Liturgy: Lent 1 Lessons and Carols, John 3-4 (March 9, 2025)

 *You are welcome to use or adapt any of my resources for free, but I ask that you provide proper citation AND comment on this post to let me know.*

Additional Hymns:

Hymn GTG #482, “Baptized in Water”

Hymn GTG #456, “Listen, God Is Calling”

Hymn GTG #166, “Lord, Who throughout These Forty Days” [vv. 1, 3, & 4]

Sermon: “Shedding Some Light on John’s Gospel”, John 1:1-18 (March 2, 2025)

Today is Transfiguration Sunday. Churches usually spend this last Sunday before Lent reading and reflecting on the story of Jesus’ dazzling transformation on a mountaintop. There’s a good liturgical reason for this timing: the Transfiguration serves as a preview of Christ’s ultimate glory and exultation in the Resurrection. It gives us the theological context for Jesus’ earthly life as we prepare to enter Lent.

But – well – we’ve run into a problem this time around. As has become tradition for us here at Boone, we’ll be spending the six weeks of Lent reading straight through one of the gospels from beginning to end. But this year’s gospel is John, and John doesn’t HAVE a transfiguration account to ground us during this time of liturgical transition. It doesn’t offer a “mountaintop experience” to contextualize all the rest of the stories that we’re about to hear. It doesn’t fit into the mold of the other three gospels.

Liturgy: John's Prologue, John 1:1-18 (March 2, 2025)

 *You are welcome to use or adapt any of my resources for free, but I ask that you provide proper citation AND comment on this post to let me know.*

Hymns

Hymn GTG #673, “Jesus, Light of Joy”
Hymn GTG #377, “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light”

Sermon: "Unworthy", Luke 7:1-17 (February 9, 2025)

Ah, yes; yet another miraculous healing from Jesus. To be honest, Jesus does so much healing in the gospels that the stories all seem to blend together a bit, don’t they? I don’t know about you, but I’m guilty of occasionally assuming that all these accounts serve the same narrative purpose: to demonstrate Jesus’ power and explain how his following grew so quickly. It makes for faster reading if you can gloss over the details and just throw the story into that corner of your brain where you keep a vague awareness of all the gospel’s other healings.

Liturgy: Healing the Centurion's Servant, Luke 7:1-17 (February 9, 2025)

*You are welcome to use or adapt any of my resources for free, but I ask that you provide proper citation AND comment on this post to let me know.*

Hymns

Hymn GTG #386, “Come, Worship God”
Hymn GTG #782, “Hear My Prayer, O God”
Hymn GTG #744, “Arise, Your Light is Come”

Sermon: “Foe or Friend”, Luke 6:1-11 (February 2, 2025)

By this time in Luke’s gospel, Jesus has been going around teaching and healing for a while now. He’d made quite a name for himself, to the point that people were actively seeking him out to hear what he had to say and be cured of illness and disease. But the attention wasn’t all positive – Jesus had also attracted a fair amount controversy and conflict, as we read a couple of weeks ago. And it appears that by this point, one particular group of Pharisees have had about all they can take: upon observing Jesus healing on the Sabbath, Scripture tells us that “They were furious and began talking with each other about what to do to Jesus.”

Liturgy: Healing on the Sabbath, Luke 6:1-11 (February 2, 2025)

 *You are welcome to use or adapt any of my resources for free, but I ask that you provide proper citation AND comment on this post to let me know.*

Hymns

Hymn GTG #393, “O Day of Rest and Gladness” 

Hymn GTG #61, “Your Law, O Lord, Is Perfect”