Apprentices and Eyewitnesses

Creative Liturgies for Incarnational Worship: Lent, Holy Week and Easter

Chris Thorpe

• Publisher: Canterbury Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781786221100
• eBook ISBN: 9781786221124
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Rituals & Practice

An imaginative collection brimming with liturgies, prayers and resources for worship during Lent, Holy Week and Easter. It includes complete outlines for a variety of services throughout this most important season of the Christian year.

Biblical Stations of the Cross

Gathering Music – suggestion

St John Passion, Arvo Pärt

Introduction

Today we will walk in the footsteps of Jesus, in the way of the cross. We open ourselves to share in his suffering, his arrest and trial, his torture and death. This is a profound and moving experience and, if we allow it, a transforming one. Walking with Jesus in his passion can help us to recognize that we walk in his footsteps as we live through our own trials, our own painful memories. The journey may even bring us to tears. Tears, in all their vulnerability, are a profound gift of God: they can express sorrow and pain and they can equally express joy and thankfulness. Tears often come at a moment of release or realization, as a sacrament, an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Before he entered Jerusalem, Jesus stood weeping at the plight of the people. His compassion, his tears, moved him towards the way of the cross.

Reading – Luke 19.41–4

As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.’

Prayer

Compassionate God,

as we walk with Jesus

in the way of the cross

touch us deeply.

If we encounter tears,

may we know them as your gift,

blessing us as we offer you

our own deepest struggles and pain.

May your passionate love

for each of us

and for this world

release in us the energy to live through all things,

offering the most painful places to you,

trusting in your love which changes and transforms even the toughest experiences.

As we offer this pilgrimage,

we offer ourselves;

walk with us now, we pray.

Amen.

We turn to the first station.

1 Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane

Leader

The first station – Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Responses

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.

By your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.

Reading – Mark 14.32–6

They went to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray.’ He took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.’ And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, ‘Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.’

Reflection

This is Jesus at his most human: just like us, he is terrified of what the future might hold and he prays from the heart, ‘Remove this cup from me.’ It is the same prayer that has been repeated by people in countless situations, ‘Please, not this.’ Please, not cancer, not dementia, not divorce, ...

Table of contents

• Copyright information
• Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction: What is Incarnational Worship?
• LENT
• Dust and Ashes
• Who am I? Provider, celebrity, hero, or servant
• Wilderness
• Mothering God
• Compassion
• Traditional Stations of the Cross
• Biblical Stations of the Cross
• HOLY WEEK
• Palm Sunday
• Holy Monday
• Holy Tuesday
• Holy Wednesday
• Maundy Thursday
• Good Friday
• EASTER SEASON
• Holy Saturday
• Easter Day
• Bread of Hospitality
• Behind Locked Doors
• Ascension
• Resources
• Sources and Acknowledgement of Illustrations