Monday 6 April, 2020
Monday in Holy Week (Year A)
See Holy Week - a Singing the Faith introduction
A new commandment I give unto you:
that you love one another as I have loved you,
that you love one another as I have loved you.
By this the world shall know that you are my disciples,
if you have love one for another.
By this the world shall know that you are my disciples,
if you have love one for another.
(StF 242)
The readings for Holy Week Monday herald all that is to follow by emphasising the significance of God’s servant for the fulfilment of God’s vision for the world and its peoples.
Mary anoints Jesus, bestowing upon him an aura of royal dignity (an action which, in John’s gospel, immediately precedes Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, which we mark on Palm on Sunday). Likewise, Isaiah’s accounts of “the suffering servant” begins here with the proclamation of his position as “a light to the nations”.
God’s people, like the servant himself, are called to pursue justice and a new way of being – what the writer of Hebrews describes as a “new covenant” with God, brought about by Christ’s self-giving on the cross. That action, like the example of Isaiah’s “servant”, conclusively demonstrates the promise of God’s steadfast love, which acts as a refuge for all of us who look for meaning and support in our lives.
Isaiah 42: 1-9
Psalm 36: 5-11
Hebrews 9: 11-15
John 12: 1-11
Suggested hymns
Christ triumphant, ever reigning (StF 319)
For the healing of the nations (StF 696)
God! Whenhuman bonds are broken (StF 649)
Here on the threshold of a new beginning (StF 684)
Into the darkness of this world (StF 173)
Jesu, lover of my soul (StF 355)
(The) Nunc Dimittis (StF 794) – the “song” offered by Simeon when the baby Jesus is brought to the Temple by his parents, and laid out here as a responsive reading. See also Through long years of watchful waiting (StF 232), suggested for Good Friday.
O God what offering shall I give (StF 562)
The Church of Christ in every age (StF 415)
The kingdom of God is justice and joy (StF 255)
You give rest to the weary (StF 657)
Your ceaseless, unexhausted love (StF 438)
What shall I do my God to love, my Saviour, and the world's, to praise? (StF 516)