Service for Sunday 6th April 2025, which was conducted by Mr Don Whisson

Welcome: –

Introduction

Our call to worship this morning is Psalm 126 which is set down for today in the lectionary. For the psalmist, as for us, memories of the past could have become mere nostalgia. ‘Those were the days’ we say; ‘wonderful, but gone forever’. In Psalm 126, the memories of those singing, laughter-filled days of the past become, not nostalgia, but the ground of strong hope for even better days to come. (Boice). Let us read it responsively:

Call to Worship (Psalm 126):

1. When the Lord brought us back to Jerusalem, it was like a dream!

2. How we laughed, how we sang for joy! Then the other nations said about us, “The Lord did great things for them.”

3. Indeed he did great things for us; how happy we were!

4. Lord, make us prosperous again, just as the rain brings water back to dry riverbeds.

5. Let those who wept as they planted their crops, gather the harvest with joy!

6. Those who wept as they went out carrying the seed will come back singing for joy, as they bring in the harvest.

Prayer of Praise:

Almighty God, we give to you our praise for you are just and compassionate. You are the God who cares for those who groan under oppression and sorrow.

You are the God who listens to those who cry out for help and does not pass them by. It is your tender love that gives comfort to the outcast and to the powerless. You step beyond social norms and cultural boundaries and religious bigotries, to embrace those that society neglects, and to call to you those that society rejects.

We give to you our praise, for you are the One who gives light to a World that lives in the darkness of sin and despair, for you are the One who gives sight to a World that is blind to your free gift of grace and reconciliation.

You are the one who has done great things for us, not that we deserve your attention, but solely because you are a God of love and grace.

We come together as your people with assurance and hope in your promise to save, for all time, all those who come to you through Jesus Christ.

We are awed by your power in raising Jesus Christ from death to dwell with you. We come together to thank you for Christ’s intercession on our behalf. We are honoured to be called your children and to be called to be in your presence.

We give to you our praise for your Word nourishes us and comforts our souls.

We praise you for your Spirit that enlivens us and empowers us to live as your people.

We praise you for your presence with us always, for your continual protection and oversight in a World that turns its back on all that you represent and refuses to listen to all that you have to say.

May we do with loving hearts what you ask of us. May we strive to live the life that you command us to live. May you lead us in the way that leads to you. To your glory and honour we pray, amen.

You are invited to listen to or join in singing 2 Songs:

‘Let there be love shared among us’

(Scripture in Song Volume 2 number 322)

‘Something Beautiful’

(Scripture in Song Volume 1 number 204)

Bill and Gloria Gaither

Prayer of Confession

Merciful God, have pity on us, for we come before you contrite and repentant for our failings and our disobedience.

We come before you knowing that our best is still far from the way of the Gospel to which you have called us to follow.

We stumble in the darkness of suspicion and prejudice about others. Our minds are closed to the way of truth that we often profess but fail to follow. We are slow to discern the needs of those in our community who are handicapped by ill-health, by despair, by the burdens of trying to make ends meet.

We avert our eyes from those who are not socially acceptable or are not clean looking. We demean people who are equally made in your image. We are too quick to judge them because of their failings and fail ourselves to look upon them as people worthy of love and concern as you are so quick to show to them.

We fail to control our tongue from speaking evil and our lips from speaking deceit. We pray empty words of praise while at the same time speak words that are thoughtless and unkind.

We profess to be disciplined and Christ-like, yet are wilful in our thoughts and words and actions. We profess to be moved by the sight of the hungry and needy yet are wasteful of our own resources.

We condemn the neglect shown by others yet fail to work towards reconciliation and harmony in even our own small corner of the World.

We too often remember the smallest of hurts that we experience and fail to follow your example of being willing to forgive and forget.

Merciful God, we come humbly before you, seeking your forgiveness.

Holy God, remove all the sin in our lives that binds and oppresses us. Give us the courage to cast off our sinful habits and to turn to you for healing. Strengthen us to follow gladly the sure path of salvation and to walk humbly in your footsteps.

Merciful God, you have revealed yourself to be a God who is longsuffering and kind, full of compassion and slow to become angry, always ready and willing to pardon sin.

May we then walk in the way of grace and truth all the days of our life. Amen.

Assurance of Forgiveness

(from Philippians 3: 9)

The Apostle Paul assured the believers in Philippi that we cannot develop righteousness through rites or rituals or meditation, we cannot earn righteousness through right living, nor do we deserve to be granted righteousness because of our good works. Righteousness comes from God, given graciously and freely to us through our faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ. Let us hold onto that promise, that, having confessed our sins before God and confessed our faith in Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord, we can rest assured that God has heard our prayers, that God has forgiven us and removed our sins, that God has cleansed our souls in His sight, and that God embraces us as His children.

Thanks be to God.

Prayer of illumination

O Lord, Heavenly Father, in whom is the fullness of light and wisdom,

enlighten our minds by your Holy Spirit, and give us grace to receive your Word with reverence and humility, without which no person can understand your truth.

To your glory we pray. Amen

John Calvin (https://www.oikoumene.org/resources/prayer-cycle/austria-liechtenstein-switzerland)

Bible Readings

Philippians 3:

5 Paul writes, “I am an Israelite by race, of the Tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born and bred. As far as keeping the Jewish Law, I was a Pharisee; in pious zeal I was a persecutor of the Church. 6 As far as a person can be righteous by keeping the Law, I was faultless.

7 Yet, whatever was to my profit, whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as a loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I consider everything a loss compared to the greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have thrown everything away; I consider it all as mere garbage, in order that I may gain Christ, 9 and be completely united with him, with no righteousness of my own that comes from the Law, but one that comes from faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, given by God in response to faith.

10 All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death, 11 in the hope that I myself will be raised from death to life.

12 I do not claim that I have already succeeded or have already become perfect. I keep striving to make it my goal because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 My friends, I do not consider to have hold of it yet. All that I can say is this: forgetting what is behind me, and reaching out for that which lies ahead, 14 I press on towards the goal for the prize, which is God’s call through Christ Jesus to the life above.

[New Revised Standard Version, New International Version, Today’s English Version, New English Bible]

This is the Word of God.

Praise to you Almighty God.

John 12:

1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus went to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, the man he had raised from death. 2 They prepared a dinner for him there, which Martha helped serve; Lazarus was one of those who were sitting at the table with Jesus.

3 Then Mary took half a litre (a whole pint) of very expensive perfume made of pure nard, anointed the feet of Jesus by pouring it onto them, and wiped the feet of Jesus with her hair. The house was filled with the sweet fragrance of the perfume.

4 At this, Judas Iscariot, one of the disciples of Jesus – the one who was to betray him – said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for thee hundred silver coins (nearly a year’s wages for a labourer) and the money given to the poor?” 6 (He did not say this out of any care for the poor, but because he was a thief. He carried the common money bag and would steal from it.)

7 “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8 You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

[New Revised Standard Version, New International Version, Today’s English Version, New English Bible]

This is the Gospel of our Lord.

Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.

Hymn: ‘Christ be our light’

Before we hear the message, we will have a time of reflection. I suggest that we remain seated, and listen to the verses, and join in singing the chorus.

Bernadette Farrell

Message:

This morning I would like to reflect on the incident that was recounted in our gospel reading in John 12.

Just to remind us, this is what we heard in the reading:

‘Mary took some expensive perfume, about 450 grams of it, and made from pure nard, and poured it over the feet of Jesus, and then wiped his feet with her hair The whole house was filled with the fragrance. ‘John 12: 3

Each Sunday in Lent is carrying us closer to the horror and the glory of Good Friday. Today the Gospel reading shows us Jesus having some respite, in a kindly home at Bethany, not far from the Holy City, not long before his betrayal.

The awareness of his impending suffering is constantly with him. In a sense his final passion is already upon him.

In this setting, one deeply sensitive woman, massages his feet with expensive oil, and in a wonderful outpouring of love, wipes his feet with her hair.

In any other situation, this would be seen as an act of sexual intimacy. But not here. This is the expression of profound agape; an outpouring of other-centred love.

We need to draw a distinction between the acute understanding of this woman and the ongoing confusion in the minds of the men who followed Jesus. It seems that the male disciples where in stubborn denial of the coming arrest and death of Jesus.

With a mind-set which is unfortunately common among us men, they did not want to think about disaster. They refused to face the probable demise of their leader. It was as if by denying it, the unpleasant truth would go away.

From the time when at Caesarea Philippi Peter made his statement that Jesus was the Messiah (Matthew:16:16), Jesus had tried to make the men see that his rejection by the religious leaders was inevitable. From that time he began talking about his cross. But they stayed in denial. They did not want to know.

The only trace of acceptance among the men in the Gospel accounts comes from Thomas. On the road, Thomas openly expresses his belief that the journey to Jerusalem will end in death. “Let us all go with the Teacher” he says to the others, “so that we may die with him” (John 11:16).

I think we need to understand the grave consequence of this denial by most of the men:

Hiding from their own deep fears about the possible death of their Master, meant that they could not give Jesus the emotional support he needed in those last weeks and days. They would not allow themselves to be in tune with his soul. When he needed them most to understand and to support him in his resolve to keep the faith in the face of death, the men were not emotionally there for him. Jesus must have been an extremely lonely man at that time.

Thank goodness for the women. We read about them also being followers of Jesus. Some of these were financially well off, and provided for Christ’s travelling mission out of their own pockets. There isn’t much information recorded about this aspect of our Lord’s support group. This record of that evening meal at the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus is a beautiful example of this support.

Mary was remarkably perceptive, she was prepared to bear the pain of admitting to herself the tragedy that lay ahead. Jesus, the loveliest person she had ever known, was going to fall into the hands of cruel men and be killed .

This understanding must have been breaking her heart. But she faced it. There was no denial. Some social commentators claim that women are genuinely the stronger sex. Mary certainly was. She was ready to show some expensive love.

Because Jesus was not in denial, she was able to comfort him as he rested in their house at Bethany. She did not care what the other men thought, she did not care whether Martha understood or not, she just did what her intuition told her to do. She knelt at his feet and with the most expensive of oils, she anointed and massaged them, then unbound her hair and wiped his feet with her long dark tresses. Jesus knew that he was understood and remarkably comforted by a woman who dared to be true to what her heart was telling her.

I guess there would have been stunned silence. Silence until Judas, embarrassed about it all, blurted out that pious blabber about selling the ointment and helping the poor.

Jesus would have none of that. He and Mary knew that death was for real. “Leave her alone! Let her keep this for the day of my burial”.

We can’t generalise that men aren’t able to deal with sensitive emotional issues. Likewise we can’t generalise that all women are sensitive nurturers. We find some of both genders in both camps. However, it is no secret that social pressures tend towards shaping men to hide their emotional side, while allowing women more room to express theirs.

The main conclusion is that we cannot truly support one another unless we stop the denial game; unless we take the risk and make ourselves sensitive to the feelings of others and to our own feelings in response to theirs. We must deal in emotions not just ideas; profound listening; not speaking platitudes to quickly cover our own discomfort.

The love that Mary demonstrated was expensive love, agape love, other-centred love. It is a high risk love that allows both highest joy and deepest grief.

While others were in denial, Mary was willing to identify with Jesus and give some of the comfort he desperately needed.

Another aspect we could consider is the question: did Mary have to be so extravagant? was what Mary did over the top? That perfume would have been worth tens of thousands of dollars – gone in a matter of seconds.

Judas asked why the perfume couldn’t have been sold for 300 silver coins, and given to the poor. That amount would equate to 30,000 Australian dollars in today’s currency. Even allowing for some gross exaggeration on Judas’ part as to the true value of the perfume, the extravagance may well seem excessive to us.

How do you feel about such extravagance?

And how do you feel about such indulgence receiving a high commendation

from Jesus, who was the beneficiary of the extravagance?

Some of us, maybe a majority, have been brought up in the tradition of “waste not want not.” Moderation, prudence, being reasonable in how we use our money and possessions is a sign of good stewardship.

Extravagance goes against the grain of many good Christians.

It offends our sense of responsible stewardship of money and possessions. If it had been any one else but Judas, who criticised Mary for her extravagance, I suspect that some of us might have agreed with him.

I can’t answer the question as to whether it was too extravagant, but what I do know is that God is extravagant.

The Gospels are full of references to the glorious extravagance of God.

Remember the story of Jesus at a wedding feast turning water into wine: 600 litres of it! Through Jesus, the early Christians celebrated a God who overflowed with generosity. This God did not know when to stop!

Last week we focussed on the story of the “Prodigal Son”. Maybe it would be better called the “extravagant father.” That Father went overboard in his generosity, both at the beginning and at the end of the parable.

In Luke 6:38 we read where Jesus said ‘Give to others and God will give to you. Indeed you will receive a full measure, a generous helping, poured into your hands – all that you can hold.

We hear a lot about people wanting “to do my own thing.” A mantra of the “me generation.” But through her relationship with Jesus, Mary had learnt to do God’s “thing”.

Mary was reflecting the God of her Master, Jesus.

Her action at that dinner party was truly godly. Her deed was unexpected and extravagantly beautiful; sheer God-likeness. Like the grace of Jesus. We can only guess at how this outpouring of love, brought consolation to Jesus’ soul. A healing to go with him through the last days of his life on earth.

Some of the most healing, encouraging times in our lives occur when some dear person has acted with spontaneous generosity toward us: Grace. Unexpected kindness. Unearned blessing. Like a fragrance, the action of another has perfumed our whole being with the special sense of beauty and wonder. In such moments something of God’s “thing” that has reached us through a neighbour, or maybe even through a stranger.

Mary’s action, so sensitive and so prodigally generous, can fill this house of prayer this day, just as it filled the whole house at Bethany.

Her Christ is our Christ.

Her God is our God.

Let us delight in the over-generous ways of God and share them with one another.

Amen

You are invited to listen to or join in singing Hymn Tis 256 ‘From heaven you came’ (‘The servant king’)

Songwriters: Chris Llewellyn / Graham Kendrick / Gareth Gilkeson

Offering

Offering Prayer:

Almighty God, as our response to your unending love we offer these gifts to you. Bless and guide their use so that the message of your promise of reconciliation and fulfilment in life may be shared around the Globe, and give hope to those mired in desolation and despair. To your glory we pray, Amen.

Prayers for Others

God our Loving Heavenly Father, we come to you now as we think of and pray for others…everywhere.

We think of our world and feel so saddened and almost disbelieving that various conflicts in this world have gone on for so long. In this regard, we think instantly of Russia and Ukraine. Words fail us as we think of the Ukraine population who have lost so much and where families have virtually just disintegrated. Fill those folk with your love, strength and hope.