Sunday 06 April 2025
5th Sunday of Lent
Welcome!
We know not everyone who is part of Westwood Church is able to be in church on Sunday morning however, we thought it would be good to offer some excerpts from the Sunday morning service. Where we can, we offer parts of the service in text and audio, whichever works best for you. If you want to plug in headphones to your computer, tablet or mobile phone now is a good time to do it ! If you want to offer some comment or feedback just use the comment box at the end of this post.
Your Weekly Church Notices
Scripture
Isaiah 43: 16 – 21
John 12: 1 – 8
Praise – Christ’s is the world
Prayers
Loving God, worthy of all our praise and honour, we come to offer our worship, to be still and know that you are God. Open our eyes to your presence.
You are all good, all holy, merciful and loving. You are faithful and true. So, we lift up our hearts with joy, our voices are lifted in thanksgiving, our hearts express our adoration.
We thank you for this Season of Lent, giving ourselves time in which to slow down, take stock and reflect on the things that really matter. We thank you for this time and place set apart week by week, these special moments when we focus on you and remind ourselves of your living presence.
We thank you that you want to speak to us, teach us, and deepen our relationship with you. Help us in this time to hear your voice, discern your will and experience your love. And when this time in your House draws to a close and we return to our homes, our daily lives, and the world in which we live and move and have our being, may we do so with hope renewed, clarity of vision, and our faith strengthened. Open our eyes to your presence.
Upon your table we have now placed our offering. For we offer to you so much more than words or quiet prayers. We offer of the substance of our living, our resources, our time and talents, our energy. We offer all that we have because you offer to us all that you have. Receive what we bring to the Glory of your Name.
Hear us as we join in the words of the Lord’s Prayer saying…
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 debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory forever. Amen.
Address
I must have still been in my early twenties, still studying for the Ministry when I paid a visit to Pluscarden Abbey near Elgin and what I remember still is the smell of incense and candle smoke that hung in the air, shafts of sunlight from the unique stained glass windows glinting through the smoke, the sound of singing reverberating from the towering stone walls and it told me I was in a place of worship. This was God’s House.
The smell of popcorn reminds us of trips to the cinema. The smell of candyfloss, fried onions and burgers will remind us of the fair ground.
Which of our senses evokes memories of being in God’s presence? After all we use all of our senses to engage with the reality of our surroundings, we surely can use them all to engage with the reality of God.
As we turn to John’s gospel our sense of smell becomes important. We need to hear more than just words that tell a story, we need to respond with our senses.
It is here in John’s gospel that we are made aware that Judas is a common thief; who for some reason was put in charge of the money bag and everyone seemed to know that he skimmed some of the group’s money for himself. It is Judas who makes us aware of the immense generosity of Mary’s actions pouring expensive perfume worth 300 silver coins on Jesus feet. And all Judas sees is a missed opportunity to get his sticky fingers on some of those 300 silver coins. So many contrasts of reaction – Mary so generous, so sensuous, and Judas so utterly money grabbing and dishonest. Yet Mary had good cause to be generous with her perfume. Just a few days earlier her brother Lazarus had died and they had buried him. Jesus came to Mary promising to raise Lazarus from the dead. “There will be an odour” Mary tells Jesus, “for he has been dead four days.” That sweet sharp odour that you cannot properly describe, an odour that speaks of only one thing. But now Mary brings a sweet perfume made of pure nard, the sweet smell of the perfume fills the whole house. This sweet smelling offering is her expression of deep deep gratitude for returning her brother Lazarus to her. Mary’s offering is not in the expense of the perfume but in the pleasure of the sweet smell that fills the house. We cannot escape the fact that the senses of sight and touch and smell are all involved in this moment where Mary worships Jesus.
You know, our Reformed tradition, regrettably, has over the centuries has focussed all response to God in the form of the intellectual, certainly we have downgraded the emotional and sensory response. The traditionally plain interiors of Reformed churches were designed so that nothing would distract us from God but that assumes we come to church with a pre-existing knowledge of the God we come to worship. Our church buildings, being so plain, convey very little of the story of the Christian faith. What can be seen in cross and font, table and pulpit is not explained or given meaning. We are human beings blessed with emotions and senses through which we can experience God and through which we can express our worship of God. So very often emotional and sensory responses carry more meaning and more significance in our daily living than words alone. But we seem to avoid them in church.
Most people have experienced a smell that floods the mind with arresting memories of a person, place or event. Our sense of smell, our emotions and memories are closely related to each other in our make up as human beings. The hospital smell that reminds us of a relatives ill-health. The sound of the dentist drill that makes our pulse quicken and stomach churn.
Mary’s gift emits an aroma that saturates the house and the senses of everyone there. How does that passionate aroma persist even today? What is it in our living out of the Christian faith that fills our senses? What real-life experiences does Jesus’ death forever define, like a scent we never forget?”
Praise – Lord make us servants
Prayers for Others
Marine Le Pen
Our week began with French Far- Right leader, Marine Le Pen being sentenced for embezzlement of European funds and banned from running for public office for five years.
The guilty verdict came as no surprise but the ban from running for public office for five years has shocked some in the political world. Not just from far-right supporters and colleagues but from the political left as well; fearing that democracy will not be served when a popular leader has been removed. And to an extent they might be correct. But what about integrity in political leaders? What about honesty? What about standards of behaviour and trust? Or maybe the French judicial system has just created a martyr for the far-right.
Sitting here in our quiet corner of West Coast Scotland we are somewhat sheltered from the massive changes in outlook taking place across Europe yet, what hear we hear with concern, because peace is strained, division is growing and the Christian message is diminishing. Hate and fear, protest and prejudice are taking the place of love and mercy, kindness and compassion.
Lord hear us in our prayers over rising tensions in Europe and across the globe…
The Perfect Storm
Crisis in Myanmar following a massive earthquake. 2000 have died, thousands more injured. Even before the earthquake Myanmar was one of the worst affected countries from the “Stop all work” order of President Trump. The withdrawal of US AID closed hospital. And now it’s like the perfect storm has developed; the need for medical aid is so clear, so desperate, so lacking. People are at their most vulnerable and yet even this has not stopped the ongoing civil war. Myanmar Military are carrying out ground attacks in areas hit by the earthquake. Just why does humanity see the gift of life as less important than ideologies? Why does humanity think it is OK to steal life from the innocent, the defenceless, even in their time of greatest need? Lord, we pray for those simply struggling to survive and we pray for those who have lost all sense of compassion, all sense of kindness, all sense of humanity…
Praise – O for a thousand tongues
The Grace
And now… May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you and all whom you love, now and for evermore. AMEN.