OPENING
PRAYER
The
End is Near!
The
end of winter, the end of the road to Jerusalem, the end of the age.
The
Beginning is Near!
The
start of spring, the start of New Life, the start of the Age of the
Kingdom.
God
as the end draws nigh, we gather for worship.
Help
us see the possibilities in the endings, even as we tend to fear
endings.
And
then send us out,
looking
past the endings to live into the possibilities of new beginnings.
Amen.
PRAYER
OF ENDS AND BEGINNINGS
God
we hear the words “The End is Near”
and
we shrug it off, imagining a street corner preacher.
But
then we stop to wonder if the words are right.
And
a shudder of fear slips through us, as we think about what would be
lost.
God
of life, Jesus reminds us:
“unless
a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a
single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
God
of grace, in song we are reminded”
“in
our end is our beginning...in our life eternity, in our death a
resurrection...”
God
who calls us to embrace the new age, the age of the Kingdom,
help
us remember that in death comes life, that for something new to start
something old must end.
And
so when we hear the words “the end is near”
Help
us respond with hope, looking for the new thing that is coming after
the end. Amen.
(quotes
John 12:24 and lines from In the Bulb There is a Flower)
COMMISSIONING:
We
have gathered, we have prayed, we have sung, we have listened.
Now
we go out to continue our work in and for the Kingdom.
Another
thing, our time of worship, has come to an end.
Time
for something else, a new week, to begin.
And
so as those who have been fed in body and soul,
we
go out into the world to spread hope and love in the face of fear and
despair.
And
we go to do that secure in the knowledge that God, the source of our
hope and love,
is
with us in the beginnings, the middles and the ends of life. Thanks
be to God. Amen.
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