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Jesus is Gloring for you and for me. Sweet tend. Jesus is hol.

I want Jesus to walk with me. I want Jesus to walk with me. Jesus to walk with me.

My trials are in my trials with me. My heart is great. Jesus to walk with me.

When I intend As you leave worship this evening, I hope you'll stop out in the back and pick up your votive candle to use in the Lenton season. Remember the notice says the creative people here took one of the old Pascal candles, melted it down, and created votive candles for all of you who would like it. It's available in the back.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. and also >> let us pray together. >> Almighty and everliving God, you hate nothing that you have made and you forgive the sins of all who are penitent.

Create in us new and honest hearts, so that truly repenting of our sins, we may receive from you, the God of all mercy, full pardon and forgiveness through your son Jesus Christ, our savior and lord, who lives and reigns with you, Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Please be seated.

A reading from the prophet Joel. Blow the trumpet in Zion. Sound the alarm on my holy mountain.

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming. It is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness. Like blackness spread upon the mountains, a great and powerful army comes.

Their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come. Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. Rend your hearts and not your clothing.

Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him? A grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God.

Blow the trumpet in Zion. Consecrate a fast. Call a solemn assembly.

Gather the people. Consecrate the congregation. Assemble the aged.

Gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her canopy. Between the vestibule and the altar, let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep.

Let them say, "Spare your people, O Lord, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, where is their God?" >> The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

We continue with the psalm. Have mercy on me. Love your great offenses.

Wash me through my wickedness and cleanse me from my know me. So you are justified when you speak and your judgement on me. I was born in wickedness and I shall be clean.

Wash me joy and gladness that you have broken. Have mercy on me. Oh God.

from my sicortal cast me away from your presence and take your holy spirit resto. to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with your bountites to open and sinners. shall be God and my tongue shall sing of your rightous mouthclaim your praise for you take your delight I will give it the sacrifice of God and broken heart to your God.

For he is and mercful. to anger and steadfast love. >> The Holy Gospel according to St.

Matthew the 6th chapter. >> Glory to you, Lord. Jesus said to the disciples, "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them, for then you have no reward from your father in heaven." So whenever you give arms, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others.

Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give arms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your arms may be done in secret. And your father, who sees in secret, will reward you.

And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret.

And your father who sees in secret will reward you. And whenever you fast, do not look dismal like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.

But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others, but by your father who is in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break in and steal.

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The Gospel of the Lord.

>> Praise to you, O Christ. >> God loves each one of us so much. Why do we take that grace so lightly?

Ash Wednesday, like Mel Gibson's movie two decades ago, the passion of Christ begins in darkness. Gibson's movie begins in the darkness in the Garden of Gethsemane in the early hours of what we now call Good Friday. For ancient prophet Juel, in tonight's first lesson, it's a darkness that engulfs the land of Judah.

This darkness is really a cloud of swarming locusts so intense that it blocks out the sun. A devastating horde of locusts that consumes everything in sight. A very long extreme drought had already destroyed any hope of crops.

Now the locust plague destroyed the little that had managed to survive the drought. Just when you thought your situation, whatever the circumstances, couldn't get any worse, they did. Maybe there have been times when the circumstances in your personal life made you feel that particular way.

Despite your best efforts, the break you desperately hoped would soon come never did. Circumstances beyond your control beat and battered you. But somehow you manage simply to keep going with very little energy, with very little hope, clinging to the possibility that things would turn around.

That's how you were when the next wave of catastrophe hit. Some 400 years before the birth of Christ, Prophet Joel saw the devastating events in nature as a prophetic warning of what lay ahead for his people in the southern kingdom of Judah and the city of Jerusalem. When the circumstances of life got so bad that it seemed as though they couldn't get worse, the people of Joel's day looked beyond the present day to the day of the Lord, as they had come to call it.

That day, people believed, would be the time when God, the Lord, would come and he would intervene in human history. He would write all the wrongs and the injustices that had been done to the Hebrew people. That he would punish all the enemies of God's chosen people and shower great blessings on them.

It didn't matter what the Hebrews had done or failed to do. They were God's chosen people. God was obligated to take care of them.

They would be blessed regardless of what they had done or failed to do. From out of the darkness of the devouring cloud of locust comes the stridident voice of God's messenger, the prophet Joel. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, he warned, for the day of the Lord is coming.

It is near, a day of clouds and thick darkness. Joel had a very different understanding of what the coming of the day of the Lord will be. What does Joseph, what does Joel urge his people?

Return to the Lord your God with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. Rend your hearts and not your garments. God loves each one of us so much.

Why do we take that grace so lightly? 21 centuries later, from out of the darkness, this time from the production set of Mel Gibson's movie, came another voice. I love him more than I ever knew possible.

I love him more than my wife, my family. There were times, the voice said, when I was up there on the cross and I could hardly speak. That's James Cavisel's response to author John Meechum's question.

You're Catholic. Mechum had asked, did playing Christ deepen your faith? His effort to portray the final 12 hours of Jesus earthly life came at great pain and at great price for Cavisel.

Continual hyperothermia is so excruciating. Cavisel said I connected to a place that I would have never ever gone. He was referring to his experience of hanging on a cross on a 1,000 foot Italian cliff with 30 knot winds whipping his his loin clogged body while a film crew below huddled in parkas.

or the experience of being struck by lightning while faming the brief flashback to Jesus sermon on the mount. He threw his shoulder out of joint. He contracted pneumonia all while attempting to faithfully portray the sufferings of Jesus.

Caviso, despite his personal pain and his suffering to play the role, came to the place where St. Paul would have us all come on this Ash Wednesday. I love Jesus more than I ever knew possible.

His conviction prompted St. Paul's plea to fellow Christians in the church at Corenth and to us tonight. We urge you, Paul wrote, not to accept the grace of God in vain.

Paul's lifechanging experience is reflected in that letter to Christians at Corenth and everywhere. In Christ, Paul wrote, "God reconciled to himself through Christ Jesus and has entrusted us with a ministry of reconciliation." God loves each one of us so much. Why do we take that grace so lightly?

That was ancient Joel's distress over his people. That was missionary apostle Paul's distress as a report of the conduct and the activity of so many in the church at Corenth. That was his congregation he had established.

The way they were living, the way they worshiped, their attitudes and their actions in the church and in the community were evidence. Paul said earlier in his letters that they had taken God's incomprehensible act of love to redeem this fallen world for granted. Paul's timeless message is the basis for our worship tonight.

We urge you, he admonishes us as he did the church in Corenth so very long ago, do not accept the grace of God in vain. Ash Wednesday 2026 is a call to each of us once again to repent of all in our life that separates us from God and from one another to pray that God will renew in each of us a right spirit that God's spirit will lead us to return to the Lord our God. This Linton journey began with the prophet Joel in the darkness of a locust shrouded Jewish land.

The passion of Christ for our Lord Jesus and for the movie began in the darkness of the garden of Gethsemane. Both will lead us to the same place. Golgtha place of the skull.

They called it the garbage dump outside the city wall of Jerusalem on Good Friday. Commit yourself to this Linton journey with your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. By the time we reach Good Friday, I hope that none of us will be burdened with a feeling of guilt or shame because that's not what Lent is all about.

That's not what our Lord's passion, his suffering, and his death accomplished. The journey ahead is a testimony to a love that will not let us go. to God Almighty who loved this world with so much, who identified with the plight of this fallen world so completely that God in Christ willingly chose the path of great suffering and incruciatingly painful death to redeem the whole creation.

By the time we reach Good Friday, the Hope Cavisel's testimony has taken fresh root down in your heart and soul. I love Jesus more than I ever knew possible. God loves us each so much.

Why would we take that grace so lightly? Amen. The cross of Christ our glor of time.

All the light of s story of wine. When the walls often feel the never The cross for me and joy. The bliss is light and love for us to the day and blessing.

pain and pleasure by the cross. San Jo. Friends in Christ, today with the whole church, we enter the time of remembering Jesus Passover from death to life and our life in Christ is renewed.

We begin this holy season by acknowledging our need for repentance and for God's mercy. We are created to experience joy in communion with God, to love one another, and to live in harmony with creation. But our sinful rebellion separates us from God, our neighbors, and creation so that we do not enjoy the life our creator intended.

As disciples of Jesus, we are called to a discipline that contends against evil and resist whatever leads us away from love of God and neighbor. I invite you therefore to the discipline of Lent, self-examination and repentance, prayer and fasting, sacrificial giving and works of love strengthened by the gifts of word and sacrament. Let us continue our journey through these 40 days to the great three days of Jesus death and resurrection.

Most holy and merciful God, we confess to you and to one another and before the whole company of heaven that we have sinned by our own fault, by our own fault, >> by our own grievious fault in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart and mind and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

We have not forgiven others as we have been forgiven. >> Have mercy on us, oh God. >> We have shut our ears to your call to serve as Christ served us.

We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved your Holy Spirit. >> Have mercy on us, oh God.

>> Our past unfaithfulness, the pride, envy, hypocrisy, and apathy that have inflicted our lives. We confess to you. Have mercy on us, oh God.

>> Our self-indulgent appetites and ways and our exploitation of other people. We confess to you. >> Have mercy on us >> our negligence in prayer and worship and our failure to share the faith that is in us.

We confess to you. >> Have mercy on us, oh God. our neglect of human need and suffering and our indifference to injustice and cruelty.

We confess to you. >> Have mercy on us >> our false judgments, our uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors and our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us. We confess to you.

Have mercy on us, oh God. >> Our waste and pollution of your creation and our lack of concern for those who come after us, we confess to you. >> Have mercy on us, oh God.

>> Restore us, oh God, and let your anger depart from us. >> Have mercy on us, God. Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the earth.

May these ashes be a sign of our mortality and penitence, reminding us that only by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ are we given eternal life through the same Jesus Christ, our savior and lord. Please be seated. I invite those who would like to receive the imposition of ashes to come forward.

If you want them imposed on your hand, please extend your hand. If you don't extend your hand, I'll assume you want them on your forehead. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. >> Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. >> Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

>> Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. >> Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

>> Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

>> Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. >> Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. >> Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. >> Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. >> Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

>> Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. >> Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

>> Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. >> Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Shall I Glor.

Glory. Glory to his name. Sacrifice and Jewels of S.

for your mercy to Holy God. the home to those in the past of peace. This is pleasing.

How shall I name God? Accomplish in us, oh God, the work of your salvation. >> By the cross and passion of your son, our savior, >> bring us with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection.

Almighty God, have mercy on us, forgive us all our sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen us in all goodness, and by the power of your Holy Spirit, keep us in eternal life. >> Amen. Reconciled by God's mercy and sustained by God's presence, let us pray for the world and its needs.

Guide your church, oh God. Accompany all Christians in this season of repentance and renew our faith in the riches of grace you give to us in baptism. Hear us, oh God.

>> Your mercy is great. >> Heal this earth, oh God. Satisfy the needs of every parched place, every diverse ecosystem, every suffering creature.

Though all return to dust, grant beauty and purpose to each living thing. Hear us, oh God. >> Your mercy is great.

>> Restore the nations, oh God. Let your healing spring let your healing spring up quickly across the world. Give all authority, the will to lose the bonds of injustice, and let any who are oppressed go free.

Hear us, oh God. >> Your mercy is great. >> Deliver your people, oh God.

Comfort any whose hearts are rent by grief. Uphold any who are sick. Bring food to those who hunger.

And give housing to all without shelter. Hear us, oh God. >> Your mercy is great.

>> Bless this assembly, oh God. Reconcile us to one another and to you. Strengthen our resolve to fast from evil.

Open our hands in sharing and quicken our prayer. Hear us, oh God. >> Your mercy is great.

>> Hold us forever, oh God. We thank you for all who now know their treasure in heaven and for all who on earth proclaimed your abounding steadfast love. >> Hear us, oh God.

>> Your mercy is great. >> Receive our prayers, oh God, through Jesus Christ, our strength and salvation. >> Amen.

>> The peace of the Lord be with you always. >> And also with you. Please be seated.

of blessing a harvest from the seeds that were filled with the bread of life. Let us pray together. Gracious provider, >> you set your immense treasures among us, opening your heart to the world.

As we prepare to feast on your bountiful love, deepen our commitment to sharing those treasures with others through our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. >> The Lord be with you.

>> And also with you. >> Lift up your hearts. >> We lift them to the Lord.

>> Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. >> It is right to give our thanks and praise. It is indeed right, our duty, and our joy that we should at all times and in all places give thanks and praise to you, Almighty and merciful God, through our Savior Jesus Christ.

You called your people to cleanse their hearts and prepare with joy for the pascal feast that renewed in the gift of baptism, we may come to the fullness of your grace. And so with all the choirs of angels, with the church on earth and the hosts of heaven, we praise your name and join their unending hymn. Holy, holy, holy and earth are full of your gloryana in the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord in the highest. >> Holy, mighty, and merciful Lord, heaven and earth are full of your glory. In great love, you sent to us Jesus, your son, who reached out to heal the sick and suffering, who preached good news to the poor, and who on the cross opened his arms to all.

In the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat. This is my body given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me.

Again, after supper, he took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it for all to drink, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for you and for all people, for the forgiveness of sin. Do this for the remembrance of me. Remembering therefore his death, resurrection, and ascension, we await his coming in glory.

Pour out upon us the spirit of your love, O Lord, and unite the wills of all who share this heavenly feast, the body and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord. to whom with you and the Holy Spirit be all honor and glory now and forever. >> Amen.

>> Lord, remember us in your kingdom. And teach us to pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Come to the table. Feast on God's goodness and mercy. >> Thanks be to God.

The body of Christ given for you. >> The blood of Christ shed for you. The body of Christ given for you.

The body of Christ given for you. The body of Christ given for you. A body of Christ given for you.

>> The body of Christ given for you. The body of Christ given for you. The body of Christ given for you.

The body of Christ given for you. The body of Christ given for you. The body of Christ.

given for you. The body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen you. The body of Christ given for you.

The body of Christ given for you. The body of Christ given for you. The body of Christ given for you.

The body of Christ given for you. The body of Christ given for you. >> The body of Christ given for you.

>> The body of Christ given for you. >> The body of Christ given for you. >> The body of Christ given for you.

>> A body of Christ given for you. The body of Christ given for you. >> The body of Christ given for you.

>> The body of Christ given for you. The body of Christ given for you. >> The body of Christ given for you.

The body of Christ given for you. >> The body of Christ given for you. >> The body of Christ given for you.

>> The body of Christ given for you. The body of Christ given for you. The body of Christ given for you.

>> The body of Christ given for you. The body of Christ given for you. >> The body of Christ given for you.

>> The body of Christ given for you. The body of Christ given for you. >> The body of Christ given for you.

>> Body of Christ given for you. >> The body of Christ given for you. The body of Christ given for you.

>> The body of Christ given for you is Amen. >> Amen. The body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen you and keep you in his grace.

Amen. Let us pray together. God of our salvation, we give you thanks for this meal that restores our souls, reconciles us to you, and strengthens us for the journey through the body and blood of your son.

May we become Christ's body in the world, bearing witness to your love for all creation through Jesus Christ, our savior and lord. Amen. receive the blessing of the Holy Trinity.

God who calls all things into existence, Jesus Christ who redeems us, and the Holy Spirit whose breath sustains creation. Bless you now and forever. Amen.

Glory days with songs of praise. to whom all things were made and has loave. Save the Lord.

Elasting came and flame. Daniel trained his sighted from the lion's might. The bridegroom's friend became the herald of Messiah.

Then grant, oh God, that we may return to fast and prayer to you, strengthen with your grace. Give us joy to see your face. We are sent in peace to care for others as God cares for us.