**Please note this service is based on the format of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church of Canada. Unless otherwise indicated, all prayers come from
Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW). Hymns and other prayers have been sourced
to give appropriate credit.
**NRSV translation used for the readings, unless otherwise stated.
Confession and Forgiveness
Friends in Christ, in this Lenten season we have heard our Lord’s call
to struggle against sin, death, and the devil – all that keeps us from loving
God and each other. This is the struggle to which we were called at baptism.
Within the community of the church, God never wearies of forgiving sin
and giving the peace of reconciliation. On this night, let us confess our sin
against God and our neighbor, and enter the celebration of the great Three Days
reconciled with God and with one another.
Silence for
reflection
Most merciful God,
we confess that we
are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.
We have sinned
against you in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you
with our whole heart;
we have not loved our
neighbors as ourselves.
For the sake of your
Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.
Forgive us, renew us,
and lead us,
so that we may
delight in your will
and walk in your
ways, to the glory of your holy name.
Amen.
God, who is rich in mercy, loved us even when we were dead in sin, and
made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. In the name
of ☩ Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven.
Almighty God strengthen you with power through the Holy Spirit, that Christ may
live in your hearts through faith.
Amen.
Laying on of Hands
In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all
your sins.
Amen.
Opening Hymn – Jesu, Jesu, Fill Us With Your Love (ELW #708)
Greeting
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
And also with you.
Prayer of the Day
Let us pray.
Holy God, source of all love, on the night of his betrayal, Jesus gave
us a new commandment, to love one another as he loves us. Write this
commandment in our hearts, and give us the will to serve others as he was the
servant of all, your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and
reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.
Readings
A reading from the Book of Exodus 12:1-14
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the
land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall
be the first month of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel
that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb
for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join
its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion
to the number of people who eat of it. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a
year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep
it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled
congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of
the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which
they eat it. They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted
over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw
or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner
organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that
remains until the morning you shall burn. This is how you shall eat it: your
loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you
shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord. For I will pass through
the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the
land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will
execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the
houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no
plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
This day shall be a day of remembrance
for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your
generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.
The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19
I love the Lord, because he has heard
my voice and my supplications.
Because he inclined
his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I
live.
What shall I return to the Lord
for all his bounty to me?
I will lift up the
cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord,
I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight
of the Lord
is the death of his faithful ones.
O Lord, I am your servant;
I am your servant, the child of your serving girl.
You have loosed my bonds.
I will offer to you a
thanksgiving sacrifice
and call on the name of the Lord.
I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people,
in the courts of the
house of the Lord,
in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the Lord!
A reading from the First Letter from Paul to the Corinthians 11:23-26
For I received from the
Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was
betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and
said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the
same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new
covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s
death until he comes.
Gospel Acclamation
Let your steadfast love come to us, O Lord.
Save us as you promised; we will trust your word.
The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John 13: 1-17, 31b-35
Glory to you, O Lord.
Now before the festival of the
Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to
God. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The
devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to
betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that God had given all things into
his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the
table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured
water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with
the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him,
“Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now
what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will
never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with
me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my
head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for
the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For
he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are
clean.”
After he had washed their feet, had put
on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what
I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that
is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also
ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also
should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not
greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent
them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now
the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God
has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will
glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You
will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am
going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one
another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this
everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one
another.”
The gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O
Christ.
Sermon
Lord, may our eyes see, our ears hear, and your words be written on our hearts. Amen.
Holy Week is celebrated by both Jews and Christians alike -
for similar reasons but with very different undertones.
In tonight’s account in Exodus, God tells Moses and Aaron
how to combat the 10th plague. Do you remember what the 10th plague is? Let me
remind you:
From Exodus 11:
Moses said, “Thus says the LORD: About midnight I will go
out through Egypt. Every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the
firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the firstborn of the female
slave who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the livestock. Then
there will be a loud cry throughout the whole land of Egypt, such as has never
been or will ever be again. But not a dog shall growl at any of the
Israelites—not at people, not at animals—so that you may know that the LORD
makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.
In tonight’s reading from Exodus 12, God instructs Moses
and Aaron to have each family slaughter a lamb and spread its blood on their
doorways. By doing so, they would be telling God which houses belong to the
Israelites, and thus, by default, which belong to the Egyptians. It says in
line 13, “The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when
I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I
strike the land of Egypt.”
For the Jewish community, this week is one of celebration
that commemorates the exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. The Hebrew word
pesach (pay-sock) refers to the ancient Passover sacrifice, known as the
Paschal Lamb; it is also said to refer to the idea that God “passed over” the
houses of the Jews during the 10th plague on the Egyptians, the slaying of the
first born. The holiday is ultimately a celebration of freedom, and the story
of the exodus from Egypt is a powerful metaphor that is appreciated not only by
Jews, but by people of other faiths as well.
According to the Synoptic Gospels, it is on Thursday
evening that Jesus, in the upper room with his disciples, celebrates Passover
and institutes the Lord's Supper. The Gospel of John, however, speaks of the
Thursday supper as the day before Passover, linking Jesus' death on Friday with
the Passover sacrifices.
And so while Jews are celebrating the joy of their freedom
from slavery, this week, for Christians, is a week of sadness as we come closer
to the end Jesus’ life.
In the end, Christians will celebrate their freedom and
forgiveness from sin, but the build-up to Easter Sunday is more sombre than
joyful.
Tonight is an especially sombre night as Jesus lays the
foundation of his departure even while his disciples are oblivious to the fact.
There was no human reason why Jesus had to die. To the
general public, he was more helpful than harmful. But to the Roman leadership,
Jesus was a real pain.
Jesus was a small-town peasant in a Roman province far from
the centers of political and religious power. People in such circumstances
rarely threatened Rome in any serious way. A miracle-working Jewish prophet and
teacher would not have posed much of a conventional threat to such power and
brutality. For his own part, Jesus never took up arms, nor did he encourage his
followers to do so.
But while Jesus did not exercise conventional kinds of
political authority, his actions and his message included threats to the status
quo.
Chief among his threatening actions? Jesus could draw a
crowd. The gospels report that great crowds followed him. When he entered
Jerusalem during the last week of his life, he entered to local fanfare.
The popularity of Jesus, combined with the gathering of
perhaps hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in Jerusalem for Passover, would have
made Roman authorities very nervous. It was this nervousness that flamed the
desire to pull Jesus from hiding and set him on trial before Pilate.
Jesus knew this was all going to happen. He knew that his
time on earth was coming to an end. He even knew who was going to hand him to
Roman authorities. And he knew that the ending wasn’t going to be a pleasant
one.
So why didn’t he tell anyone? Why did he turn towards the
end instead of running the other way?
Cryptic as always, Jesus washes the feet of his disciples,
declares that one of them will betray him, and tells them that he will only be
with them a short while longer. And as usual, the whole situation goes over the
disciples’ heads.
If you knew you were going to die, wouldn’t you tell your
best friends? Wouldn’t you want you their support? Or at least give them a
chance to say goodbye?
Jesus didn’t do any of that, but he did impart some pretty
heavy last lessons to his disciples.
First, he delivers to them a new commandment – to love one
another.
The reading says, “Just as I have loved you, you also
should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.”
While the Romans thought Jesus was a rebel-rouser, he
really was, in fact, a teacher in the art of love. In all of his miracles,
parables, and lessons, the underlying fact is that all can be done and achieved
through the love of one another and of the stranger.
Second, Jesus imparted a lesson of remembrance.
Jesus may not have openly declared to his people what was
about to happen, but he wanted his disciples to remember him and the lessons
that he had been teaching.
And so, Jesus and his disciples had one final supper
together.
The Last Supper is one of the foundational pieces of the
Christian faith. To accept the Eucharist in remembrance and thanks to the life
and death of Jesus is to openly declare yourself one of his disciples.
It is what makes this night so special, despite its
darkness.
Similar to the Jewish celebration of freedom from Egyptian
slavery, tonight we, as Christians, celebrate our freedom to declare our love
and faith in Jesus and reveal our willingness to follow in his footsteps.
Feel the quiet power these words:
Take this bread and eat it. It is my body. As you eat it,
remember me.
Take this wine and drink it. It is my blood. As you drink
it, remember me.
Years ago, I read tonight’s Corinthians passage aloud for
the first time, my lips sounding out the words of our Eucharistic prayers.
I felt a presence in those words, a presence that I felt
physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Years ago, I heeded the words of our Lord and became his
disciple.
Tonight is a powerful night.
It was for the disciples 2000 years ago. It was for me all
those years ago.
It is for us tonight.
We go into the darkness, but there is still a presence. One
that will remain with us until our Lord comes to us once again.
Amen.
Hymn of the Day – Lord, Whose Love
in Humble Service (ELW #712)
Footwashing
On this night we have heard our Lord’s commandment to love one another
as he has loved us. We who receive God’s love in Jesus Christ are called to
love one another, to be servants to each other as Jesus became our servant. Our
commitment to this loving service is signified in the washing of feet,
following the example our Lord gave us on the night before his death.
Prayers of Intercession
In these holiest of days, we offer prayers for ourselves, our neighbors,
and our world.
A brief silence.
We pray for the church around the world. Write your new commandment of
love on the heart of every believer and strengthen pastors, deacons, and lay
leaders in humble service for your people.
Merciful God,
receive our prayer.
We pray for the good earth you have made. Protect fields, orchards,
local farms, and gardens. Inspire us with the new life budding around us, that
we show more care for plants and all living creatures.
Merciful God,
receive our prayer.
We pray for leaders in every land. Kindle compassion and equity in all
who are called to administer justice. Guide all in positions of power away from
the temptations of abuse and toward work for the common good.
Merciful God,
receive our prayer.
We pray for all who are in need, especially those who are incarcerated
or unjustly accused. Illuminate paths to end oppression and form supportive
communities gathered around a common commitment to justice and peace.
Merciful God,
receive our prayer.
We pray for this congregation and all who gather to receive your body
and blood this night. Fill us at this shared table and nourish us well to heed
your example of grace. Send us in love to those who cannot be with us due to
illness.
Merciful God,
receive our prayer.
We give thanks for those who have died in the faith. Teach us by their
example and comfort us as we mourn. Renew us by the promise of life together
with you.
Merciful God,
receive our prayer.
We offer to you these petitions and those we carry in our hearts,
trusting in your abundant and ever-present mercy.
Amen.
Peace
The peace of Christ be with you always.
And also with you.
Offering Prayer
Let us pray.
Extravagant God, you have blessed us with the fullness of creation. Now
we gather at your feast where you offer us the food that satisfies. Take and
use what we offer here, come among us, and feed us with the body and blood of
Christ, in whose name we pray.
Amen.
Dialogue
The Lord be with
you.
And also with you.
Lift up your
hearts.
We lift them to the Lord.
Let us give thanks
to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
Preface
It is indeed right,
our duty and our joy,
that we should at
all times and in all places
give thanks and
praise to you, almighty and merciful God,
through our Savior
Jesus Christ,
whose suffering and
death gave salvation to all.
You gather your
people around the tree of the cross,
transforming death
into life.
And so, with all the
choirs of angels,
with the church on
earth and the hosts of heaven,
we praise your name
and join their unending hymn:
Holy, Holy, Holy
Thanksgiving at the Table
You are indeed
holy, almighty and merciful God.
You are most holy,
and great is the
majesty of your glory.
You so loved the
world that you gave your only Son,
so that everyone
who believes in him may not perish
but have eternal
life.
We give you thanks
for his coming into the world
to fulfill for us
your holy will
and to accomplish
all things for our salvation.
In the night in
which he was betrayed,
our Lord Jesus took
bread, and gave thanks;
broke it, and gave
it to his disciples, saying:
Take and eat; this
is my body, given for you.
Do this for the
remembrance of me.
Again, after
supper, he took the cup, gave thanks,
and gave it for all
to drink, saying:
This cup is the new
covenant in my blood,
shed for you and
for all people for the forgiveness of sin.
Do this for the
remembrance of me.
For as often as we
eat of this bread and drink from this cup,
we proclaim the
Lord’s death until he comes.
Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.
Remembering,
therefore, his salutary command,
his life-giving
passion and death, his glorious resurrection and ascension,
and the promise of
his coming again,
we give thanks to
you, O Lord God Almighty,
not as we ought but
as we are able;
we ask you
mercifully to accept our praise and thanksgiving
and with your Word
and Holy Spirit to bless us, your servants,
and these your own
gifts of bread and wine,
so that we and all
who share in the body and blood of Christ
may be filled with
heavenly blessing and grace,
and, receiving the
forgiveness of sin,
may be formed to
live as your holy people
and be given our
inheritance with all your saints.
To you, O God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
be all honor and
glory in your holy church, now and forever.
Lord’s Prayer
Gathered into one
by the Holy Spirit, let us pray as Jesus taught us.
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those
who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours,
now and forever.
Amen.
Invitation to Communion
This is the table
of Christ. It is made ready for those who love him, and for those who want to
love him more. Come, whether you have much faith or little, have tried to
follow, or are afraid that you have failed. Come. Because it is Christ's will
that those who want to meet him, might meet him here. These are the gifts of
God for the people of God.
Share in the Eucharist
Prayer After Communion
As we have feasted around the table, let us pray.
Lord Jesus, in a wonderful sacrament you strengthen us with the saving
power of your suffering, death, and resurrection. May this sacrament of your
body and blood so work in us that the fruits of your redemption will show forth
in the way we live, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
Amen.
Stripping of the Altar
Psalm 22
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