This is part of the worship series,
"Via Doloroso—The Way of Sorrows”
Series Introduction
Lent 1 | Lent 2 | Lent 3 | Lent 4 | Lent 5
Palm Sunday | Easter
Third Sunday in Lent
The Via Dolorosa: Don’t Cry
Scripture
Text: Luke 7:11–17
Old Testament Lesson: Psalm 126
New Testament Lesson: 1 Corinthians 1:18–25
Sermon
In this sermon we explored the sorrow that comes to us when Jesus doesn’t meet our expectations, when God doesn’t intervene in our problems the way we think he should. At such times we are tempted to fall away from God.
We began with those apparently hard-hearted words of Christ to the grieving mother, “Don’t cry.” Looking more carefully, we noted that those two words are really a call to believe the gospel— namely, “that God has visited his people” in this man named Jesus. But this visitation was different from what anyone expected, even John the Baptist, who in the very next verses asks, “Should we expect another?” To which Jesus finally replies, “Blessed are those who do not fall away on account of me.”
There is the issue at the heart of this sermon and our lives. How often don’t we fall away from Christ, allow distance to develop between him and us, because he doesn’t meet our expectations?
That raised the question of why Jesus doesn’t meet our expectations. Why did he take the Via Dolorosa rather than the way of power? Why didn’t he fix the world by doing more miracles like the one in Luke 7? Because he came to save the world by what Robert Farrar Capon calls “a deeper, darker, left-handed mystery, at the center of which lay his own death.”
On the way to that death, he paused here in Nain and uttered these two lovely words as a call away from a life dominated by tears. The sermon ended with Psalm 126: “He who goes out weeping, carrying seeds to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.”
Congregational Prayer
This prayer explored our disappointment with God when God doesn’t meet our expectations, when we ask and hope and believe, and still God doesn’t do what the Bible seems to promise he will do when we pray.
Children’s Sermon
A story about not getting something we wanted, but instead something our parents knew we needed, provided a simple introduction to the wisdom and love of our Father in heaven. We ended with a call to trust God because of Jesus, the Man of Sorrows.
Music Suggestions
Gathering
“I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” Bonar
“My Faith Looks Up to Thee” Palmer
“Sing Praise to God, Who Reigns Above” Schütz
Confession and Assurance
“O Christ, the Lamb of God” Agnus Dei
Word
Psalm 126 read responsively, with “Rejoice in the Lord Always” Grotenhuis as a refrain at the beginning, after stanza 3, and at the end.
Response
Anthem: “Blessed They” Brahms (Boosey & Hawkes)
“Abide with Me” Lyte
“O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee” Gladden
