WELCOME AND PRAYER
Leader
Psalm 104:24-35
Leader
How many are your works, Lord!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small.
Reader 1
There the ships go to and fro,
and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.
All creatures look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.
Leader
When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.
Reader 2
When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
Leader
When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.
Reader 1
May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
may the Lord rejoice in his works —
he who looks at the earth, and it trembles,
who touches the mountains, and they smoke.
Leader
I will sing to the Lord all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
REader 2
May my meditation be pleasing to him,
as I rejoice in the Lord.
But may sinners vanish from the earth
and the wicked be no more.
Leader
Praise the Lord, my soul.
All
Praise the Lord.
LISTENING TO THE WORD
John 17
Reader 1
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said,
Reader 2
“Peace be with you!”
Reader 1
After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
Again Jesus said,
Reader 2
“Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
Reader 1
And with that he breathed on them and said,
REader 2
“Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
PRAYERS OF THANKSGIVING AND INTERCESSSION
CONFESSING CHRIST FROM THE BASIS OF UNION
Leader:
Within this fellowship of the Uniting Church in Australia, and as part of the Christian church around the world, let us confess Christ in the following words from the Basis of Union.
Reader 1:
Today we ‘confess Jesus as Lord over (our) own life’ and ‘Head over all things, the beginning of a new creation, of a new humanity’.
Leader:
We rejoice that the Uniting Church ‘preaches Christ the risen crucified One
Reader 2:
and confesses him as Lord to the glory of God the Father’.
Leader:
Let us proclaim ‘the grace which justifies through faith,’
Reader 3:
and uphold ‘the centrality of the person and work of Christ the justifier’.
Leader:
We joyously proclaim that ‘in Jesus Christ "God was reconciling the world to himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19 RSV)’,
Reader 4:
and that ‘in love for the world, God gave the Son to take away the world's sin.’
Leader:
We confess that ‘Christ…is the Word of the God who acquits the guilty,
Reader 1:
who gives life to the dead and who brings into being what otherwise could not exist.’
Leader:
Let us reaffirm our desire ‘to live and work within the faith and unity of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church’.
Reader 2:
We joyously ‘acknowledge that Christ alone is supreme in his Church’ and declare our ‘readiness to go forward together in sole loyalty to Christ the living Head of the Church’.
Leader:
We acknowledge ‘the need for a constant appeal to Holy Scripture’,
Reader 3:
and declare ourselves ready to ‘hear anew the commission of the Risen Lord to make disciples of all nations’.
Leader:
With the gracious help of God our congregations are committed to serve the world for which Christ died, and…await with hope the day of the Lord Jesus Christ
Reader 4:
on which it will be clear that the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of the Christ, who shall reign for ever and ever.’ Amen.
Nb. The words in quotation marks are direct quotes from the Basis of Union
Prepared by Rev Rod James.
Final Prayer