Worship for Holy Week 2022
Saturday: Welcome & Introduction
Friends,
Welcome to this time of scripture reading, music and prayer,
for Holy Week –
the most solemn and significant week of the Christian year.
Today is Saturday of Holy Week.
We will hear a reading from the Old Testament,
followed by music, (Lead me Lord)
then the Gospel reading set for today.
After a time of quiet, short prayers,
from the Church of Scotland’s Book of Common Worship.
Let us pray:
O God, creator of heaven and earth, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so may we await with him the coming of the third day and rise with him to newness of life; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saturday: Old Testament Reading: Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24
3:1 I am one who has seen affliction under the rod of God’s wrath;
3:2 he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light;
3:3 against me alone he turns his hand, again and again, all day long.
3:4 He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones;
3:5 he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;
3:6 he has made me sit in darkness like the dead of long ago.
3:7 He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has put heavy chains on me;
3:8 though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer;
3:9 he has blocked my ways with hewn stones, he has made my paths crooked.
3:19 The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall!
3:20 My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me.
3:21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
3:22 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end;
3:23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
3:24 “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
Saturday: Gospel Reading: Matthew 27:57-66
27:57 When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus.
27:58 He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him.
27:59 So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth
27:60 and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away.
27:61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.
27:62 The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate
27:63 and said, “Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise again.’
27:64 Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception would be worse than the first.”
27:65 Pilate said to them, “You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.”
27:66 So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.
Worship for Holy Week 2022
Saturday: Prayers
Prayers for Holy Saturday
O God, creator of heaven and earth, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so may we await with him the coming of the third day and rise with him to newness of life; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord
For hope
God, ground of our hope,
when we are cast down or dismayed,
keep alive in us your spirit of hope.
Fill us with all joy and peace
as we lead the life of faith,
until, by the power of the Holy Spirit,
we overflow with hope;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Lord’s Prayer & Benediction
Eternal God, rock and refuge:
Abide with us
until we come alive
in the sunrise of your glory. Amen.