“Walking with Jesus”
Lenten Opportunities

We are providing opportunities for each of you to take time for meditation, reflection, prayer and missions and  invite YOU to “Walk with Jesus” by inserting the opportunities listed below into your life not with the attitude of “giving up something” for Lent but rather for “growing closer to Our Lord” during Lent.  Please plan to attend:

• A Service of Reflection and Meditation will be offered on Thursdays during Lent at 6:00 p.m. in the  Evans Chapel.  This brief gathering will be a time to focus our hearts and minds on scripture, prayer, and silence.  During Lent, we invite you to consider the discipline of taking the time as you travel home from work, prepare for a board meeting, or come for a rehearsal to enter into the calm and quiet of God's house and join us for prayer and reflection.
     

• For the entire Lenten period the Labyrinth will be set up in Cornell Lounge for your use singly or as a family or group.  The labyrinth is an ancient tool for prayer, used by medieval people as a symbolic journey to the Holy Land. This is a wonderful experience for children and youth, and people of all ages! Finger labyrinths will be available for those who do not feel comfortable walking the labyrinth.
     

• Home devotions will be provided each week during Lent in the Sunday bulletin, listing Lenten opportunities for each week.
     

• Wednesdays, February 13 and 27 and March 5 and 12 there will be a Lenten Bible study for adults at 7:00 p.m. following the Wednesday Night Live dinner.
     

• On Palm Sunday, March 16 from 4:00-6:00 p.m. we will again have the Walk Thru Holy Week and Hands on Museum.
     

• Maundy Thursday, March 20 at 6:00 p.m. there will be a soup supper followed by a worship service at 7:30 p.m.
     

• Good Friday, March 21st at Noon: there will be a community Good Friday worship service at First Congregational Church of Royal Oak.
     

• Good Friday, March 21st at 7:30 pm in our sanctuary will be our very dramatic "Tenebrae Service"--a service of light and darkness.
     

• Easter Sunday, March 23rd:  at 9:00 am and 10:30 am with special music we will celebrate the joy of the resurrection.
    
    

A Lenten Devotion

The week of March 16, 2008 ~ Passion/Palm Sunday

Our theme for Lent this year is “Walking with Jesus.”
Our Scripture lessons for this week are:
Matthew 21:1-11; Psalm 118:1-2,19-29; Philippians 2:5-11;
Psalm 31:9-16; Matthew 26:14-27:66

Our Scripture passages this week invite us to walk with Jesus through the events of Holy Week to the cross itself.  As Jesus entered Jerusalem a crowd welcomes Jesus with honor and joy, spreading branches and their garments before him on the road—tokens of honor.  They shout “Hosanna!” Originally in Hebrew this was a cry to God:  “Save us!”  But here it is an expression of joyous praise to Jesus, the Son of David, who indeed saves us. 

As we journey through this week, the crowd changes.  Today is a combination of celebrating that praise and Jesus’ entry into the holy city, but also remembering that his entrance will lead to his “passion,” his suffering and death on the cross for us.  A crowd cries “Hosanna!” on Palm Sunday, but a crowd cries “Crucify Him” on so-called “Good Friday.”

Barbara Brown Taylor, in an article entitled “The Three-Day Miracle” writes about why people have called the day of Jesus’ crucifixion “Good Friday”:  “It is their reminder that they are not bad people just because they are hurting.  The hurt may not be God’s punishment after all.  It may simply go with being alive.  Who knows? It may even be a sign that they are doing something right…

“Faith was consummate on Friday.  On Friday, against all odds, one human being remembered who he was and why he had been born.  Nothing that was said persuaded him to forget that.  Nothing that was done to him made him lose consciousness.  He was alive until the moment he died, talking to the God who would not talk back.  Is there any other definition of faith?”

She concludes: “On Friday faith was born.  On Sunday it was confirmed, and forever after some of us have felt more at home on one day than the other.  There is nothing wrong with that, as far as I can tell, since they are both handles on the same mystery.  Christ has died.  Christ is risen.  Christ will come again.  Wherever you come in on the story, that is how it ends.” 

May God be with us as we journey through this week, and may God bring us together to the end!  Amen!

Holy Week Schedule

The week of March 16, 2008

PALM SUNDAY - March 16 - 9:00 and 10:30 a.m.
Children’s Palm Parade and One Great Hour of Sharing collection
4:00-6:00 p.m. - Hands-On Museum and Walk Through Holy Week

MAUNDY THURSDAY - March 20
6:00 p.m. - soup supper in Kirkman Fellowship Hall learning about 
the Passover and Last Supper
7:30 p.m. Worship in the sanctuary with communion (childcare available)

GOOD FRIDAY - March 21
The Royal Oak Pastor’s Association invites you to a community
Good Friday service from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. at
First Congregational Church of Royal Oak
(1314 Northwood Blvd., Royal Oak, 248-288-4220).
The worship service takes place in two 45-minute portions.
Come for part, or come for all!

Tennebrae Service of Light & Darkness (childcare available)
At 7:30 p.m. in FPCRO sanctuary
Many have said what a dramatic, powerful service this is, as we re-enact
the last day of Jesus’ earthly life.  You won’t want to miss this service.
It prepares us for Easter Sunday in a way that nothing else can.

EASTER SUNDAY - March 23 - 9:00 and 10:30 a.m. -
Easter worship services - both in Sanctuary