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”