MARCH 24, 2024
PALM SUNDAY

Hymn Sing     Supplemental Hymnal

     # 19     Beneath the Cross of Jesus

     # 64     How Deep the Father’s Love for Us

     # 50     There Is a Redeemer, vs 1, 2

Call to Worship 

Hymn     # 375     All Glory, Laud, and Honor          (Gray Psalter Hymnal)

Confession of Sin and Assurance of Pardon

Psalter     Psalm 31:9-16     (NRSVUE)          Mike Bergmann

9Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also.

10For my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away.

11I am the scorn of all my adversaries, a horror to my neighbors,

an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me.

12I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel.

13For I hear the whispering of many—terror all around!—as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.

14But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.”

15My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors.

16Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.

Prayer for Illumination                                                       

Old Testament Reading     Isaiah 52:13-53:12

       13See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up and shall be very high. 14Just as there were many who were astonished at him—so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals—15so he shall startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him,

for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate.

       53 Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity, and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.

       4Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases,

yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.

5But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. 6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

       7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. 9They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

       10Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with affliction. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. 11Out of his anguish he shall see; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 12Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.

Lector: This is the Word of the Lord.

Congregation: Thanks be to God for His Word.

Choral Anthem     And Can It Be

And can it be, and can it be? 

Amazing love, how can it be?

And can it be that I should gain 

An int’rest in the Savior’s blood? 

Died He for me, who caused His pain— 

For me, who Him to death pursued? 

Amazing love! How can it be 

That Thou, my God, should die for me?  

He left His Father’s throne above 

So free, so infinite His grace 

Emptied Himself of all but love 

And bled for Adam’s helpless race 

’Tis mercy all, immense and free

For, O my God, it found out me 

No condemnation now I dread

Jesus, and all in Him, is mine 

Alive in Him, my living Head 

And clothed in righteousness divine

Bold I approach th’eternal throne

And claim the crown, through Christ my own 

Amazing love how can it be

That Thou, my God, should die for me? 

Amazing love, how can it be? 

Children’s Sermon

Hymn     # 378     Hosanna, Loud Hosanna          (Gray Psalter Hymnal)

New Testament Reading     Mark 15:17-20, 25-39

       17And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and after twisting some thorns into a crown they put it on him. 18And they began saluting him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 19They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him. 20After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

       25It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. 26The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” 27And with him they crucified two rebels, one on his right and one on his left. 29Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30save yourself, and come down from the cross!” 31In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.

       33When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 34At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 35When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “Listen, he is calling for Elijah.” 36And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” 37Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. 38And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39Now when the centurion who stood facing him saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”

Sermon          Pastor Andrew Winter