23C*
A Call to Worship
Lent 5C 2010
Psalm 126

Praise the Lord all you peoples! With thankful
and joy-filled hearts, we worship the Lord our God.
We celebrate God’s goodness and mercy.

Even as we worship God, we also mourn our past
failures and our sin and hurt-filled experiences!
Yes! We can still celebrate God’s merciful goodness.

We come to worship God with a strong sense of hope
and with confidence, we look to the hope of a blessèd future,
Come, let us join in worship of our wonderful God, whilst
we travel on our journey towards our final home in God. Amen.

Prayers of Praise and Thankfulness
Lent 5C 2010
Psalm 126

Praise, honour and glory are offered to you, O Lord our God.
Together, we give thanks for the restoration of our heritage.
Your mercy to our forebears encourages us for the journey.
We give thanks that this joy and praise of God is infectious,
as other people have heard of our joy in our awesome God.

We give thanks for the privilege in being together in the worship
of God, and we celebrate the joy and peace that God gives.
Our past experiences give us the hope, that as we journey under
God’s guiding hand, we will share in God’s future blessings.

Even as we come before God in worship, we remember how our
hearts were so heavy! We had planted our dreams and hopes in despair,
believing that all we treasured of our heritage was lost forever! But now,
we are beginning to see our heritage once starting to grow and bear fruit.
Now, we can hope and plan for the restoration and renewal, believing that
whilst we remain faithful to God, God will always remain faithful to us; and
we know that in God’s time, God’s harvest will be gathered and completed. Amen.

A Personal Meditation
Lent 5C 2010
Psalm 126

With pleasure and joy we celebrate together the wonders
of the Lord our God. We remember God’s past merciful blessings,
even though they all now seems like a dream! We recall the past
celebrations and actions of our ancestors when they were liberated,
and how they restored our city’s past glories; so that the Lord our God
could be honoured and worshipped in holiness and reverent awe.

Creative pause: Memories of past spiritual joys.


What joy it is to be together again, surrounded by the symbols and
treasures of the past! We share our reverent wonder and amazement
at the majesty of the Lord our God. Now, we share our joy in the Lord
our God with others, for they too, are in awe of the Lord our God.

Creative pause: God’s generous goodness to all people.


Even as we reminisce over past blessings, we pray for similar
blessings and transforming experiences in the future! Even as
we remember with sorrow our shared experiences of desolation and
despair; we have hope in our heart, as we look for the renewal and
restoration of our life together, as God continues to transform us into
a holy and righteous people, whose purpose in life is to honour God.

Creative pause: Rejoicing in the hope of future blessings.


Acknowledgements:
Unless stated otherwise, all Bible readings and extracts used in these weekly Prayers and Meditations are from
‘The New Revised Standard Version’ Copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council
of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 *The additional weekly numbering is from the Revised COCU Indexing Scheme
COCU = ('Consultation on Church Union'); as it offers an easy sequential numbering
for the Revised Common Lectionary for the Church Calendar.

If any part of these Prayers and/or Meditations is used in shared worship, please provide
the following acknowledgement:
© 2010 Joan Stott – ‘The Timeless Psalms’ RCL Psalms Year C. Used with permission.

jstott@netspace.net.au

Download/view a pdf file of this document here: lent5c_2010.pdf