Freelton Strabane United Church
To live our discipleship with integrity and grace.
Horseshoe Falls Regional Council
Lent 5
Sunday, March 22 2026
Minister: Rev. Will Wheeler, B.A. M. Div. 905-659-3380 E-mail: [email protected]
Music Director Joan Simpson
Call To Worship
One Gather us in Holy God to this time, to this place.
All: For God at times the burdens of this world deaden our souls to the possibilities that you set on the path before us.
One Come people of God let the Holy Spirit loosen that which binds you and step into the promise of God’s light ever brightening our path.
All May our being here release us from the burdens, the bondage in which we find ourselves for this is the place we need to be.
Throughout these Lenten days and nights
we turn to walk the inward way
where meeting Christ our guide and light
we pray in hope his coming day
We bear the silence cross and pain
our human burdens human fear
Kept dark and deep until we see
the promise of the coming dawn
One: In the darkness, our fears come to own us
All The fears we press down into the boxes of our soul
One fear is the great destroyer.
All Fear separates us from the Divine within and without.
One Christ is the key that will open our boxed fears and free us.
All Our fear hides behind many things.
One Within the boxes of our fear there are our fear of not being in control. We judge that the world should live up to our standards and fail to see that it is the love of your Son that sets the standard. In our control we think that the only right way to feel is the way that we feel. That our opinion is the only right one. We are afraid that our way of thinking may have to change.
All Christ is the Key that will free us from our fears.
One We light this candle to dispel the darkness and place this key to open the box of our fears
Prayer of Confession.
God of continued Mercy we come to you holding the box of our fear to not be in control. We confess we use this fear to try to bend people to our way of thinking. We fail to hear other thoughts or opinions because we feel ours is the right one. We see that our way of thinking should be the standard and fail to see that your Son has set the standard by which we are called to live. May your Spirit speak to our souls to give us such confidence to have faith in ourselves to own our fears and let them go. . We bring our own personal prayers of confession before you.
Song (81 More Voices)
Love us into fullness,
Touch us with your grace;
Jesus, in your mercy,
draw us to your face.
Assurance of Pardon
One: and Jesus said “ Come to me , all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
One: Who we strive to be is founded in our story.
All Please, share once more with us our story.
One Our Epistle is taken from Romans 8:6-11
One This is our Story
All Thanks be to God
One Our way through the wilderness is found in the gift of the Gospels our Lesson is taken from John 11:1-45
One: The Word of God for the People of God
All Thanks be to God
Sermon
Prayer
Lord as we ponder your words open our hearts that we may understand and know you. Amen
Ask yourself when was the last time you just strolled around your home and just looked at the rooms and just enjoy how they look. I try to walk around the Manse at least once a week, admiring the dust and talking with the dust creatures. Not really. I walk around looking at the collection. For those that have not been to the manse it has been compared to a small museum. A comparison which truly warms my heart. Admission is free by booking only tea included in your visit. When you live in a museum, not to mention you volunteer at one you come to realize it is a collection of threads of time.
Time is of course a perception. What I see it as an infinite amount of lines between all the aspects of our lives, joys and sorrow, life and death, love and heart ache. Time is slow it is fast it is fleeting. the Fates. The Spinner, who spins the thread of life.
The Apportioner, who measures the thread to its allotted length.
The Unbending, who cuts the thread when the time for death has come
The infinite threads being spun measured cut all flow into the loom of the present to create each our own tapestry set on display in our lives.
If you walk around the manse you will find many things that have been a part of another life time another’s tapestry.
Mementos, memories of someone’s life. Like the photograph of
A Y Jackson’s mother on her wedding day. Acquired in an auction. My home is home to the threads from other peoples lives. Each item, (note I didn’t call them artifacts…yet) has it’s story. I sometimes wish I could ask them to tell me their story. Why some of the threads are my own part of my story.
Standing looking at the paintings, you are struck by constant movement. They were painted by someone, belonged to someone passed on to someone, came to me, and then will be sold and passed on to someone else. All things in time pass away
Nothing is truly permanent. Our belongings treasured possession will eventually be one big job lot. A life time reduced to a table of stuff that goes for five dollars.
Makes a person say. Wow just pass the chocolate. Thanks for that cheery thought.
All things in their time pass away. Mountains rise and fall, seas swell and dry. Death is part of a natural order of the universe.
Considering this painting. What do you see, darkness, light, death, life. What joy, sorrow. What line in time is followed here what thread is woven in this moment, in this painting?
It is called “the resurrection of Lazarus.” Lazarus in the tomb is bound. We are also bound. Death darkens the threads of life , determines what we do, and fills us with fear. We build, we achieve, accumulate, and acquire. But everything fades, withers, decays dies That somber fact accounts for much of what we do in life. We strive to preserve and maintain. That’s why the cosmetic surgery industry is doing so well. We build our fragile bridges over this great abyss. But we cannot deny the abyss .
The Christianity to a certain extent and if we are Honest the United Church is not above all of this. We strive to preserve to keep everything the way it was. We cling to faded ideals and resist new ones. Sometimes institutions are dead but don’t have the decency to fall down. Fred Craddock a well known preacher tells of a minister who, becoming terribly frustrated at a church with its lethargy said one Sunday night at the service, “Why don’t we all from a circle, hold hands, and attempt to communicate with the living.”
Craddock goes on to say In light of the Gospel, the one unforgivable sin is to be dead.
We are a people of grief and mourning. Left adrift and directionless
Spring struggles to come into our lives but the winter clings around us It might as well snow and snow again . All is lost like a frozen Wolly Mammoth in the advancing glacier
We May lament Oh happy Robin clothed in Red waist coat whose song heralds the birth of spring where art thou. Have you abandoned us for the warmth of the south, where you to fly back to us on to herald the End of the Winter .
When our laughter fades we are still faced in the cold reality of life that all of who we are all that we have created will pass away. In the words of the great bard William Shakespear
"O! Grief hath chang’d me since you saw me last,
And careful hours with time’s deformed hand
Have written strange defeatures in my face:
"Fates, we will know your pleasures.
That we shall die, we know. 'Tis but the time,
And drawing days out, that men stand upon."
"Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:"
Wait, don’t reach for that tissue yet.
Into the gloom there creeps light dispelling the darkness, Into this somber reality, creeps a fact that defies reality and the natural order, A breeze blows, there is a breath, a life giving breath. Old, dead, dry bones take on flesh, move are alive. Jesus comes out to the cemetery and in a loud, conquering voice, shouts Lazarus, come out!
A voice shouts to us beyond time and space, People of God awake for your light has come. Come out Jesus says and then commands un-bind him, and let him go.
Jesus speaks to all that enshrouds us, our grief our fear, our greed, our self-pity our pride fullness our vanity, our very mortality and says Unbind them and let them go
Jesus does not whisper he does not call gently he with a loud voice shouts. “Come out.”
He is shouting in order to overcome the strong, seemingly invincible voice of fear. He shouts so that we might hear and look up, and live.
Why do you think Jesus goes toward Jerusalem with such certainty with such serenity? And confidence. He walks confident in the power of God, the giver of life, to give life even in the face of death. He walks not alone. Neither do we. Hear the voice; heed the words.
Come out rise up be unbound live life.
In all that we do as a people of a living God, in all that we do as a community of faith let us do it with that same confidence and unbounded joy of living. Life is not a burden. (it can feel that way) but ultimately I think life is something that should be grasped and enjoyed and shared. As we travel this road to Jerusalem, here deep in Lent, perhaps these words of life strike us even more forcefully than if they had been spoken during the great fifty days of Easter. This is a sample of the Easter event. Just as Jesus raised Lazarus from the Tomb so Jesus comes to bring life to those of us who live in the valley of the shadow of Death.
In the many deaths we die each day, in the darkness of life’s winter, Jesus calls to us to come out, and he unbinds all that enshrouds us and bids us to greet the new day calls us to shed that which binds us and embrace the possibilities that God gives us in the creative motion of the Holy Spirit. In every moment there is the possibility for a different future, in every moment faith moves us towards that future which is calling.
In Every moment God reaches out to us and lifts us up. Jesus is the spring that brings new life after winter’s chill. His is the voice of the well sung Robin calling us from our binding. In Christ we find the promise that is made to us we see that we can never be alone that in live in death in live after death God is with us. Thanks be to God.
Prayers of the people
Blessed and present God we come to you as your people in this time.
A Jesus called out to Lazarus so to we pray that you will set your hand upon us and call us out of our fears unbinding us to be confident that you are with us. Give us such grace at this time to calm our minds and be open to the presence of your Holy Spirit in our lives.
There is much in this world that binds us, wraps us and hold us still. Lose of physical and mental health. Lose of dreams and confidence. Lose of security and living in fear. We pray that your spirit move upon all those that call to you that they may be unbound by that which had holds them. We thank you for your wisdom and presence in the challenges that we face both as individuals and as a community of Faith. We are thankful for those moments that your spirit has intervened and given us guidance. We here your call and we ask for strength to be able walk with those who are a part of our lives. We hold them in our hearts and name them before you.
As comes the breath of spring so your spirit moves among us making differences in our lives. We entrust to you our own personal prayers of petition and thanksgiving spoken in the silence of our hearts knowing that in your time and in your way they shall be answered. We offer them through Christ who binds us as one as we say Our Father…
Offering
We give thee but thy own. The work of the Church continues and there are three ways you can continue to support that work. Consider using PAR, use the donate button on our Web Site or drop your gift at the Manse. Let us make our offering and give thanks.
All Bring life, O God, to the program and mission of this church, which we support through our offerings. May our giving bring life and hope in many “ Valleys of dry bones As Christ sacrificed life for us, so may each of us commit ourselves to carrying forward the work to which we are called in our own day. Bless us and all the gifts we bring, in Jesus' name amen.
Commissioning and Blessing
One: Where Christ walks
All we will follow
One Where Christ stumbles
All We will stop
One Where Christ cries
All We will listen
One Where Christ suffers
All we will hurt
One When Christ dies
All We will bow our heads in sorrow
One When Christ rises again in glory
All We will share his endless joy
One There is no other way
All Christ is the only way.
One: Now may the blessing of God travel with you, May the teachings of Christ Illuminate you path and may the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit lead you forward. All Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, it is now, and ever shall be world without end, Amen.
We Shall go out with hope of resurrection
Yesterdaywe honour our heritage.
Todaywe know that we are not alone,that we live in God's world.
Tomorrowwith God,we will discoverthe undiscovered country.
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