Wed March 31, 2021 - Service of Contemplative Healing and Prayer - Lutheran Church of the Redeemer

Wednesday Holy Week Service of Contemplative Healing and Prayer “Stir up Water from a Rock” Introduction Welcome to Lutheran Church of the Redeemer’s contemplative service of healing and prayer. Throughout the season of Lent, we have been preparing to emerging from the wilderness as people immersed in our baptismal identity. Tonight, we are near the edge of the wilderness of Lent, in transition with the pandemic, and carrying other burdens in our lives and in our bodies. We are weary. We are thirsty from the journey. We long for healing from God. This service is for you. Come as you are. Be filled, be renewed, be made whole.

Wednesday, March 31, 2021 7:00 PM | Zoom link Welcome

Litany: Water from a Rock (inspired by Exodus 17 and John 5) In the wilderness of Sin, there was no water to be found, only dry and hardened rocks [hold up the rock]. The whole congregation of the Israelites quarreled with Moses saying, “Give us water to drink” The people thirsted for water. We come to worship thirsty. We are thirsting for God. We are thirsting for community. We are thirsting to be made whole. For what else do we thirst? [people may name longings] From dry and empty places in our lives, we cry out to you, O Lord, We are thirsty.

From hard and difficult situations, we cry out to you, O Lord, We are thirsty.

With broken hearts and suffering souls we cry out to you, O Lord, We are thirsty.

Come Holy God, stand before us as you stood in front of the rock at Horeb.

Give us water to drink.

Come, Holy God, stir up your healing water.

Give us water to drink.

Drink deeply, Beloved, from God’s ever-flowing grace. God hears the cry of her people. God knows our deepest longings. In response: God pours out water to wash away our pain.

Jesus pours out water to cleanse us from our sin.

The Holy Spirit pours out water to quench our thirsty souls.

If God can bring forth water from a rock, surely God can bring forth renewal in your life. There is no place too dry or too hard or too broken for God’s saving grace.

Here, at the water, remember who you are. Remember whose you are. You are marked with the cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit forever. You have been washed in the waters of baptism and claimed as a beloved child of God. You may make the sign of the cross on your forehead

Greeting The love of God poured into our hearts, the saving grace of Jesus Christ, and the abundant life of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

And also with you.

Let us pray: Faithful God, as you carried the ark through the waters of the flood to safety, as you led your people through the sea from slavery to freedom, as you nourished them in the wilderness with water from the rock, carry, lead, and nourish us through ever flood and drought of our lives. Sustain us through the everlasting life of your Son, Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, now and forever, Amen.

Psalm 42 1

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?” 4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help 6 and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

7 Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have gone over me.

8 By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.

2

9

I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?”

10 As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?” 11 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. Musical Reflection

Gospel: John 5:2-9 2

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ 7The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ 8Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ 9At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Guided meditation Reflection Choose the invitation to the breakout room to reflect in community or decline the invitation to remain in the main room for private reflection

Musical Reflection https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSif77IVQdY You may submit your prayers by typing them into the chat box

Prayers of Intercession Lord’s Prayer Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us;

and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Blessing Jesus came so that you may have life, and have it abundantly. May God bless you and fill you with her abundant grace, mercy, and peace. In the name of God our Creator, + Redeemer, and Sustainer Amen.

Sending Go in peace, renewed and filled by the one who is our source of wholeness and life.

Thanks be to God. You may stay for personal one-to-one prayer with one of our trained Stephen Ministers in a Zoom breakout room or leave in peace when you are ready.