This is the Day

As we begin Holy Week, we hold the weighty responsibility of guiding our people through the tension of praise and sorrow, the wonder at God’s life-giving salvation and the horror of sin’s violence and destruction. Palm/Passion Sunday invites us to hold both together, to name the tension between life and death as we journey with Jesus from waving palms to the cross and the tomb. As you determine how much of that story you wish to engage in this service, consider how the liturgy can support the energy of that story. Will you stay in the joy of the triumphal entry, with only a brief reference to the sorrowful and tragic turn that comes on Friday? Or will you take the congregation on a step-by-step journey from triumph to crucifixion? Or will you go from the energy of the crowd waving palms to the intimacy of Jesus gathered at the table with his disciples, ending with a “to be continued” ahead of your Good Friday service? This year, Palm/Passion falls on the first Sunday of April, making it an excellent time to bring together the practice of monthly Communion and the Palm/Passion narrative. Below you will find a Great Thanksgiving for Palm/Passion Sunday that ties together the move from triumph to Table, connecting the Communion ritual we participate in throughout the year to the narrative flow of Holy Week.

Call to Worship

Give thanks to God for God is good;
God’s steadfast love endures forever! Hosanna!

We give thanks to God who answers us, for God is our saving help!
The stone the builders rejected is now the cornerstone! Hosanna!

Our salvation is at hand!
It is marvelous to behold! Hosanna!

This is the day that the Lord has made!
Let us rejoice and be glad! Hosanna!

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Come save us, Lord! Hosanna!

Give thanks to God for God is good;
God’s steadfast love endures forever! Hosanna!

Adapted from Psalm 118: 1, 19-29 in the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition and the Common English Bible.

General Prayer for the Day

Today, God, we rejoice with Christians everywhere that there was at least one day when Jesus received the recognition he deserved. We rejoice, knowing that his triumphal entry means that truth cannot remain hidden and that good hearts everywhere recognize truth when it appears. We [persist] in hope with people on many continents, in many circumstances who are waiting for the day when their truth can be told. We [persevere] with them in faith knowing that the same God who could have commanded the rocks to shout truth in Jerusalem will not allow truth to be suppressed and good people to be crushed forever. Amen.

Written by Safiyah Fosua, The Africana Worship Book Year A (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 2006), 227.

Prayer of Confession for Palm Sunday

If you choose to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, consider using this prayer of confession in conjunction with the Great Thanksgiving provided below.

We confess that we are not so different
from those who welcomed Christ into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday
yet later shouted 'Crucify him!' or remained silent in the face of injustice.
We have betrayed you too, Lord Jesus
by our sins both secret and known.
Yet you died for people like us,
and you rose on the third day that we might be redeemed.
For the sake of Jesus Christ, do not hold our sins against us.

Jesus Christ, our King of glory,
we have not been outspoken for you.
We have not called for your death,
but neither have we shouted of your greatness,
nor expressed delight in the salvation you have won for us.
Help us to see your glory, draw us closer to you
that we may become more faithful and more joyful
servants of the King.

Assurance of Pardon

(inspired by Psalm 31:14-15)

The Psalmist says:
But I trust in you, O Lord, I say 'You are my God.'
My times are in your hands;
deliver me from my enemies
and from those who pursue me.
Let your face shine on your servant;
save me in your unfailing love.”
In Christ, God hears; God answers; God sets us free.
In Christ, we are forgiven. Thanks be to God!

Written by Rev. Grant Barclay and posted on the Church of Scotland’s Starters for Sunday website. http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/ Reposted: https://re-worship.blogspot.com/2014/03/palm-sunday-confession.html.

The Great Thanksgiving for Palm/Passion Sunday

The Lord be with you.
And also with you.

Lift up your hearts. The pastor may lift hands and keep them raised.
We lift them up to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is right, and a good and joyful thing,
always and everywhere to give thanks to you,
almighty God, creator of heaven and earth.
You formed us in your image
and breathed into us the breath of life.
When we turned away, and our love failed,
your love remained steadfast.
You delivered us from captivity,
made covenant to be our sovereign God,
and spoke to us through the prophets.

And so,
with your people on earth
and all the company of heaven
we praise your name and join their unending hymn:

The pastor may lower hands.

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

The pastor may raise hands.

Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ,
who emptied himself into human form
to guide us back to you.
Through his teaching and his actions,
he demonstrated that the time had come
when you would save your people.
When he processed into Jerusalem on a colt,
the people gathered and cried, “Hosanna! Save us!”
because he lived your salvific love in our midst.
And as the enthusiasm of “Hosanna!”
began to dim in the shadow of plots to crucify him,
he did not waver in the love and grace
he extended to all.

The pastor may hold hands, palms down, over the bread, or touch the bread, or lift the bread.

In one of his final gracious and loving acts,
on the night in which Jesus gave himself up for us,
he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread,
gave it to his disciples, and said:
"Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me."

The pastor may hold hands, palms down, over the cup, or touch the cup, or lift the cup.

When the supper was over, he took the cup,
gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said:
"Drink from this, all of you;
this is my blood of the new covenant,
poured out for you and for many
for the forgiveness of sins.
Do this, as often as you drink it,
in remembrance of me."

The pastor may raise hands.

And so,
in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ,
we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving
as a holy and living sacrifice,
in union with Christ's offering for us,
as we proclaim the mystery of faith.

Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.

The pastor may hold hands, palms down, over the bread and cup.

Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here,
and on these gifts of bread and wine.
Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ,
the rejected stone who is the Cornerstone of our salvation,
that we may be for the world the body of Christ,
redeemed by his blood.

The pastor may raise hands.

By your Spirit, make us one with Christ,
one with each other,
and one in ministry to all the world,
until Christ comes in final victory
and we feast at his heavenly banquet.

Through your Son Jesus Christ,
with the Holy Spirit in your holy Church,
all honor and glory is yours, almighty God,
now and forever.
Amen.

Written by Dr. Lisa Hancock, Discipleship Ministries, September 2022. Adapted from The Great Thanksgiving found in “A Service of Word and Table I,” Copyright © 1972, The Methodist Publishing House; Copyright © 1980, 1985, 1989, 1992 UMPH.

Benediction

Begin with loud celebration, gradually dropping to a quiet whisper by the end.

Give thanks to God for God is good!
God’s steadfast love endures forever! Hosanna!

We go from this place crying out for salvation!
Come, save us! Hosanna!

We go from this place ready to follow Jesus to the garden, the cross, and the tomb.
Come, save us! Hosanna!

We go from this place ready to pay attention as the waving of palms turns to a sentence of crucifixion.
Come. Save us. Hosanna.

We go from this place knowing that even in death, God’s love endures.
Come. Save us. Hosanna.

Written by Dr. Lisa Hancock, Discipleship Ministries, September 2022.