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Fourth Sunday of Lent
03/15/2026 - 10:30 pm
WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
MINUTE FOR MISSION “Old First Service Project” George Anich
CENTERING MUSIC “Jesus, I Come” William Sleeper
MOMENT OF HOPE
CALL TO WORSHIP AND PRAYER CONFESSING OUR NEED FOR GOD’S GRACE
PROTESTANT STATIONS OF THE CROSS – STATION FOUR
One: As we look at the fourth Station of the Cross, we witness Jesus speaking to the women crying for him at the cross:
People: Jesus, as you struggle along the road toward that awful place of death, you see women among the crowd, already grieving at your coming death. You have heard this grief before, but now it is for you.
One: You have always shown equal compassion to the women you have encountered over the years. You have understood their unique burdens in a world that pushes them to the margins of society. So here, as you bear pain of body and heart, you still stop and speak to them. You are still more concerned for others than with your own pain.
People: And yet your words do not focus on comfort, but on a future fear of even more pain and destruction. They focus on a call to repent.
One: Is it possible that your death is only the beginning of things for which to weep? Is it possible that our sin has caused you to be on this path?
People: Lord, forgive my unwillingness to repent, to confess all that I am before you. Help me go beyond the repentance mouthed in words of piety, to sweep away the facades of who I try so hard to be before others, and recall who I really am inside. Help me once again stand before God with a bare and open heart. Help me not just to repent in words, but to put that repentance into action in everything I am and do. O Lord, give me the gift of tears to weep for my own failures, my own lacking, for the pain I bring others and to live the fruits of repentance.
MOMENT OF SILENT PRAYER
Kyrie Eleison 
ASSURANCE OF GOD’S GRACE
God does not call us to wallow in shame and guilt. God frees us in each moment to release what burdens we carry and to love one another with fullness, forgiveness, compassion and a knowledge that each and every moment we are loved anew and set on a path to be the ones God calls us to be. Thanks be to God.
Amen.
*PASSING THE PEACE
Leader: The peace of Christ be with you.
People: And with you also.
Leader: Let us pass the peace of Christ.
People: The peace of Christ be with you. (To one another)
ANTHEM “And Can It Be” by Dan Forrest
BLESSING THE CHILDREN AND SINGING TO GODLY PLAY
This Little Light of Mine
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!
Today’s Story “The Synagogue and the Upper Room”
Kathleen Krentz & Cyndi Sneeringer
Leader: And as we continue our worship…
Congregation: May God be with you there.
Children: May God be with you here.
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
Leader: God in your Grace,
People: Hear our prayer
PASTORAL PRAYER
THE LORD’S PRAYER
As we pray together the Lord's Prayer, you are invited to say this in whatever version is most comforting and meaningful to you. Here is one possible version (ecumenical version) that you can use:
Our Father, who is in heaven, holy be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
SCRIPTURE READINGS Luke 28:27-31 and Matthew 27:55-56
RESPONSE
Reader: The Word of the Lord
People: Thanks be to God
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION, from Psalm 19 - responsively
Pastor: May the words of my mouth
People: And the meditations of our hearts
All: Be acceptable in your sight, O Lord,
Our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
SERMON What Are We Grieving For? Pastor Barbara Barkley
MOMENT FOR QUIET REFLECTION
*HYMN OF REFLECTION #833 O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go
O Love that wilt not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe, that in thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be.
O Light that followest all my way, I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray, that in thy sunshine’s blaze its day may brighter, fairer be.
O Joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain, And feel the promise is not vain that morn shall tearless be.
O Cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead, and from the ground there blossoms red life that shall endless be.
MOMENT OF THANKS
OFFERING OURSELVES AND OUR GIFTS
OFFERTORY “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” William Runyon
*DOXOLOGY
Praise God whose breath fills all the earth
Whose love reveals our sacred worth
Whose Spirit forms one family
Whose grace brings peace and harmony. Amen.
*PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
Thank you for our journey together. May our minds always be as open and clear as they are when we pray. Amen
*CLOSING HYMN #728 Somebody’s Knocking at Your Door
Somebody’s knocking at your door;
Somebody’s knocking at your door;
O sinner, why don’t you answer?
Somebody’s knocking at your door.
Knocks like Jesus. Somebody’s knocking at your door.
Knocks like Jesus.
Somebody’s knocking at your door.
O sinner, why don’t you answer?
Somebody’s knocking at your door;
Can’t you hear him?
Somebody’s knocking at your door.
Can’t you hear him?
Somebody’s knocking at your door.
O sinner, why don’t you answer?
Somebody’s knocking at your door. Answer Jesus.
Somebody’s knocking at your door.
Answer Jesus.
Somebody’s knocking at your door.
Answer Jesus.
Somebody’s knocking at your door.
O sinner, why don’t you answer?
Somebody’s knocking at your door.
*CHARGE AND BENEDICTION
*Congregational Response: Go with God
Go with God, go with God.
As you leave this place, go with God.
God will direct your way, God will light every day.
As you leave this place, go with God.
*Postlude “Surely Goodness and Mercy” Petersen and Smith