Welcome
and Call to Worship
Today is Earth
Day. Our Hy-Tide Group have been inviting us to think of all we can do to care
for the wonderful world of God’s creation. They invite us to share in coffee
and refreshments after the service they have prepared with Eilidh’s help the
Vegan way.
Out service begins
with an invitation, one for us to take to heart. Please join in with the
response …
Come, let us dwell
in God’s shelter.
Let us dwell in
God’s work of art.
Come, because the
Earth is the Lord’s,
And God’s Earth is
our home.
We live in God’s World; we are not alone.
We share this life with the heavens and
the earth,
With the waters and the land,
With trees and grasses,
With fish, birds, and animals,
With minerals and creatures of every form,
And with all our brothers and sisters.
God is good and everything God makes is
good.
God is love and everything God makes is
love’s fruit.
Let us worship God
… as we sing the first three verses of our first hymn …
All creatures of
our God and King,
Lift up your voice
and with us sing,
Alleluia,
alleluia!
Dear mother earth,
who day by day
Unfolds God’s
blessings on our way,
O praise him,
alleluia!
147 All creatures
… 1-3
Prayer and the
Lord’s Prayer
Let’s turn in the
Church Bibles to Psalm 19 – page.
We are going to
join in saying Psalm 19
It is a wonderful
Psalm that begins with a celebration of God’s glory in creation in verses 1-6.
It then goes on to
remind us of the Law of the Lord and the way the Bible gives us all the
guidance we need to care for God’s creation in verses 7 to 11.
Verses 12-13 are a
prayer of confession for the wrong things we do that damage the world of God’s creation.
And then verse 14
is a wonderful prayer each of us can make our own.
I’ll say one line
and then we all respond with the second line through the Psalm – there’s a
rhythm right through the Psalm as the second line echoes the meaning of the
first.
Psalm
19 using the Church Bible
And now we’ll sing
verses 4,5 and 7 of our first hymn …
And all who are of
tender heart,
Forgiving others
take your part
Let all things
their Creator bless
And worship God in
humbleness
O praise him,
Alleluia!
147 verses 4, 5 and 7
We
welcome Linda into Church Membership
Belonging
to church we commit to each other in our shared faith in God and in Jesus
Christ as our Lord and Saviour to make a difference in our world. It’s great to
welcome into church membership today Linda Hoarau – our hope and prayer is that
Highbury can be a place to share Christian friendship, explore Christian faith
and enter into Christian mission with Christ at the centre and open to all.
On
this earth day it is a reminder to us that our mission involves caring for the
world around us and the wonder of God’s creation.
Our
commitment is to care for the world of God’s creation – it also to care for
each other. Two things were important to those very first followers of Jesus –
prayer – they prayed regularly each day – and bringing healing to people who
were hurting in the name of the risen Jesus Christ.
Angela
is going to tell us what happened very early on in the life of the church as
they continued to meet and to grow in Jerusalem
Peter and John
went to pray – Angela
A
Hy-Spirit Song
Activities
for all over 3
The
One who Leads to Life
There’s
a wonderful moment in the Easter story that happens a week after Resurrection
day – Doubting Thomas had not been with the others when Jesus appeared to them
that day. He had been adamant when they told him they had seen the Lord …
‘Unless
I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the
nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’
So
it was one week later that he was there when Jesus appeared again and said once
again,
‘Peace
be with you.’
Then
he said to Thomas, and looked him in the eye
‘Put your finger here and see my hands.
Reach
out your hand and put it in my side.
Do
not doubt but believe.’
Thomas
answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’
The
words Jesus said next are among the most wonderful words in the Gospel story.
Jesus
said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who
have not seen and yet have come to believe.’
And
then John explains why –
Now
Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not
written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe
that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may
have life in his name.
There
are those who have the most remarkable experiences and it is as good as seeing
the risen Christ. There are those who want to wait until they have such an
experience before coming to a real faith.
I
treasure those words of Jesus, Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have
come to believe.
For
it is in John ‘s words, through believing that we have life in his name.
I
think that’s wonderful – something wonderful to take to heart for all of us.
Luke
was one of those writers in the New Testament who had not actually seen Jesus
with his own eyes. But he had come to believe. He had come to a newness of
life. And he researched who this Jesus was. And then told the story of Jesus
and the journey he made to the heart of the Jewish world in Jerusalem in the
Gospel that bears his name and the story of the beginnings of the church and
the many journeys followers of The Way took to bring the Good News of Jesus to
Rome and the heart of the Roman Empire.
The
Gospel ends with Easter and Resurrection … and Acts begins with the final
appearances of Easter and Resurrection. The whole story hinges on Resurrection
at Easter and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost.
Luke
notices that in spite of all Jesus’ teaching, on Resurrection day his followers
had still not ‘got it’. In particular they had not understood how to read the
words of their Bible as Jesus intended.
That
Psalm 19 we read earlier is a wonderful psalm that celebrates the Glory of God
in creation and the Law of the Lord in the Bible Jesus himself used.
The
problem is that the scriptures of the Old Tesatment can be difficult to read –
they are prone to misunderstanding. And those friends of Jesus still hadn’t got
it. They still imagined that the one who would come to bring new life, freedom,
the kingdom of God, would come with military might to overthrow the hostile
powers of the World.
On
the day of resurrection, first with the two on the Road to Emmaus and then in
the Upper Room Jesus went through the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms and all the
Hebrew Scriptures showing how he was the fulfilment of them all.
And
they got it. What the two friends from Emmaus said says it all ‘Were not our
hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was
opening the scriptures to us?’
What’s
fascinating is that as Luke tells the story from that moment on in Acts he time
and again comes back to the way the first followers of Jesus explained their
faith in Jesus by showing that he really was the fulfilment of all the
Scriptures of all had said.
Acts
contains a remarkable number of the speeches the first followers of Jesus gave.
It is as if they are drawing on the way Jesus opened up the Scriptures for
them.
Peter
and John continued the practice of so many in Jerusalem and shared in prayer
three times a day, going to the Temple. It was at 3 o’clock in the afternoon
that they were accosted by someone unable to walk – and they brought healing to
him in the name of Jesus Christ the messiah of Nazareth.
They
then go on to explain what has happened …
Reading:
Acts 3:11-16
11
While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the
portico called Solomon’s Portico, utterly astonished. 12When Peter saw it, he
addressed the people, ‘You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you
stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? 13The
God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our
ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in
the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. 14But you
rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you,
15and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we
are witnesses. 16And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man
strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given
him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.
Notice
verse 13 – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his
servant Jesus … just that single statement is rooted in the way Jesus opened up
the Scriptures on the Day of Resurrection.
Who
is this Jesus? – verse 14 – the Holy and Righteous One … the Author of Life
whom God raised from the dead. This is the one to whom we are witnesses.
Let’s
pause a moment in the words of a song express something of the wonder of this
Jesus, the holy and righteous one who is the Author of Life – the one who is
holy and good and leads to life.
A
Hy-Spirit Song
All
Things Made New
It
is this name that brings strength, that brings healing and wholeness.
There’s
a danger in these words!
One
we are being made aware of to our shame as a society. It is the danger of
anti-semitism.
It
is very dangerous to read these words as if Peter were belonging to one
religion – Christianity – and he is speaking to the Israelites who belong to
another religion and are Jews.
That
way of reading these words is the way too many have read them – and it results
in antisemitism.
What
is important, however, is to realise that Jesus is Jewish, he is rooted in the
Hebrew Scriptures, and his followers are also fully Jewish. This is one set of
Jewish people engaging with others who are Jewish exploring what it means to be
Jewish.
Anti-semitism
is quite wrong.
It
was not ‘the Jews’ who killed Jesus … it was the Jewish Herodian Regime who in
collaboration with Pilate that killed Jesus. And it was quite in order for
Jewish people to be critical of that regime – that’s what the Prophets of the
Hebrew Scriptures had always done – holding the powers that be to account.
It
is quite proper to hold any government to account – and it is quite proper to
do that of the current government in Israel.
What
is totally wrong is to read texts like this as if they laid the blame for the
death of Jesus at the door of all Jews – the text simply does not say that. It
is so important to see what’s happening here.
Luke
notices something in the preaching of the first followers of Jesus that he finds
goes back to Jesus himself. And that is that the message of the Kingdom has to
do with everyone everywhere. There is a universality about it too.
That’s
made absolutely clear in the next verse with its reference to the ignorance of
the crowd that had been whipped up by the rulers, the leaders, due to their
ignorance.
Reading
Acts 3:17-26
‘And
now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18In
this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his
Messiah would suffer. 19Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may
be wiped out, 20so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the
Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, 21who
must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God
announced long ago through his holy prophets. 22Moses said, “The Lord your God
will raise up for you from your own people a prophet like me. You must listen
to whatever he tells you. 23And it will be that everyone who does not listen to
that prophet will be utterly rooted out from the people.” 24And all the
prophets, as many as have spoken, from Samuel and those after him, also
predicted these days. 25You are the descendants of the prophets and of the covenant
that God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham, “And in your descendants
all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 26When God raised up his
servant, he sent him first to you, to bless you by turning each of you from
your wicked ways.’
There’s
the same theme of the prophets coming to fulfilment in Jesus Christ, the
Messiah who suffers. This time he goes back to Moses, to Samuel, to the
prophets, and sees Jesus as the one who brings that line to fulfilment with
words that must be heeded.
What’s
called for is in verse 19 that we repent – and have a whole new way of thinking
– we look to the fullness of all time …
Which
will be a time of refreshing, times the GNB describes as times of spiritual
strength.
And
we look to the time when all things will be made new
The
time of in the words of the NRSV ‘universal restoration’
And
at the end the fulfilment of that promise made to Abraham – that time when ‘all
the families of the earth shall be blessed – through your descendeants I will
bless all the people on earth.
There
is in these words a universality.
We
have to have in mind the totality of all people’s of all the world – and if
that is the hope of glory then our task is to bring that down to earth in the
here and now.
That
on earth as in heaven, God’s will may be done, God’s kingdom come.
That
brings us back to the responsibilities we are challenged to meet on Earth Day
as we care for the planet and the whole world of God’s creation.
238
Lord, bring the day to pass
Prayers
of Concern
259
Beauty for Brokenness
Words
of Blessing
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