” 

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, 

“Hosanna to the Son of David! 

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! 

Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

This wasn’t just a parade. It was Heaven stepping into our mess on the exact day the long-awaited Messiah arrived, but not at all the way the world expected. Today, I pray the Holy Spirit stirs your heart the same way He stirred that ancient city.

Look at verse 4: “This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet.” Jesus didn’t stumble into Jerusalem by accident. He deliberately orchestrated every detail. He sent the disciples for that specific donkey and her colt so that Zechariah 9:9 would be fulfilled word-for-word: “Behold, your king is coming to you, gentle and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

There has been a lot of controversy about this. You see the quotation from Zechariah about the donkey, which uses a form of Hebrew poetry very common in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). It makes a statement and then clarifies it with a connecting statement. So it says he rides a donkey, and then clarifies that it’s the colt or foal of a donkey. So it means that he rides a young donkey. But when Matthew quotes this, it seems he doesn’t understand his own Bible. He appears to think there are two donkeys. This is further exacerbated by the fact that no other author mentions two, but Matthew does, as he also uses the word “THEM” for the animals, making it clear there are two. But maybe not, some have said that “them” refers to the coats and palms. Jesus sat on, “Them” meaning coats, not donkeys. But the language seems unclear, and maybe it’s on purpose. Maybe it’s meant to sound a little comical. Perhaps it’s meant to be a little funny, as Jesus rides not just one but two animals down to the city.

In the ancient world, kings and emperors rode warhorses to intimidate and conquer. Roman generals celebrated lavish “triumphs”, parading through streets with captured enemies, stolen treasure, and displays of raw military power. They came to dominate. Probably only days before Pilate came to visit Jerusalem, riding on a horse and entering the city at the main gate in triumph. Days later, Jesus did the same thing, riding at least one, and maybe two, animals, but entering by the gate nearest the Temple.

It’s a little bit like a political cartoon, making fun of the president or prime minister. There is something in the story comedic and maybe a little bit insulting. To the Romans, certainly, this story would “poke the bear.” Now maybe I am reading into it. But certainly, Jesus chose the opposite animal to Pilots for a reason.

Jesus did it on purpose. And, as someone at our Bible study noted this week, Jesus may well be intentionally fulfilling prophecies at this point. I don’t think that’s always the case, but I do think it’s pretty clear in this one. Shout out to Emma.

In any case, Jesus chose a humble, unbroken colt, the animal of peace and everyday labour. It’s like Jesus sat down and said, Well, the politician is arriving in a top-end Maybach Mercedes Limo (a $ 1.4 million bulletproof luxury mobile), so… I wonder if maybe I can borrow someone’s 1985 Oldsmobile.

Do you think he’s maybe making a point?

He came gently. He came to serve. He came as the Prince of Peace who would lay down His life rather than take lives. We call this the Triumphal entry but it’s not. It’s the opposite. This was an anti-triumphal entry: a quiet, deliberate rebellion against every empire that uses power to control and every religious system that profits from the status quo. This is some gangster, political engagement.

Right after the cheers, Jesus walked straight into the temple and drove out the moneychangers, declaring, “My house shall be called a house of prayer!” Celebration turned into cleansing. The humble King immediately challenged the corrupt religious leadership that had compromised with Roman power.

This scene stands in sharp contrast with every other claimant to power, Roman imperial might, temple authorities who negotiated with Caesar, and even popular expectations of a violent, militaristic Messiah who would lead a bloody revolt. Jesus inverted all of it. He claimed kingship on God’s terms: humble, sacrificial, and true.

Each of the four Gospels tells this story with its own emphasis, because each faced different opponents and spoke to different communities. They deliberately shape the Triumphal Entry to show Jesus as the true King who stands against every rival claim to rule our lives.

Mark presents a suffering, somewhat secretive Messiah against failed popular uprisings and hostile religious authorities. Matthew stresses how Jesus fulfills Jewish law and prophecy, reclaiming true authority from those who twisted Scripture. Luke highlights Jesus’ concern for the poor, the outsider, and the Gentile, a kingship that challenges both Roman social order and elite religious structures.

John lifts up Jesus’ divine, spiritual kingship in direct confrontation with “the Jews” (meaning the hostile leadership) and with Pilate himself, exposing the emptiness of worldly power.

Together, the Gospels show us that Jesus’ entry was no accident. It was a symbolic inversion of imperial and religious kingship, a nonviolent claim to ultimate authority that exposes the hollowness of every competing power. Whether the threat was Caesar’s sword, the temple’s corruption, or revolutionary violence, Jesus offered a better way: the way of the cross.

The question the whole city asked echoes down to us: “Who is this?” (v. 10). That is the central question of life. Who do you serve, a king or THE KING?

The crowd exploded with passion. They threw their cloaks on the road like a red carpet for royalty. They waved palm branches, ancient symbols of victory and national pride. They shouted “Hosanna!” which means “Save us now!” They were quoting Psalm 118 and hailing Jesus as the Son of David, the Messiah.

Many scholars believe this was the very day Passover lambs were being chosen. If true, this also means that Jesus was publicly presenting Himself as the Lamb for slaughter who would die for the sins of the world.

But Matthew adds a heartbreaking note: the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?” The loudest cheers came from visiting pilgrims. Many locals were confused or skeptical. Within days, some of those same voices would cry, “Crucify Him!”

We see the same pattern today. People cheer for Jesus when He seems to promise what they want: rescue from problems, emotional highs, and cultural relevance. But when the road leads to the cross, to daily dying to self, to costly obedience, to trusting Him when it doesn’t feel triumphant, the cheers often fade.

I once watched a young man propose to his girlfriend on the Jumbotron at a packed football game. The stadium erupted. She said yes amid tears and applause. Everyone posted the video. Six months later, when real life hit, bills, stress, ordinary days, he walked away. She later reflected, “He loved the moment… but he didn’t love me enough for the everyday.”

We wave our palms on Sunday. We shout “Hosanna!” when life feels exciting. But do we lay down our lives on Monday? Loud worship means nothing without surrendered hearts.

I love cars, and as our friend Peter back there knows, the saying is: “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday.” Meaning that if your car wins races over the weekend, some oaf of a guy like me will come in and think they can buy it. The problem was that companies were putting out cars on Sunday with the same name as the ones they sold, but they weren’t the same car. The Mustang is a great example from 1974-78 Shelby won races in one, but when you went to the dealership, you could only buy a 2.3L 4-banger that made 88 horsepower, which is less than most motorcycles today. The high-end one had 105hp. 0-100 was over 14 seconds. And if you are confused, what that means is that these mustangs could be outrun by many of today’s modern golf carts.

I don’t wanna be a fake sports car. I wanna be the same on Monday as I am on Sunday.

We shout “Hosanna!” when life feels exciting. But do we lay down our lives on Monday?

So here is the question that matters more than any other: Who do we serve, a king or THE KING?

Will we welcome Him fully, not just with emotion, but with daily surrender? Will we lay down our pride, our plans, our fears, and our self-rule like the crowd laid down their cloaks? Will we cry “Hosanna” not merely for rescue from our circumstances, but for rescue from our sin?

This week, I would like us all to do something together. I wonder if you will? Would you memorize, write down, email yourself, text someone in your family… could we all try to do this together:

Every morning this week, whisper these words, “Jesus, You are my King, rule my heart today.” “Jesus, You are my King, rule my heart today.” “Jesus, You are my King, rule my heart today.” Say it each morning and see if it changes your day.

When fear rises, remember the humble King who offers peace that the world cannot give or take away. When worship feels empty or routine, ask the Holy Spirit to make it real again.

The King has come. And He is still coming into your life, your family, your struggles, and your future. He still presents a very different picture than today’s rulers and kings. He doesn’t ride in to impress you. He rides in to die for you. Amen.

Invitation: This week, I would like us all to do something together. I wonder if you will? Would you memorize, write down, email yourself, text someone in your family… could we all try to do this together:

Every morning this week, whisper these words, “Jesus, You are my King, rule my heart today.” “Jesus, You are my King, rule my heart today.” “Jesus, You are my King, rule my heart today.” Say it each morning and see if it changes your day.

Song: All glory, laud and honour  (214)

We respond to serve God

Our time of giving

Prayer of gratitude, and for others and ourselves
God of courage and compassion,
as we follow Jesus toward the cross this Holy Week,
we thank You that He faced His enemies with courage instead of violence.
We are grateful that He loved us enough to die for us,
carrying every pain and sorrow that others caused.
In Christ, we believe Your love is stronger than any situation — even the hardest or most heartbreaking ones.
Hear us now as we pray for people and places facing trouble today:

We pray for everyone struggling with poverty, sickness, or deep grief,
and for all who feel overwhelmed by things they can’t control.
(Silence – 10 seconds)
Stay close to them every day and restore their hope and strength.
Lord, in Your mercy…
**Hear our prayer.**

We pray for people and places torn by violence, war, and corruption,
and for those who wake up afraid of what today might bring.
(Silence – 10 seconds)
Give them courage and protection, and restore their hope and peace.
Lord, in Your mercy…
**Hear our prayer.**

We pray for those who stand against tyranny, brutality, and injustice,
and for everyone who speaks up for the vulnerable and the hurting.
(Silence – 10 seconds)
Give them strength and restore their hope and freedom.
Lord, in Your mercy…
**Hear our prayer.**

We pray for people facing persecution because of their race, beliefs, or identity,
and for anyone who has been shamed or humiliated by those in power.
(Silence – 10 seconds)
Remind them they are deeply loved and valuable as Your children,
and restore their hope and dignity.
Lord, in Your mercy…
**Hear our prayer.**

Now we pray in silence for the people and situations close to our own hearts…
(Silence – 10 seconds)
Bring Your grace, hope, and healing wherever it is needed.
Lord, in Your mercy…
**Hear our prayer.**

Song: Hosanna  (216)

Sending out with God’s blessing
Go out into the week ahead with courage.
May the Christ who walked with wounded feet walk with you on your road.
May the Christ who served with wounded hands use your hands to serve others.
May the Christ who loved with a wounded heart open your heart to love freely.
May you see the face of Christ in every person you meet,
and may everyone you meet see the face of Christ in you.
Go in peace. Amen.

Response: Sing Amen

Music postlude

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Numbers in brackets after a song/hymn indicate that it is from the 1997 Book of Praise of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Those and other songs are being used in accordance with the specifications of Dayspring’s licensing with One License (3095377) and CLC (A735555).

The Rev. Brad Childs retains the copyright (© 2026) on all original material in this service. As far as Brad Childs is aware, all of the material that has not been attributed to others is his own creation or is in the public domain. Unacknowledged use of copyrighted material is unintentional and will be corrected immediately upon notification being received.

Video recordings of the Sunday Worship messages can be found here on our YouTube Channel.

Worship on the Fifth Sunday in Lent
10:00 am      March 22, 2026
Minister: The Rev. Brad Childs     Music Director: Binu Kapadia
Vocalist: Fionna McCrostie   Reader: Maureen Cook
Welcoming Elder: Iris Routledge     Children’s time: Vivian Houg

We gather to worship God

Music prelude

Greeting
L: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
P: and also with you.

Lighting of the Christ candle
Welcome and announcements
Preparation for worship

Call to worship:
L: God promised a new covenant through the prophet Jeremiah, who said that one day the law would be written on our hearts and all would know God.
P: Often, when we are confused and closed and worn, we wonder if that day will ever come.  
L: God’s promise throughout the law and prophets is made alive in us. God will always be our God, and we will always be God’s people.
P: Let us be glad, for God remembers our sin no more

Opening praise: This I believe

Prayers of approach and confession

God — you in whom we live, breathe, and move —

We lift our hearts to you.

When life wears us down and worry crowds in, your word still speaks hope across the years.

As we follow Jesus this Lenten season, with his cross before us, we hold to the truth that you are never far from our pain.

You walk beside us, you cry with us, you steady us when we’re lost.

In this time of worship, restore our trust in your promise of new life.

Come close when we need you most. Hold us with a love that won’t let go.

We give you our wonder and our praise — Father, Son, and Spirit.

Merciful God,

We’re sorry. We’ve missed the mark in our thoughts, our words, and our actions.

We’ve done hurtful things and left undone the good we could have done.

We haven’t loved you with everything we are, and we’ve fallen short of loving our neighbours as ourselves.

Have mercy. Forgive us.

Change our hearts so we may delight in your ways and live for your glory. Amen.

Response: I waited, I waited on you, Lord

Assurance of God’s pardon

Jesus invites the weary and burdened to come to him for rest. Hear this promise: God’s peace and forgiveness are yours today, no matter what you carry. Breathe in the Spirit’s renewal and step into each new day lighter.

Musical Offering: Dayspring Singers

The Suffering Servant. Words adapted from Isiah 53:1-5 by Ruth Schram, music by Ruth as well. Copyright, MCMXCIII by Alfred Publishing Co. Inc.

We listen for the voice of God.

Song: Jesus loves me                                             

Children’s Time

The Lord’s Prayer (535 )

Song: Oh for a thousand tongues to sing (374: vss 1,2,3,5 )

Scripture reading: John 11:1-45

Response: Jesus, remember me            

Message: Raising Lazarus

Before going to see his friend, Jesus waits. Does God wait to answer our prayers? Sometimes God’s delays are delays; they are timed for glory. Yet in all things, He cries when we cry. Our God is not distant.

“Sometimes, God’s delays are not denials; they are divine setups for greater glory, deeper compassion, and resurrection life.”

The story opens with urgent news: Lazarus is sick. Mary and Martha send word to Jesus because they believe he can heal. His response? “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” (v. 4)

Right at the start, verse 6 hits us like a brick: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed two more days…”

Wait – He loved him, so He didn’t go? That feels wrong. That feels almost cruel. The disciples felt it too. They had just escaped a stoning attempt in Judea only days earlier, John 10:31, the crowd was picking up rocks to kill Jesus for claiming to be one with the Father. They had barely made it across the Jordan to safety. Now the sisters send word: “Lord, the one you love is sick.” And Jesus… waits. Deliberately. On purpose.

We are uncomfortable with the delay. When we pray, we generally want things and want them fast. We assume the delay is neglect. But in the economy of God, delay can be the very space in which glory is revealed.

When Jesus arrives, it’s been four days. The delay has pushed the situation from the sickbed to the tomb. Martha meets him and says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Her words are full of grief and honest faith. Jesus responds with the astonishing claim: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (v. 25–26). That claim reframes the situation. Death is not the end of the story for those who believe.

When God delays, he may be preparing a stage for greater revelation, not to shame us but to lift his glory higher so that many may see and believe.

“Robert Craig Knievel, better known as Evel Knievel, was born October 17, 1938. A wild child who holds the record for the most broken bones in a lifetime of crashes, he always believed in a ‘higher power’ but fought Jesus for 68 years. Gold, gambling, booze, women, he couldn’t let go. Yet God never let go of him.

Late in life, sitting on a Florida beach, he heard a voice inside: ‘Robert, I’ve saved you more times than you’ll ever know. Now come to me through my Son, Jesus.’ Stunned, the non-religious daredevil called his friend Frank Gifford, who urged him to read The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. By April 2007, on Palm Sunday, Evel stood before thousands in a large cathedral, shared his story, and, for the first time, declared, ‘I believe in Jesus Christ!’ His raw passion moved the crowd: hundreds, estimates say 500 to 800, came forward that day wishing to give their lives to Christ and be baptized.

Six months later, the stuntman died. But not before ordering his tombstone. It reads simply: ‘Believe in Jesus Christ.’

His only regret? Evel said, “That I didn’t come to Christ sooner.” Yet I wonder: Wasn’t the long delay part of the glory? A life once defined by crashes became a final, explosive testimony that launched hundreds toward eternity. God’s timing turned a daredevil’s grave into a pulpit.” “Sometimes, God’s delays are not denials; they are divine setups for greater glory, deeper compassion, and resurrection life.”

Notice next how Jesus responds to Mary and the mourning crowd. Mary falls at his feet and repeats the painful truth: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus sees her weeping; he sees those around her weeping, and he is deeply moved. Verse 35 says simply, “Jesus wept.” “Two words. The shortest verse in the Bible. Yet perhaps the deepest. The eternal Son, through whom all things were made, stands at a grave and weeps. Not polite tears. Gut-wrenching sobs, the Greek word implies loud, anguished crying. The God who holds the universe feels the full weight of human loss. He doesn’t stand aloof. He enters the mess. He weeps with those who weep.

Imagine… the Creator crying over a friend’s death. If Jesus weeps at Lazarus’s tomb, how much more does he weep with you in your hospital room, your empty chair at the table, your unanswered prayers? Your pain moves him. Your tears touch his heart. He is not embarrassed by your grief. He shares it.”

What does this teach us? First, grief is not a failure of faith. Martha and Mary are believers; their tears do not contradict their faith. Jesus does not rebuke their sorrow. Instead, he enters it. He stands in the gap of human pain. He feels the ache of loss. He is not a distant God who lectures from afar; he is Emmanuel, God with us in our darkest hours.

Bring your pain to Jesus. Cry with him. Trust that his compassion is as real as his power.

The scene climaxes at the tomb. Jesus commands the stone to be taken away. Martha pushes back: the body has been in the tomb for four days; there will be a stench. Her objection is reasonable. Yet Jesus says, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” The stone is rolled away, an act of faith as much as obedience, and then Jesus prays aloud, not for his own sake, but “so that the people standing around may believe” (v. 42).

Here are several things to notice. Jesus prays to the Father before acting; his power is not isolated from a relationship with the Father. He speaks with authority: “Lazarus, come out.” And the dead man obeys. The tomb becomes the stage for God’s voice, bringing life. What was irreversible in human terms becomes reversible in the hands of the Lord.

When Jesus commands us, it may require us to move heavy stones and take the risks of obedience, even when circumstances look hopeless. Our obedience positions us to witness God’s glory.

Martha’s confession is one of the great testimonies of the Gospels: “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world” (v. 27). She believes in the Messiah, even amid sorrow. Jesus’ claim to be the resurrection and the life reframes faith not as wishful thinking but as trust in a person, in Jesus himself. The promise is not merely resuscitation to the old life but entrance into life that death cannot account for.

The raising of Lazarus becomes a sign pointing to the ultimate defeat of death in Jesus’ own resurrection. Later, Jesus says that because of what happened here, many would believe. Faith that trusts Jesus as life itself sees beyond present losses into the final victory to come.

Anchor your hope in Jesus himself, not in circumstances. His life is the source of our strength; even in death, he is faithful.

The crowd responds in two ways. Some see and believe. Others, the religious leaders, are compelled toward fear and conspiracy, plotting against Jesus because the sign threatened their power and exposed their unbelief. Signs divide. The glory of God will attract hearts ready to trust and will alarm those invested in maintaining the status quo.

Genuine encounters with Jesus will sometimes win people and sometimes provoke resistance. Our role is to be faithful witnesses, not to control the outcome. Think of Abraham waiting 25 years for a promised son.

Or how about this: Vincent van Gogh painted with a fevered conviction that the world he saw needed his colours, filling canvases that pulsed with life. He lived in poverty, sold perhaps one painting during his lifetime, and died in 1890 believing he had failed. Decades later, the very canvases dismissed were hung in museums around the world. Van Gogh never stood in a crowded gallery while others applauded his influence; yet he kept working, trusting his call even when the applause never came. That doesn’t make Starry Night or Sunflowers any less powerful. In fact, it sort of makes them more powerful. “Even in our delays and tears, God is setting us up for glory.”

Where are you today? Are you standing in a place of delay, wondering why God has not yet come? Are you grieving a loss that feels final? Are you tempted to believe that your situation marks the end of hope?

Hear Jesus’ words again: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (v. 25). And hear his presence: “Jesus wept” (v. 35). He is not an indifferent deity. He is the compassionate Lord who will command life where there is death.

Two courageous steps this week:

1. Bring your honest ‘if only…’ to Jesus. Name the delay, the loss, the hurt—out loud in prayer. Say, ‘Lord, if you had been here…’ Then sit in silence and let him weep with you. Let his compassion meet your ache.
2. Roll away one stone of resistance. Identify the hopeless place: a bitter grudge, a fearful diagnosis, a broken relationship, a habit you can’t break. Take one obedient step toward Jesus’ command: forgive that person (even if they don’t deserve it), schedule the doctor’s visit, pray over it. Reach out with that hard conversation. Obedience doesn’t erase the smell of death; it invites the voice of life.”

Remember: God’s delays are not denials. They are divine setups for greater glory. The tomb that looked final became the stage for resurrection. Your delay, your grief, your impossible situation, Jesus is setting the stage there, too.

So hear him call your name today: ‘[Brad], come out. Come out of despair. Come out of fear. Come out to life.’

May the God who weeps with us, delays for glory, and raises the dead fill you with unshakable hope, bold obedience in the waiting, and resurrection life in every dead place. Amen.

Song: Breathe on me, breath of God (389)

We respond to serve God

Our time of giving

We place these gifts in your hands, God. By your Spirit, turn them into seeds of new life—growing hope and comfort for tired souls, in Jesus’ name.

God of tender love, thank you that in Christ you call each of us by name and gather us into your family. Give us the love to make a real difference and the courage to follow you even when the road is hard.

Christ of mercy and grace, pour your compassion into this world again.

God of peace and promise, you call us to love our enemies and to be makers of peace.

Today we pray for places and people torn apart by long-standing hurt and fresh conflict — especially for those in the headlines and those we remember now…

Christ of mercy and grace, pour your compassion into this world again.

God, who knows suffering, thank you that Jesus took up the cross and understands our pain. We bring before you all who need healing and comfort today, whatever the cause of their pain…

Christ of mercy and grace, pour your compassion into this world again.

God of the broken-hearted, you know what it is to lose and to grieve. We lift up those mourning loved ones, and those who feel alone or let down by friends and family…

Christ of mercy and grace, pour your compassion into this world again.

God of hope and new beginnings, through Christ, you opened a future full of your redeeming love. Give us courage and confidence in your presence and power.

Song: May the God of hope go with us every day (726)

Sending out with God’s blessing

As we move toward Holy Week and the cross, remember Jesus’ promise: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even after death.” May Jesus’ tears wash over your sorrows, the Spirit live in your heart, and God’s promise of new life lead you each day. Amen.

Response: Sing Amen

Music postlude

————————————————————————-

Numbers in brackets after a song/hymn indicate that it is from the 1997 Book of Praise of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Those and other songs are being used in accordance with the specifications of Dayspring’s licensing with One License (3095377) and CLC (A735555).

The Rev. Brad Childs retains the copyright (© 2026) on all original material in this service. As far as Brad Childs is aware, all of the material that has not been attributed to others is his own creation or is in the public domain. Unacknowledged use of copyrighted material is unintentional and will be corrected immediately upon notification being received.

Video recordings of the Sunday Worship messages can be found here on our YouTube Channel.

Worship on the Fourth Sunday in Lent
10:00 am        March 15, 2026
Minister: The Rev. Brad Childs     Music Director: Binu Kapadia
Vocalist: Vivian Houg     Welcoming Elder: Sam Malayang
Reader: Leah Eisen      Children’s time: Brad

We gather to worship God.

Music prelude

Greeting
L: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you
P: and also with you

Lighting of the Christ candle
Welcome and announcements
Preparation for worship

Call to worship:
L: How often, like those who wander in the wilderness, have we failed to trust God’s covenant?
P: We have let God down and hurt one another.
L: But Jesus came into the world and was lifted up in order that love might be reborn.
P: Let us be glad, for we are not condemned, but held in the covenant of grace.

Opening praise: Here I am to worship

Prayers of approach and confession

Loving God,

You are the source of everything that sustains us.

You are compassion, meeting us when we ask for mercy.

You are mercy, guiding us when we are anxious.

You are wisdom, showing us truth that challenges and renews us.

Holy One, you bless us with your presence every day.

We come to you in worship — Creator, Christ, and Spirit —

giving you our love, our loyalty, our prayers, and our praise.

Amen.

God of life and love,

we admit that what happens around us sometimes shakes our trust.

When violence strikes and innocent people suffer, we doubt that love can win.

When truth is twisted, we wonder if honesty can overcome lies.

When trouble comes, we question whether you care for us.

Forgive us when we lose trust in your love.

Response: I waited, I waited on you, Lord

Assurance of God’s pardon

Friends, remember Paul’s words: “Nothing — not death, life, present things, or future things — can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” Whatever is happening and whatever we have done, God’s deep love holds us. Receive the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We listen for the voice of God.

Song: Jesus loves me (373)    

Children’s time

Edmonton has a vast array of antique shops, including the largest store in Western Canada. Do you know what antique stores are? I love them. I could spend hours going through them, but never buy anything. One thing about antique shops… Savvy shoppers can find some real treasures among all the debris.

One day an antique connoisseur walked into one of these stores. Browsing the items for sale, he came across an unremarkable cat drinking milk from a saucer on the floor. The man immediately recognized this saucer as genuine Ming Dynasty, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And here it was on the floor, with a cat drinking milk out of it! The shop owner obviously did not know its worth.

Immediately, the man started scheming how to get it for cheap, without the shopkeeper knowing what he was selling. He turned to the shopkeeper and said, “You know, that’s a very striking cat you have there. I’d really like to buy your cat.”

“Well,” answered the shopkeeper, “the cat is not really for sale.”

“I insist,” the man replied. “Would you take $100 for the cat?”

“That’s very generous,” said the shopkeeper with a shake of his head. “I don’t think this cat is worth $100, but if you want the cat that badly, you can have it.”

The man paid for the cat and then, as if he’d just thought of it, said, “Oh, one more thing. I’m going to need something to use as a feeding dish for the cat, so I’ll give you another $5 for that little saucer there on the floor.”

“Oh, I could never do that,” said the shopkeeper. “You see, that’s no ordinary saucer. That’s a rare piece of Chinese art from the Ming Dynasty, and its worth is incalculable. But amazingly enough, ever since I started feeding my cats out of it, I’ve sold 12 cats.”

That little saucer reminds me that worth isn’t always obvious at first glance. Ephesians calls us (You and Me) God’s handiwork; Exodus calls us His treasure. If a priceless object can be passed over for years, how many of God’s people do we overlook because we don’t look closely enough? One of the most difficult things to live out in life is one of the truest. Every single person you meet is a special treasure to God. Take time to see it, and people will take time to see that in you, too.

Prayer
Our God
We want to see with your eyes.
May we learn to pause,
to see beyond the surface,
and to treat every person
as someone made and loved by God.
Let our eyes be open to hidden value in others,
our hands ready to serve,
and our words quick to bring kindness.
And God
remind us too,
we are also your special treasure.
Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer

Song: Saviour, like a shepherd lead us (485)

Scripture readings: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Response: Jesus, remember me

Message: Ambassadors for Christ

The “Brad” translation of 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Those following Jesus: knowing what we now know… we can never look at any person as “lesser than” ever again. There is no person Christ cannot reach or change. Eternity has but two categories: perfection and everyone else.

I cannot pretend that I am always good and can no longer believe that others are always bad. Jesus levelled the field. Believing in my own forgiveness and the power of Christ to make me forever secure in heaven means I cannot live an easy life. I wish to seek to forgive unworthy people, just as I was. Maybe I even need to dig deep and forgive people for things so much worse than I might imagine. This doesn’t mean there are no consequences. It means that despite the consequences, all involved wish only the best for the offended and for the offender. Justice often makes the guilty pay. Mercy is letting people off without punishment. What Jesus does is Atonement. He pays our fee and then stands in court as our defence attorney.

A little girl in England named Josie Kaden was born profoundly deaf. She often felt isolated as a child because of her hearing impairment. But that changed after she received a cochlear implant during the Christmas season. At the age of 12, she heard clearly for the very first time in her life. The first sound she heard was the song Jingle Bells coming from the radio.

Was Josie’s hearing restored? Yes, it was completely restored. Was she hearing well immediately? No, not exactly. Her mother said, “She’s having to learn what each new sound is and what it means. So she will ask, ‘Was that the door closing?’ And for the first time in her life, she has realized what many of us often miss… that the light bulb in her bedroom hums just a little bit when it’s switched on. She even knows what her name sounds like now, because before, she couldn’t hear the soft ‘s’ in the middle of her name – Josie. Seeing her face light up as she hears everything around her is all I could have ever wished for any Christmas.”

Josie’s hearing was restored, but that restoration introduced her to the daily adventure of learning to distinguish each new sound in her new ‘hearing’ world.

It’s the “already and not yet”. It is the phrase that aptly describes the perspective of believers in Christ who have not yet experienced the fullness of redemption that will one day be realized only in the beyond. Something in her life changed dramatically, and it would affect how she came to see everything and everyone. It couldn’t help but change her.

Paul writes to people caught in conflict to remind them that something in their lives has changed and that through their devotion to Jesus, they have given up the right to judge others.

The text reads, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.”

If the people know Christ as Saviour, then they must see the world through Christ’s eyes.

The text continues, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

This new creation isn’t just personal; it must affect others. The whole point here is that if we claim to be made new in Christ, then we have to act like entirely new people. We have to hear what we’ve never heard before. And we have to act.

From his hospital bed on the eve of open-heart surgery, Bruce McIver asked his cardiologist, Doctor Johnson, “Can you fix my heart?” The physician said, “Sure,” and then walked away confidently. Following the 12-hour surgery, McIver asked Johnson, “In light of the blocked arteries that I had when I checked into the hospital, how much blood supply do I have now?” “All you’ll ever need,” replied the surgeon.

Upon his discharge from the hospital, McIver’s wife, Lana, asked the doctor, “Can you tell me about my husband’s future quality of life?” Doctor Johnson paused and then said, “I fixed the heart. The quality of his life, that’s up to him.”

God has fixed our hearts through Christ. He has given us new life, full reconciliation. But the quality of that life – how we live it out – how it affects the people around us… That’s up to us. We can’t just receive the gift and stay the same.

Elma and Victor Hayes won more than $7,000,000 in the 2005 Canada 6/49 Lottery with a ticket from the grocery store in Brockville, Ontario. When asked what the couple planned to do, the 89-year-old couple claimed that at this stage of life, they were unlikely to become “giddy high spenders”. Instead, they planned to stay right there in their retirement home. Victor Hayes planned to buy a used Lincoln Town Car. But his wife told reporters that she needed a new pair of nylons.

Elma’s response was widely reported as comical, if not even foolish. How could someone win a fortune in the Canadian lottery and yet change nothing in their life but their nylons? In the same way, how can those who have won the spiritual grand prize of eternal life not live in a way that’s consistent with being that new creation?

The US has a history of institutionalized racism, although so does every other country. The US inherited slavery from its older brother England, but when the colonies became states, slavery was steadily made illegal everywhere North of the Missouri River. Republican Abraham Lincoln and the other Republican-run states were free-states which banned slavery; the Democratic-run states south of the Missouri Compromise line were Slave States.

When the Republicans won freedom for the enslaved people in the US Civil War, the Democrats did not go softly into the night. Instead, Democrats created local government laws that kept people “separate but equal”. If you have ever heard of a law where people of colour in the US can’t be out after dark or must use a different water fountain or washroom, those are Jim Crow laws created by Democrats angry about losing their slaves in the Civil War. When it became difficult to enforce those discriminatory laws, Democratic former soldiers of the Confederacy created the KKK to police things and to avoid federal government intervention in local matters.

The separatist movement continued for nearly 100 years, and bigotry leapt along. In fact, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina was still in power when I moved to Canada. He served as a democrat for 47 years in the United States Senate, but originally ran as a segregationist who fought the integration of schools.

Vivian Malone, a young black woman, enrolled as a student at the University of Alabama. It was 1963. Federal troops from the Republican-run Union States helped ensure her entrance into the school, but the Governor of that state (a Democrat named George Wallace) tried to block her with local police. When his mission ultimately failed, Vivian Malone became the first African American student to ever graduate from the University of Alabama. How terrifying must that have been for her. That was only 61 years ago.

Two years after the enrollment of Mrs. Malone, Governor Wallace was taken in his wheelchair to the Dexter Ave. Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL, where he begged the audience of a black church to forgive him for his racism, for his bigotry, and for specifically his ill treatment of the young woman, Vivian Malone. Malone, who was in attendance, was personally apologized to in front of a crowd of almost 1000 people.

I have no moment in my life where I can say I’ve felt quite that alone. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be a young black woman in Alabama in 1963, just trying to go to school while soldiers pushed local police back to let you in.

The former governor begged Mrs. Malone for forgiveness. But Vivian Malone said she had forgiven the governor years before. When asked why she had done that, Malone said, “Because I am a Christian, I grew up in the church, and I was taught that we are all equal in the eyes of God. I was also taught that you forgive people no matter what, and that was why I had to do it. Quite frankly, I didn’t have a choice.”

Both Wallace and Mrs. Molone were followers of Jesus. But it wasn’t until they stopped looking at each other through human eyes and began seeing each other as New Creations that things got better. With new ears and new eyes, we can’t look at people the way others do.

Do you see people through human eyes, or through the eyes of God? Do you see people the way humans do? Or do you see people as if they were your own little, tiny baby, your own child, your grandmother, or your neighbour?

Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to be road-raging and driving all aggressive and angry, only to catch up to the car that made you mad, to find your great-grandmother driving her friend to an appointment in the friend’s car? How quickly might we realize our error? I suspect that’s how God sees us all the time. God sees us getting made, mistreating, not likely, hating, and warring with everyone else, and says to Himself, don’t you know that’s your relative you’re hating on.

When we accept Christ, we are called to leave behind our old ways, our habits, our desires for worldly success, and our self-centred attitudes. And with this, God stimulates others into like action.

“¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin^[a] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Thomas à Kempis was a Dutch monk and theologian. He was born in 1380 and is best known for his book The Imitation of Christ. The book consists of meditations and reflections focused on the inner spiritual life, the imitation of Christ, and the pursuit of holiness. It emphasizes humility, prayer, and detachment from worldly desires, and the intentional seeking of personal encounters with God through relationship rather than rituals. His impact is still being felt today, even in the language we use in modern-day churches, and Kempis is often regarded as one of the greatest spiritual authors of the Middle Ages.

Kempis encourages us that true joy comes not from fulfilling our desires but from seeking the heart of God. As we let go of the old, we open ourselves to the new creation that God has in store for us.

Just as Thomas à Kempis teaches us to imitate Christ in humility, love, and service, Paul’s message invites us to embody the change that has taken place within us. Imitation involves deliberately aligning our lives with the example set by Jesus; serving others, forgiving unconditionally, and living in the light of God’s truth. This is the essence of the new creation: a life transformed by love.

As new creations, our purpose is rooted not in what we gain but in how we reflect Christ’s love to the world.

The greatest sermon we can ever preach is not spoken. It is lived! You are the best sermon anyone will ever hear. So let us be very careful what we preach.

Paul writes: “16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Amen.

Song: O love that wilt not let me go (209)

We respond to serve God.

Our time of giving

Prayers of the people 

God, Shepherd of our lives,

Thank you for the good things you give that make life full:

for the cycles of nature that bring rain and food;

for work and the energy to do it;

for the community and the chance to share our efforts.

And yet, even here we are thirsty:

thirsty for hope when work fails;

thirsty for love when friendships break;

thirsty for justice when resources aren’t shared.

Shepherd God, fill us with your love and lead us on your paths.

God, Shepherd of our lives,

Thank you for the light you bring into a complicated world:

the insight that helps meet human needs and improve daily life;

the understanding that strengthens relationships and respect;

the wisdom that helps solve problems.

We ask for your light to guide us:

the wisdom to bring people with different views together;

the courage to work for change where it’s needed;

the hope to keep going when change is hard.

Shepherd God, fill us with your love and lead us on your paths.

God, Shepherd of our lives,

Thank you for the purpose and possibilities you give us in Christ:

for friendships and neighbourhoods that support us;

for cooperation that helps us achieve big goals;

for gratitude for the gifts we find in one another.

We ask now for the Spirit’s gifts we need:

confidence to renew our work with humility and hope;

generosity to restore lives in need;

faith to trust you for a future we don’t yet see.

Shepherd God, lead us on your paths.

God, Good Shepherd,

we thank you that Jesus walks with us and leads us into the future. Amen.

Song: Lord of all power (626)

Sending out with God’s blessing

As we continue through Lent, remember: “Live as children of light.” May God’s love surround you, Christ’s mercy renew you, and the Spirit’s guidance lead you today and every day. Amen.

Response: Sing Amen

Music postlude

————————————————————————-

Numbers in brackets after a song/hymn indicate that it is from the 1997 Book of Praise of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Those and other songs are being used in accordance with the specifications of Dayspring’s licensing with One License (3095377) and CLC (A735555).

The Rev. Brad Childs retains the copyright (© 2026) on all original material in this service. As far as Brad Childs is aware, all of the material that has not been attributed to others is his own creation or is in the public domain. Unacknowledged use of copyrighted material is unintentional and will be corrected immediately upon notification being received.

Video recordings of the Sunday Worship messages can be found here on our YouTube Channel.

Worship on the Third Sunday of Lent
10:00 am       08 March 2026
Online & Onsite (Mixed Presence) Gathering as a Worshipping Community
Led by Raymond Baker     Music director: Binu Kapadia     Vocalist: Lynn Vaughan
Elder: Lynn Vaughan     Readers: Saber and Felix Fort

We gather to worship God

Music prelude

Greeting
L: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
P: and also with you.

Lighting of the Christ candle
Welcome and announcements
Silent preparation for worship

Call to Worship
One: God gave us the covenant of the law to guide us and help us live with our neighbours in love.
All: When we break God’s law, we leave our neighbours hurt and bruised.
One: God’s law is a gift to us, showing us how to keep our part of the covenant.
All:     Even through old pain and wounds, may we embrace the new life that Christ can bring.

Opening praise: Great are You, Lord

Prayers of approach and confession
Lord, make us an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us bring love.
Where there is offence, let us bring pardon.
Where there is discord, let us bring union.
Where there is error, let us bring the truth.
Where there is doubt, let us bring faith.
Where there is despair, let us bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let us bring your light.
Where there is sadness, let us bring joy.
O Master, let us not seek as much
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in self-forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
It is in accepting your sacrifice, Christ, that we have eternal life. Amen.
(Modified Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi)

Response: I waited. I Waited on You, Lord.

Assurance of God’s love
Scripture teaches that there is a time for every matter under heaven.
A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.
In confessing our sins to God, we have offered God our tears of regret.
Now is the time to rejoice in God’s mercy:
In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.
In Jesus Christ, we can make a new start.
Thanks be to God.

We listen for the voice of God

Children’s time
Response: Jesus loves me (373)
Story
Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer (535)

Transition music

Song: I hunger and thirst (198)

Today’s Message

Scripture reading: John 4:1-42

Response: Behold the Lamb of God

Message: Lessons from the story of the woman at the well

Introduction: The Most Important Question

When I first became a Christian, an older gentleman at Central Baptist used to approach me every once in a while. He would always ask the same simple question: ‘How is your relationship with God?’ It sounds like a basic question, doesn’t it? But in reality, it is the most vital question we will ever be asked. In our reading today, we meet a woman whose life was completely transformed by a relationship with Jesus. And as we’ll see, that transformation didn’t stop with her; it spilled over, changing some of the hearts of an entire community.

As we look at the woman’s story found in John 4, I want you to remember: God is the same today as He was in the Samaritan woman’s day. The same transformation the woman experienced is available to us today!

Before our reading today, Jesus encountered Nicodemus—a leader in Hebrew Law—Jesus explained to Nicodemus that one must be “born again” to enter the kingdom of God.

In the reading that Felix and Saber read so well today, Jesus takes that message of salvation further, using the amazing illustration of living water.

I believe Jesus’s interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well offers us five life-changing lessons.

1. Breaking the Barriers

First, we see Jesus breaking barriers. I have heard so many sermons that were on this very point.

There are lots of reasons why Jesus “should not” have talked to this woman.

At this time in history in the middle east women were not on equal ground as men. So just a man talking to a woman was counter-cultural.  For a Rabbi to speak to a woman in public was very counter-cultural.

The next reason was the Samaritans were an ethnoreligious group living in the region of Samaria between Judea and Galilee. They were despised by Jews due to their mixed Assyrian-Hebrew ancestry and differing religious practices. The Samaritans were descendants of the Northern Kingdom of Israel who intermarried with foreign peoples after the Assyrian conquest. Samaritans worshipped Yahweh, but used their own version of the Torah and built a temple on Mount Gerizim, rather than worshiping in Jerusalem like the Jews did. Most Jewish people of the time distrusted and disliked Samaritans thinking that they were heathens and lawless. Actually, there was a mutual distrust between these two cultures.

The fact that Jesus (a religious leader) would even associate with a Samaritan would be shocking. It reminds me of the Sesame Street song: “One of these things is not like the others.” The woman and Jesus’ interaction would not fit with many of the accepted cultural norms of that time. Jesus was showing that God’s love isn’t restricted by geography, race, or gender. Jesus was definitely showing that God loved everyone in the world.

We know that God loves everyone in the world so much that He sent his only son–that whoever believes in Jesus has eternal life. This means everyone, no matter who you are, Jesus died on the Cross for you. If you repent of your sins and accept him as savior you can enter the Kingdom of God and have eternal life.

Illustration: “I want to take you back with me to a quiet room in a palliative care ward—a place where I encountered a dying man.

I was serving as a chaplain at Norwood palliative years ago. One day on the palliative ward was a man whose life had been lived at the intersection of many margins. He was Indigenous. He was gay. He was dying of AIDS and Hepatitis and other things. He did not have any visitors. I noticed he was actively dying but still a bit cognizant and alone in the room.

I remember putting on medical gloves as I pulled them on—a thin, latex barrier that could not stop a human connection. I took his hand in mine. Listening to the rhythm of a life slowly fading. I gently told him the salvation message as he slowly died. I held on to his hand until his very last breath

I do not tell you this to make me look good. I tell you this because of the bridge that was built in that room.

Think of the distance the world put between me and that man:

• Between the sacred and the stigmatized.
• Between me a heterosexual man representing the institutional Church and a dying gay man the world had probably often rejected but God still loved dearly.

In that hand hold, those distances vanished. And that, my friends, is the heart of the Gospel. If I—a flawed, finite human like me—could reach across that divide to offer presence and peace, how much more does the Creator of the Universe reach toward us?

God does not wait for us to be ‘presentable.’ He does not wait for the symptoms of our brokenness to disappear. Just as Jesus died for every soul without exception, He stands at the bedside of our lives, reaches past our labels, and takes us by the hand. He accepts us exactly as we are, at the very moment we come to Him and find solace in Christ. Jesus accepted the Woman and He accepts us.

Galatians 3:28 declares to all believers in the salvation of Christ that, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus“

2. Seeking the Outcast

Notice the timing: the Samaritan woman is at the well in the middle of the day. Most women at that time in history went to the well in the cool of the morning  or late evening and then they would socialize with the other women. Coming alone in the heat of the noon sun speaks volumes about the Samaritan Woman’s shame. She was a social outcast, yet Jesus went out of His way to find her.

Do we judge people the way the community judged this woman? We often categorize people and keep them at arm’s length.

Illustration: In the 1960s, a prestigious, conservative Anglican church stood directly across from a major university in San Francisco. The church was a place of high liturgy, polished wood, and “proper” decorum.

The service was seconds from beginning when the heavy oak doors swung open. In walked a young man—a university student. He is the very definition of the counter-culture hippy movement of the 1960’s. With his long, wild hair, his beaded and tasseled shirt, and those weathered, cut-off shorts, he looked like a man who had walked straight out of Woodstock. Even more shocking to the congregants was that he was barefoot.

As the congregation watched in stunned silence, this young man didn’t take a seat in the back. He walked all the way down the center aisle, reached the very front, and sat down cross-legged right on the floor almost directly in front of the raised pulpit.

The tension in the room was suffocating.

From the back of the sanctuary, the head usher—a “Sideman” in the truest English sense—began to move. He was an elderly, dignified man, who came from London, England. He was dressed in a crisp bespoke three-piece suit, a highly starched white shirt and red tie in a full Windsor knot. His shoes were polished to a mirror shine. He walked with a cane, and every step he took sent a tap echoing through the large silent sanctuary.

The congregation held its breath. They expected a stern rebuke from their proper elder. They expected a demand for the hippy to leave. Even the minister, standing high in his pulpit with his long vestments on, waited and expected and even looked forward to the confrontation.

But when the old man reached the young hippy man, he didn’t point to the door. Instead, he dropped his cane. He reached out a trembling hand to the hippie for balance, and with great effort, he lowered his body in his expensive suit onto the hard floor.

There they sat, side-by-side: the proper gentleman of the old world and the face of the counter culture hippies of the 1960’s.

The minister looked down, a single tear came down his face.  He closed his notes and addressed the congregation with only one sentence:

“What I’m about to preach to you cannot compare to the sermon we have just witnessed.”

Do we judge people like the Samaritan community judged the woman or the congregation that viewed the hippy? Christ came for all to find peace and salvation. As I noted before, Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemius, an intellectual and scholar of the Law parallels Jesus’ conversation with the adulterous Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus came for an intellectual and also an adulterous woman. Can we understand that Jesus came for everyone? I sometimes forget this and judge young men that come to church with baseball caps on or teenage girls in very short skirts in church. Jesus came for all of us. Even me who has judged.

3. Uncovering Sin & Offering Grace

Jesus gently confronts the woman’s past—her five husbands and her current situation—not to condemn her, but to offer her a new life. This isn’t just about getting to heaven; it’s about bringing the Kingdom of God to earth now. When we pray in the Lord’s prayer “Thy kingdom come here on earth as it is in heaven” is about bringing the kingdom of God here and now.

I find it interesting that the personal life of the Samaritan woman actually mirrored the Samaritan community, which at the time worshiped Yahweh but also served the many Assyrian gods.

We shouldn’t be too quick to judge the woman or the Samaritans. I love my wife, Jacquie, dearly and am faithful to her—but am I always “faithful” to God? Do I look to money for security instead of God? How about you?

We all come with baggage. As George Beverly Shea used to sing at the massive Billy Graham crusades: “Just as I am – though toss’d about, with many a conflict, many a doubt… O Lamb of God, I come!”

It is my prayer that everyone no matter what they have done can come accept the grace of God through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

4. Quenching the Spiritual Thirst

The “living water” Jesus offers carries a profound double meaning. In the ancient world, “living water” (Hebrew: mayim hayyim) referred to water that was moving—a bubbling spring or a flowing stream—as opposed to the stagnant, still water of a cistern or in this case Jacob’s well.

When Jesus speaks of Living Water, He is tapping into a rich biblical tradition. In Jeremiah 2:13, God describes Himself as the “fountain of living waters,” the direct and inexhaustible source of grace and life.

Consider the setting: this well was a physical legacy left by the patriarch Jacob. To the woman, Jesus’ claim of “living water” sounded like a geographical impossibility. She likely wondered if Jesus knew of a hidden, subterranean river running even deeper than Jacob’s ancient well. But the truth Jesus is talking about is more profound than any geological find. The source He speaks of isn’t found in the earth; God offers us this Living Water deep in our soul.

Jesus addresses the universal reality of spiritual thirst—a deep-seated longing for grace and purpose that no physical substance can quench. This offer of eternal life wasn’t just a lifeline for a marginalized Samaritan woman; it is a universal invitation. Whether we are Christians or “outcasts,” we all carry a parched soul that only Jesus can satisfy. Jesus offers a grace that does not just sit still like the water in a well, but flows through us, bringing significance to our lives today and into eternity–if we accept Christ as our Savior. Even if you are a Christian now–the living water can deepen your relationship to God.

5. The Unlikely Evangelist

To the Samaritan woman Jesus all of a sudden seems to know everything about her. She is stunned at all He knew. Next, the Samaritan woman says she is waiting for The Messiah or the Christ. Jesus tells her that He is that Messiah. The Samaritan woman is stunned and  goes into town to tell about how Jesus knew all about her. The woman becomes the first evangelist to the Samaritans. .  Her testimony leads a crowd from the town  to encounter Jesus and confess Him as

the “Savior of the World”. As I have said she is a woman and a woman with a bad reputation but she spreads the word about Jesus to the town regardless of her gender and reputation. The Eastern Orthodox tradition even labels her as “equal to the Apostles”.

I have a Master’s degree in Divinity. Should clergy with education be the only evangelists of the good news about salvation through believing in Christ? Absolutely not! In my mind one of the reasons I preach is to send out all who hear the message into the world to spread the good news about Christ. If the Samaritan woman can be the light of Christ to her town can’t we be the light of Christ to the world. Each of us individually and the entire body of Dayspring can spread the good news to our communities, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and the whole world!

This reminds me of the great commission. This is the last command from Jesus to His disciples found in the gospel of Matthew,  “therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything Jesus has commanded you. And surely Jesus is with you always, to the very end of the age.” You do not need to have a Master’s degree. You just need to know Christ as saviour and to go represent Him and tell about the Gospel Message to the World and Christ will be with you as you do it

Conclusion

“As we close our time together, we look back at the woman at the well and realize her story is our story. Just like the man whose hand I held in that hospital room, the Samaritan woman stood at the intersection of isolation and needed to experience transformation!

From the woman at the well who had an encounter with the Savior, we can glean five truths that can change the way we live:

• First, Jesus breaks every barrier. Whether it is a well in Samaria or a palliative care ward, God sends Christ or his followers to everyone—no matter who they are or what they have done in their past.
• Second, Grace is a universal gift. Jesus endured the cross so that no one—not the outcast, not the forgotten—should perish, but instead find salvation and eternal life.
• Third, God sees the outcast. While the world labels and classifies, Christ models a love that looks past the person and the history to see the soul. He sees the Hippy, the adulterous woman, the dying man in the palliative ward and us. Do we love our neighbour as ourselves like God loves all?
• Fourth, Christ alone quenches our thirst. We all have a parched place in our hearts that the world cannot fill. Today, you are invited to come to the well and drink of the Living Water God provides.
• Finally, you are called to go and tell the Good News. The woman at the well didn’t wait for a theology degree to share her joy. She simply went. You don’t need a title; you just need to know the Savior.

So, I ask you today: Will you drink from the living water and allow Christ to transform your life? Will you let Him take your hand and fill your heart? And once you are filled with God’s Living Water, who will you go and tell?”

Song: As water to the thirsty (688)

We respond to serve God: Our time of giving

Reflection on giving: Having tasted the living water in Christ’s love and forgiveness, we bring our gifts to God in gratitude for such refreshment and renewal.

God has given us so many gifts in Christ and in creation. We offer our gifts in gratitude for the possibilities we enjoy, trusting God to multiply what we bring for goodness’ sake.

Prayer of gratitude and for others and ourselves

Lord, we come before you today to say thank you. Thank you for all you have given us–for all the blessings that we can and cannot see. With a grateful heart we thank you Lord for saving us from darkness and delivering us from evil. We accept what you did on the cross as you took our sin and shame. You can take away our sickness and can heal our pain. We thank you for all you have done and are about to do in our lives. Thank you, Lord.

Song: Come, let us sing to the Lord our song (412)

Sending out with God’s blessing

May you be filled today with the Living Water that only God provides—a spring welling up to eternal life. As you go, may you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and extend that same radical love to every neighbour you encounter. And may you know Christ as the true saviour of your lives. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Response: Sing Amen

Music postlude

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Numbers in brackets after a song/hymn indicate that it is from the 1997 Book of Praise of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Those and other songs are being used in accordance with the specifications of Dayspring’s licensing with One License (3095377) and CLC (A735555).

Raymond Baker retains the copyright (© 2026) on all original material in this service. As far as he is aware, all of the material that has not been attributed to others is his own creation or is in the public domain. Unacknowledged use of copyrighted material is unintentional and will be corrected immediately upon notification being received.

Worship on the Second Sunday of Lent
Celebrating the Sacrament of Holy Communion
10:00 am       01 March 2026
Online & Onsite (Mixed Presence) Gathering as a Worshipping Community
Led by the Lynn Vaughan     Music director: Binu Kapadia
Vocalists: Cheryl & Peter Sheridan    Elder: Shirley Simpson   Reader: Gina Kottke

We gather to worship God

Music prelude

Greeting
L: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
P: and also with you.

Lighting of the Christ candle
Welcome and announcements
Silent preparation for worship

Call to Worship
L: Into life’s challenges and questions comes the Mystery of God,
P: and God’s truth opens our eyes.
L: Into our routines and rituals walks the presence of Christ,
P: and God’s love brings healing and hope.
L: Into our traditions and conclusions blows the wind of the Spirit,
P: and God’s people are born from above.
L: We gather in Jesus’ name to encounter God’s grace and glory.
P: Let us worship God with open hearts and minds.

Opening praise: I lift my eyes up

Prayers of approach and confession

God of majesty and mercy,

Christ, both Lord and Servant,

Spirit of new life,

your mystery embraces the vast reaches of the universe and yet you are present with us in the course of our daily lives.

Even the tiniest spark of your wisdom illuminates the greatest complexities.

With the smallest gesture of your love, you renew our hope.

Deepen our sense of your holy presence today.

Assure us that your love will never let us go.

We offer our praise and our prayers to you,

Holy God, Holy One and Holy Three,

with humble hearts and faith that seeks understanding.

God of mystery and mercy,

we confess that we prefer simple certainty to seeking deeper understanding.

We settle for what we know, ignoring our doubts and questions.

Forgive us when our faith falters because what we think no longer satisfies.

Open our eyes to the truth you hold out to us in Jesus Christ, your son,

and give us courage to rethink what we have assumed about you

and your love for the world.

We pray this all in the name of your precious Son, our Lord and Saviour. Amen.

Response: I waited, I waited on You, Lord

Assurance of God’s grace

The Apostle Paul declared that from now on, we regard no one from a human point of view. If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! Thanks be to God for love that gives us all a new start this very day!

We listen for the voice of God                   

Song: Love divine, all loves excelling (371)

Scripture readings: Psalm 121 & John 3:1-17

Instrumental Response: His truth is marching on 

Message: The Gospel in a Nutshell

Martin Luther famously said, it is “the gospel in miniature, so pregnant with meaning that it can never be exhausted”. It is the most famous verse in the Bible, and with good reason. It is, of course, John 3:16.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

That is the core message of the gospel, wrapped up in a single sentence – in a nutshell, you might say. So simple, but it says so much. Memorized by Christians for generations, as it should. Preached on by many a pastor, as it should. And known the world over, as it should. In fact, this verse has been translated into more languages than any other sentence.

To remind you of the importance of this verse, let me share with you two quotes. The first is almost 500 years old, credited during the Reformation in the 16th century. And the second is from just a few years ago. Both describe the importance of John 3:16. The first quote is from Martin Luther, who put it this way when he talked about this famous verse:

If you want to find God, then inscribe these words in your heart. Don’t sleep, but be vigilant. Learn and ponder these words diligently: ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life’. Let him who can write, write these words. Furthermore, read them, discuss them, meditate and reflect on them in the morning and in the evening, whether aware or asleep!                     (Martin Luther, 1483-1546)

The second quote is from the contemporary Christian author, Max Lucado, who wrote a little book called simply, “3:16”. He refers to this verse as the Hope Diamond of the Bible and begins the book with these words:

[John 3:16 is] a twenty-six word parade of hope: beginning with God, ending with life, and urging us to do the same. Brief enough to write on a napkin or memorize in a moment, yet solid enough to weather two thousand years of storms and questions. If you know nothing of the Bible, start here. If you know everything in the Bible, return here. We all need the reminder. The heart of the human problem is the heart of the human. And God’s treatment is prescribed in John 3:16. He loves. He gave. We believe. We live.

(Max Lucado, 2007)

These two examples offer great insight about a great piece of scripture. A verse that should be inscribed on our hearts. A verse that begins our Christian journey and provides direction all along the way. Today, let’s look at just a couple of the words in this verse and see if we can’t learn something new about John 3:16 … or at least, be reminded about why it is so very important.

Let’s start with the very first word in John 3:16: “For”

“For God so loved the world.”

It’s not a typical way to start a sentence, is it? But when we do start a sentence this way, it is usually to connect it to the previous sentence. Therefore, it would help to reference the previous sentence. In this case, that means we need to look at John 3:14-15, two verses which are much less well-known than the one that follows. In these verses, Jesus said:

“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

So, the Son of Man must be lifted up, Jesus says. Why? Because God so loved the world that he gave his only son. This sentence before John 3:16 helps us to understand what it means that God gives his only son. It means that God allows his son to be lifted up, on the cross, for US. That is the measure of his love for us. That God would sacrifice a piece of himself in order to gift us with salvation from our sins.

That is what Jesus tells Nicodemus in this amazing conversation from our scripture reading. Nicodemus probably did not fully understand all of this until after Jesus was crucified; when he helped Joseph of Arimathea take Jesus’ body down from the cross and place it in the tomb. He must have understood the words then, I imagine. And isn’t that true for us, as well? We don’t fully understand the measure of God’s love for us until we go to the cross and embrace the awe-inspiring mystery that he died on the cross not only for the world … but for you … and for me!

That brings us to our next focus word: “world”

“For God so loved the world”, Jesus says. But what does he mean, in this case, by the word ‘world’? It can mean a lot of different things, but in John’s Gospel, it is used in some specific ways. We get our first hint about what ‘world’ means in John’s Gospel back in Chapter 1, where it says:

“[Jesus] was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.”

The world did not know Jesus. That’s often the case in John’s Gospel. He is the light of the world, but so often the world is blind and can’t see this. The world even hates Jesus, as he tells his disciples in Chapter 15, and the world often hates his followers, too. So, the world is definitely not just the church. It is not just those who believe. It is everyone, even those who do not know Jesus; who reject him, even those who hate him.

But God so loved the world that he gave his only son. It’s important to recognize that John 3:16 is not just talking about you and me. This verse is also talking about people who don’t know Jesus, and it’s even talking about people who hate Jesus. For God so loved them that he gave his only son. John 3:16 is only about us if it is also about them. God loves us. And God loves them. And God asks us to love the world, even the parts of this world, and the people in this world, that are hard to love. That is yet another important message to be taken from John 3:16.

The last word I want to talk about today is: “believe”

“Everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

‘Believe’ is a verb here. It’s something that we do, not something that we have. And in fact, in John’s Gospel, ‘believe’ is always a verb; it’s never a noun. It’s never simply something that we have; it’s always something that we do. In other words, our faith is not an insurance policy that we file away in a safe place until we need it. It is, instead, something that we act upon. Something that we do, every day.

As an example of this, consider the first person who ever heard these words: the Pharisee, Nicodemus. He had visited Jesus at night to explore what Jesus was teaching. (He visited at night, no doubt, because he didn’t want the other Pharisees to know that he was there. The Pharisees, as a group, did not like Jesus and were looking for ways to destroy him.) But Nicodemus was curious, so he visited Jesus that night to explore his teachings further. And in the course of that conversation, Jesus spoke these famous words to Nicodemus:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Nicodemus was clearly changed by these words and by his conversation with Jesus. He appears twice more in John’s Gospel, and each time shows how his faith has changed him. When the Pharisees were seeking to have Jesus arrested, Nicodemus spoke up against them, defending Jesus. And when Jesus died, he was one of the men who bravely claimed Jesus’ body and prepared it for burial. This was while Jesus’ own disciples were in hiding and scared for their own safety! For Nicodemus, believing that God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son changed everything for him. His faith became a verb. And for us, it does the same.

Faith changes us. Faith is not simply a way to receive eternal life. Faith is itself a way of life. Everyone who believes in Jesus is promised eternal life, but … eternal life doesn’t begin when we die. It begins when we believe!
I’m going to say that again, because I think it’s important: eternal life doesn’t begin when we die – it begins when we believe!

Eternal life is simply a way of describing our being in a relationship with the one who created life, and who promises eternity to all who believe. Whether our world knows it or not, this is what it hungers for: eternal life. And it is our blessed task to remind them of this. To remind them, through our words and our actions, that God loves them so much that He gave them His only Son, so that they, too, might come to believe. And by believing, have their life changed forever.

Based on writings by the Rev. James Laurence, First Lutheran Church of Albemarle, NC

Song: O love, how deep, how broad, how high (205)

We respond to serve God

Our time of giving: Generous God, we offer our gifts to you in gratitude for all that we have received in Christ and in creation. Bless our gifts and our lives, so that we can share in the building up of your kingdom in the world you love so much that you sent your son as a sacrifice for our sins.

Prayer of gratitude, and for others and ourselves

Almighty God, you are our keeper,

shade in the heat of the world’s troubles,

light in every shadowed time of life.

We thank you for your care which sustains us,

and offer you our trust for those things we can do nothing about.

Thank you for the energy to focus on the things we can do day by day,

putting our love and care to work in community and creation.

By the power of your Spirit, bless us with the insight and passion to act in hope.

May your wisdom guide us in all things.

Attentive God, we bring our concerns for the world to you in these uncertain times.

We think of all those who have set off to unknown lands

and pray for people on the move:

For those seeking safety and shelter, fleeing violence;

For those settling into a new home or community;

For those who must travel, whatever the conditions.

Walk with us on the way.

We think of the Psalmist looking to the hills

And we pray for people seeking help:

For those seeking help for the earth itself as its fragile balances are threatened;

For those seeking help to make ends meet as bank balances are threatened;

For those seeking help for vulnerable people to right the balance of justice.

Walk with us on the way.

We think of Nicodemus turning to Jesus with questions in his heart

and we pray for people seeking answers:

For those with health challenges, seeking diagnosis and treatment;

For those researching problems and policies, seeking to better our common life;

For those wondering if you exist, wondering if you have a purpose for them

Walk with us on the way.

We think of Jesus, your only son, whom you sent to show us the way,

Sacrificing himself on the cross in order for us to have eternal life in You

And allowing us to know the great love you have for each one of us when we choose to believe.

We pray all this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Passing the peace

The Sacrament of Holy Communion

Invitation

Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus welcomes all who hunger for grace. Come to this table, whether you’re certain of your faith or still searching; whether you feel whole or broken; and receive this bread and this cup as signs of God’s forgiveness, love, and presence in the world.

If you prefer to remain seated, you are invited to pray and receive God’s blessing with us.

Come, let us share the life Christ gives.

*Song: You satisfy the hungry heart (538)

The Communion Prayer

Heavenly Father, we come to your table in awe of your love, and we praise your name. You formed the world in wisdom and love, breathed life into us, and called us to be your people. You have been faithful through every age – guiding, sustaining, correcting, and redeeming us.

We give you thanks for Jesus Christ, your Son, our Saviour. In him, you became one of us, living among the poor and the outcast, healing the sick, confronting injustice, and calling sinners to new life.

On the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to his friends, saying, “This is my body, given for you.” After supper, he took the cup, offered thanks, and said, “This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood, poured out for you, and for many, for the forgiveness of sins.” We remember his life, his death, and his rising, and we proclaim the mystery of our faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

Pour out your Holy Spirit upon these gifts of bread and wine, that they may be for us the body and blood of Christ. Make them for us the means of grace through which we are fed and healed, forgiven and restored. Fill us with the assurance of eternal life and the power of Your love to live as people of God. Unite us to Christ and to one another, that we may be one living body, sharing in his life and love.

All praise and honour belong to you, Holy God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever.
Now, together, let us sing the prayer that you taught us …

The Lord’s Prayer (469 – sung)

Sharing of the Bread and Wine (led by the Rev Brad Childs on video)

Song:   One bread, one body (540)

Prayer after Communion

Gracious God, thank you for this bread and this wine, and the gift of Christ’s presence with us. Fill us now with your Spirit, so we may carry this love into the world. Strengthen our faith, open our hearts to one another, and give us the courage to serve with justice and compassion. Guide our steps until we meet again, living as witnesses to your grace. Amen.

Song: To God be the glory  (350)

Sending out with God’s blessing

As we continue our Lenten journey, remember the promise of the Psalmist: “The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forever more.” So go now, trusting that your help comes from God, And may God’s presence strengthen you, May Jesus’ faithfulness guide you, and may the wind of the Spirit bring you energy to serve with love.

Response: Sing Amen

Music postlude

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The Communion liturgy is based on the liturgies of the PCC’s 1991 Book of Common Worship. Numbers in brackets after a song/hymn indicate that it is from the 1997 Book of Praise of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Those and other songs are being used in accordance with the specifications of Dayspring’s licensing with One License (3095377) and CLC (A735555).

Lynn Vaughan retains the copyright (© 2025) on all original material in this service. As far as she is aware, all of the material that has not been attributed to others is her own creation or is in the public domain. Unacknowledged use of copyrighted material is unintentional and will be corrected immediately upon notification being received.