Worship Service
Services
Lectionary Theme: Jesus Christ who gives new vision to life The sixth Sunday of Lent
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Ezekiel 37:1-14 First Lesson
1. The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.
2. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry.
3. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”
4. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
5. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.
6. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
7. So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.
8. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.
9. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”
10. I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
11. Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’
12. Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.
13. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people.
14. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.” The Two Sticks
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Acts 9:10-18 Second Lesson
10. Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.”
11. The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying,
12. and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.”
13. But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem;
14. and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.”
15. But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel;
16. I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”
17. So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
18. And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized,
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Philippians 3:7-16 Epistle
7. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.
8. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
9. and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.
10. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death,
11. if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Pressing toward the Goal
12. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
13. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
14. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
15. Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you.
16. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.
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Luke 18:35-43 Gospel