04/15/2022 = John 17 = Good Friday “Cross-Denominational” Worship

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(Click HERE to see the FB live video of this service – starts at 1:45, sermon at 30:30)

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 Mark Wheeler

John 17                                                                                                                                       

Good Friday, 04/15/2022

 “What Does Unity Sound Like?”                                 

Fellowship Church of God (w/ Destination Church & LPC)

Outline

  1. Movement 1 – The Upper Room
    1. Welcome – (Cary) A Few words for “Setting the Stage”
    1. 3 Songs (Jon & Becca)
      1. Here I Am To Worship, Here Is Love, Break Dividing Walls
    1. Servant setting up Communion
      1. During the 3rd Song
      1. (Lois) set up Communion table
      1. (Lois) Lighting the Candles and giving the Blessing
      1. (Peggy) Word for Communion and invitation for all to come forward and receive the elements of communion
      1. Worship Song (Jon) – while people are getting the elements of Communion
      1. (Peggy) Take Communion together
  2. Movement 2 – Going to the Garden
    1. Worship & Prayer
      1. Worship (1 song) / Jon
      1. Message / Mark (John 17:22-24)
We count it a real and true privilege, dear Lord, to be able to gather, with believers and seekers, from several different church backgrounds and traditions, different styles and songs, different languages and cultures – to receive from You, dear God, the full Gift of Your Gospel Word of salvation by way of Your death on the cross, and Your resurrection to eternal life! All of God’s people say together, Amen!
 
Show of hands here tonight – who here has had a full week? A busy week? A week full of planned activities and surprise, unexpected events? And, now, on Friday evening, after dinner, after Communion shared together, we gather here in a darkened setting – who’s tired? Anybody sleepy? I’ve been told that I have a soothing, quieting, calming speaking voice – sermons that work well for insomniacs – a monotone sound that induces a sound sleep – anybody there yet? (No hands up, because it’s hard to raise your hand when you’re snoring….)
 
In the life of Jesus, that’s the Good Friday setting. It’s been a full week, Jesus and His followers just had a full Passover Seder Supper, and as the sun sets and, in the Jewish Calendar Friday begins, just before leading His followers out to the Garden of Gethsemane … to pray … John’s Gospel records a lengthy prayer, from Jesus’ lips, for our souls.
All four Gospels tell the story of the Garden – Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, and John 18; but only John tells us this prayer before the Garden events. Tonight we experience the whole day, but let’s invest a few minutes with Jesus, praying for us ….
 
  John 17:1-26 …. ----

17 Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. 3 This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true  God, and the one you have sent —Jesus Christ. 4 I have glorified you on the earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5 Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with that glory I had with you before the world existed.

(Here’s His prayer for His followers:) 6 “I have revealed your name to the people you gave me from the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you, 8 because I have given them the words you gave me. …  They have believed that you sent me.

9 “I pray for them. …  because they are yours. 10 Everything I have is yours, and everything you have is mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I was protecting them by your name that you have given me. … 13 Now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy completed in them. 14 I have given them your word. …  15 I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. …  17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 I sanctify myself for them, so that they also may be sanctified by the truth.

(Here’s His prayer for you and me:) 20 “I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word. 21 May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. 22 I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.

24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they will see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the world’s foundation. 25 Righteous Father, the world has not known you. However, I have known you, and they have known that you sent me. 26 I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I may be in them.”

As I prayed over and prepared for this message tonight, I kept thinking how much we need Jesus’ prayer right now. As a nation we have perhaps never been so divided before (perhaps pro- and anti-slavery politics were more divided – perhaps). These last 6 years of politics have separated communities, churches, families; and then COVID has played its own role in dividing us further; and then the Will Smith slap has separated us even further…. How much more before we break?
 
Take a second and think back to a time when real community filled your every-day. What was that like? When I was in grad-school – we were not a giant class, 25 or so, along with another few classes of 20-30 each. That was the whole school! We played games together, ate out together, laughed and cried and prayed together; and we argued and debated and disagreed together. But we were together. Every day, in class, after class, every day.
Community like that matters. Community brings us to God’s holy presence. In community we can do more for God’s Kingdom, and we discover new challenges which cause our roots to go deeper and our branches to reach farther out.
 
I wonder if the anxiety we experience, the level of anxiety is nearly overwhelming, is because we have become so disconnected – as humans, as neighbors, as Christians. 
We can do better, and I believe this prayer leads the way – through Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit, we can do better!
 
What we do tonight represents a fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer. One purpose being that the world around us will see our unity through Christ, and by that see God’s glory!
The Psalmist prayed (Psalm 133): Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!

      In Matthew 5, Jesus proclaimed that others will see our good works and give glory to our God in heaven.

      This prayer, in John’s Gospel, is for our ability to love one another just as He loves us.

I have a friend, former Music Minister at First Presbyterian Church, Spokane, Steve Goodenberger, who wrote a poem he entitled Worship Is a Rehearsal for Heaven. (Remember that this comes from a Presbyterian background, almost 25 years ago.) Listen:

When we sing, when we pray, when we focus on God, we are preparing for a time when the rafters will ring with full-throated glorious singing from all the nations.  We will all join together in singing the “Hallelujah Chorus.”  Handel will conduct it the way he really meant it to be sung.  The rest of us won’t argue about tempos and how big an orchestra is appropriate.  Then we will join in as people from Zimbabwe sing “O Sifuni Mungu”.  Then we will sing a Latin cant of Kyrie Eleison together.  We will join as we sing a Russian anthem of salvation.  We will all clap along to a blue grass style of Brush Arbor song.  Jamaicans will stand next to rap musicians.  Irish Catholics will join hands with Protestants.  We will all joyfully join in singing a hard-rock chorus of praise.  (And we will love it!)  Gabriel might join in and improvise on his trumpet.  The Latinos will start a mariachi rhythm, and we will all sing a great song of praise to the Creator, while snapping our fingers and letting our bodies join in the dance.  Then Bach will lead us in the Magnificat.  Then he will make a modulation and bridge into the key for “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”.  All the hosts of heaven, including us, will sing.  Then, we will sing “O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus” (in Korean!).  Only there, instead of a dancer from Knox Presbyterian Church spreading his hands beneath the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ will open His arms, we will see the scars on His hands, and all of us will bow down before Him, not just a handful of dancers.

Brothers and sisters, if you are still awake, may we join in this rehearsal for heaven tonight. Pastor Jon leads our singing, and Pastor Cary leads our prayers – may we experience the power and presence, the love and mercy, the collect and the call of God; may we glorify our Father in Heaven as we sing and pray and worship – together.  Amen.

  1. Prayer / Cary – to include open mic
    1. Prayer over people (anointing) / Cary
      1. If prayer time continues, we will invite people forward to be anointed with oil
      1. Contemplative Music (Song: Where Mercy Bled)
  2. Movement 3 – The Arrest
    1. The Arrest
      1. (Dave) enters and interacts with crowd then gives his monologue
        1. No music
        1. Needs headset mic
        1. Tells the story as told by the man in the linen sheet (Mark 14:51&52)
        1. He will talk about how the soldiers and angry mob were searching the streets for Jesus.  They even came to his house. He is running ahead to find Jesus and warn him.
      1. Then he quickly leaves the room
      1. (Jon) will start playing Oh the Wonderful Cross
  3. – On the Cross
  1. Crucifixion
    1. Set up Cross on the stage
    1. Single Spot light on it.
    1. Distant sound of clicking metal
    1. Ribbons fall from the two arm places and feet.
    1. Contemplative Time – 30 seconds of silence
    1. Closing
      1. Song: The Wonderful Cross (When I Survey The Wondrous Cross)
      1. Benediction (Mark) The words of the Centurion “Truly this was the Son of God”
      1. Closing Song: Before The Throne Of God Above
      1. Jon can dismiss

Resources: 

Goodenberger, Steve; Worship Is a Rehearsal for Heaven; Whitworth Institute of Ministry; 1998.

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