Thursday evening May 18

Friday evening
Wednesday evening

Preparation

Opening response

Favor us, Lord, and deliver us.
Lord, come quickly and help us.

In your resurrection, O Christ,
let heaven and earth rejoice. Alleluia.

Prayer of thanksgiving

Blessed are you, Sovereign Lord,
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
to you be glory and praise forever.
From the deep waters of death
you brought your people to new birth
by raising your Son to life in triumph.
Through him dark death has been destroyed
and radiant life is everywhere restored.
As you call us out of darkness into his marvelous light
may our lives reflect his glory
and our lips repeat the endless song.
Blessed be God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Blessed be God forever.

That this evening may be holy, good and peaceful,
let us pray with one heart and mind.

Silence is kept.

As our evening prayer rises before you, O God,
so may your mercy come down upon us
to cleanse our hearts
and set us free to sing your praise
now and forever.
Amen.

Hymn

Where Shall My Wondering Soul Begin?

Charles Wesley
           
Where shall my wondering soul begin?
How shall I all to heaven aspire?
A slave redeemed from death and sin,
A brand plucked from eternal fire,
How shall I equal triumphs raise,
And sing my great Deliverer’s praise!

O how shall I the goodness tell,
Father, which thou to me hast showed,
That I, a child of wrath, and hell,
Should now be called a child of God!
Should know, should feel my sins forgiven,
Blest with this antepast of heaven!

And shall I slight my Father’s love,
Or basely fear his gifts to own?
Unmindful of his favors prove?
Shall I the hallowed cross to shun
Refuse his righteousness to impart
By hiding it within my heart?

No—though the ancient dragon rage
And call forth all his hosts to war,
Though earth’s self-righteous sons engage;
Them, and their god alike I dare:
Jesus the sinner’s friend proclaim,
Jesus, to sinners still the same.

Outcasts of men, to you I call,
Harlots and publicans, and thieves!
He spreads his arms to embrace you all;
Sinners alone his grace receives:
No need of him the righteous have,
He came the lost to seek and save!

Come all ye Magdalens in lust,
Ye ruffians fell in murders old;
Repent, and live: despair and trust!
Jesus for you to death was sold;
Though hell protest, and earth repine,
He died for crimes like yours—and mine.

Come O my guilty brethren come,
Groaning beneath your load of sin!
His bleeding heart shall make you room,
His open side shall take you in.
He calls you now, invites you home—
Come, O my guilty brethren, come!

For you the purple current flowed
In pardons from his wounded side:
Languished for you the eternal God,
For you the Prince of Glory died.
Believe; and all your guilt is forgiven,
Only believe—and yours is heaven.

Confession of sin

Seek the Lord when he can still be found;
call him while he is yet near.
Let the wicked abandon their ways
and the sinful their schemes.
Let them return to the Lord so that he may have mercy on them,
to our God, because he is generous with forgiveness.

cf Isaiah 55

A time of silence and self-examination may be kept.

Lord God,
we have sinned against you;
we have committed evil in your sight.
We are sorry and repent.
Have mercy on us according to your faithful love.
Wash us completely clean of our guilt; purify us from our sin.
Put a new, faithful spirit deep inside us,
and return the joy of your salvation to us
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

cf Psalm 51

May the Father of all mercies
cleanse us from our sins,
and restore us in his image
to the praise and glory of his name,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Bless the Lord,
because he has listened to our request for mercy.
Therefore our hearts will rejoice
and we will thank him with our song.

cf Psalm 28:7,9

The Word of God

Psalm 104

Refrain:
I will sing to the Lord as long as I live.

Let my whole being bless the Lord!
    Lord my God, how fantastic you are!
    You are clothed in glory and grandeur!
You wear light like a robe;
    you open the skies like a curtain.
You build your lofty house on the waters;
    you make the clouds your chariot,
    going around on the wings of the wind.
You make the winds your messengers;
    you make fire and flame your ministers.
You established the earth on its foundations
    so that it will never ever fall.
You covered it with the watery deep like a piece of clothing;
    the waters were higher than the mountains!
But at your rebuke they ran away;
    they fled in fear at the sound of your thunder.
They flowed over the mountains,
    streaming down the valleys
    to the place you established for them.
You set a boundary they cannot cross
    so they’ll never again cover the earth.

You put gushing springs into dry riverbeds.
    They flow between the mountains,
        providing water for every wild animal—
        the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
Overhead, the birds in the sky make their home,
    chirping loudly in the trees.
From your lofty house, you water the mountains.
    The earth is filled full by the fruit of what you’ve done.
You make grass grow for cattle;
    you make plants for human farming
        in order to get food from the ground,
        and wine, which cheers people’s hearts,
        along with oil, which makes the face shine,
        and bread, which sustains the human heart.
The Lord’s trees are well watered—
    the cedars of Lebanon, which God planted,
    where the birds make their nests,
    where the stork has a home in the cypresses.
The high mountains belong to the mountain goats;
    the ridges are the refuge of badgers.
God made the moon for the seasons,
    and the sun too, which knows when to set.
You bring on the darkness and it is night,
    when every forest animal prowls.
The young lions roar for their prey,
    seeking their food from God.
When the sun rises, they gather together
    and lie down in their dens.
Then people go off to their work,
    to do their work until evening.

Lord, you have done so many things!
    You made them all so wisely!
The earth is full of your creations!
And then there’s the sea, wide and deep,
    with its countless creatures—
    living things both small and large.
There go the ships on it,
    and Leviathan, which you made, plays in it!
All your creations wait for you
    to give them their food on time.
When you give it to them, they gather it up;
    when you open your hand, they are filled completely full!
But when you hide your face, they are terrified;
    when you take away their breath,
    they die and return to dust.
When you let loose your breath, they are created,
    and you make the surface of the ground brand-new again.

Let the Lord’s glory last forever!
    Let the Lord rejoice in all he has made!
He has only to look at the earth, and it shakes.
    God just touches the mountains, and they erupt in smoke.

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
    I will sing praises to my God while I’m still alive.
Let my praise be pleasing to him;
    I’m rejoicing in the Lord!
Let sinners be wiped clean from the earth;
    let the wicked be no more.
But let my whole being bless the Lord!
    Praise the Lord!

Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.

Refrain:
I will sing to the Lord as long as I live.

Psalm prayer

Creator God,
send your Holy Spirit to renew this living world,
that the whole creation,
in its groaning and striving,
may know your loving purpose
and come to reflect your glory;
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Old Testament reading
Numbers 13:1-3, 17-33

The Lord spoke to Moses: Send out men to explore the land of Canaan, which I’m giving to the Israelites. Send one man from each ancestral tribe, each a chief among them. So Moses sent them out from the Paran desert according to the Lord’s command. All the men were leaders among the Israelites.

When Moses sent them out to explore the land of Canaan, he said to them, “Go up there into the arid southern plain and into the mountains. You must inspect the land. What is it like? Are the people who live in it strong or weak, few or many? Is the land in which they live good or bad? Are the towns in which they live camps or fortresses? Is the land rich or poor? Are there trees in it or not? Be courageous and bring back the land’s fruit.” It was the season of the first ripe grapes.

They went up and explored the land from the Zin desert to Rehob, near Lebo-hamath. They went up into the arid southern plain and entered Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of the Anakites, lived. (Hebron was built seven years before Tanis in Egypt.) Then they entered the Cluster ravine, cut down from there a branch with one cluster of grapes, and carried it on a pole between them. They also took pomegranates and figs. That place was called the Cluster ravine because of the cluster of grapes that the Israelites cut down from there.

They returned from exploring the land after forty days. They went directly to Moses, Aaron, and the entire Israelite community in the Paran desert at Kadesh. They brought back a report to them and to the entire community and showed them the land’s fruit. Then they gave their report: “We entered the land to which you sent us. It’s actually full of milk and honey, and this is its fruit. There are, however, powerful people who live in the land. The cities have huge fortifications. And we even saw the descendants of the Anakites there. The Amalekites live in the land of the arid southern plain; the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the mountains; and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan.”

Now Caleb calmed the people before Moses and said, “We must go up and take possession of it, because we are more than able to do it.”

But the men who went up with him said, “We can’t go up against the people because they are stronger than we.” They started a rumor about the land that they had explored, telling the Israelites, “The land that we crossed over to explore is a land that devours its residents. All the people we saw in it are huge men. We saw there the Nephilim (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We saw ourselves as grasshoppers, and that’s how we appeared to them.”

Silence may be kept.

New Testament reading
Luke 5:27-39

Afterward, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at a kiosk for collecting taxes. Jesus said to him, “Follow me.”

Levi got up, left everything behind, and followed him. Then Levi threw a great banquet for Jesus in his home. A large number of tax collectors and others sat down to eat with them. The Pharisees and their legal experts grumbled against his disciples. They said, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

Jesus answered, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. I didn’t come to call righteous people but sinners to change their hearts and lives.”

Some people said to Jesus, “The disciples of John fast often and pray frequently. The disciples of the Pharisees do the same, but your disciples are always eating and drinking.”

Jesus replied, “You can’t make the wedding guests fast while the groom is with them, can you? The days will come when the groom will be taken from them, and then they will fast.”

Then he told them a parable. “No one tears a patch from a new garment to patch an old garment. Otherwise, the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t match the old garment. Nobody pours new wine into old wineskins. If they did, the new wine would burst the wineskins, the wine would spill, and the wineskins would be ruined. Instead, new wine must be put into new wineskins. No one who drinks a well-aged wine wants new wine, but says, ‘The well-aged wine is better.’”

Silence may be kept.

Gospel canticle
The Magnificat (The Song of Mary)

Refrain:
The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Alleluia.

With all my heart I glorify the Lord!
In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior.
He has looked with favor on the low status of his servant.
Look! From now on, everyone will consider me highly favored
because the mighty one has done great things for me.
Holy is his name.
He shows mercy to everyone,
from one generation to the next,
who honors him as God.
He has shown strength with his arm.
He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations.
He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty-handed.
He has come to the aid of his servant Israel,
remembering his mercy, 
just as he promised to our ancestors, 
to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants forever.

Luke 1:46-55

Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.

Refrain:
The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Alleluia.

Brief silence.

The Apostle’s Creed

Let us unite in this historic confession of the Christian faith: 

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

Prayers

Thanksgiving and intercession

Thanksgiving may be made for the day.

Intercessions are offered
for peace
for individuals and their needs

Prayers may include the following concerns:

The people of God, that they may proclaim the risen Lord
God’s creation, that the peoples of the earth may meet their responsibility to care
Those in despair and darkness, that they may find the hope and light of Christ
Those in fear of death, that they may find faith through the resurrection
Prisoners and captives

Other intercessions and supplications may be offered as the Holy Spirit leads. 

Response

Father, hear our prayer,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Silence may be kept.

Collect of the day

Almighty God,
who through your only begotten Son Jesus Christ
have overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
grant that, as by your grace going before us
   you put into our minds good desires,
so by your continual help
we may bring them to good effect;
through Jesus Christ our risen Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer

Rejoicing in God’s new creation, as our Savior taught us, so we pray

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and forever.
Amen.

Conclusion

May the risen Christ grant us the joys of eternal life.
Amen.