Lent 3 Service of Morning Prayer

Lent 3

Service of Morning Prayer

St. Thomas and St. Mary’s Anglican Churches

March 15, 2020

(Suggested reading:  Take your time, do not race.  When you come to a space in a litany or a canticle, stop for a moment and reflect on what has just been said.  Think about each phrase and its meaning in the responsories.  Think about what each canticle or block of prayer says.  At times you may want to go back and repeat a litany or prayer etc.  That is totally acceptable.)

Opening Sentence

Lord, you are indeed the Saviour of the world.

Give us living water, that we may not thirst.

  

THE GATHERING OF THE COMMUNITY

Introductory Responses

We cast our burdens upon you, O Lord,

and you will sustain us.

Create in us clean hearts, O God,

and renew a right spirit within us.

Cast us not away from your presence

and take not your Holy Spirit from us.

Give us the joy of your saving help again

and sustain us by your bountiful Spirit.

Blessed are you, O Holy One,

the God of our salvation who bears our burdens.

Blessed are you, God of compassion and mercy,

to you be praise and glory for ever.

In the darkness of our sin,

your light breaks forth like the dawn

and your healing springs up for deliverance.

As we rejoice in the gift of your saving help,

sustain s with your bountiful Spirit

and open our lips to sing your praise.  

Blessed be God: Source of all being,

eternal Word and Holy Spirit.

Blessed be God for ever.

The Proclamation of the Word

Psalm 95  Venite, exultemus                                  

1 Come, let us sing to the Lord; * 

let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation.

2 Let us come before the presence of the Lord with thanksgiving * 

and raise a loud shout to God with psalms.

3 For you, O Lord, are a great God, * 

and a great sovereign above all gods.

4 In your hand are the caverns of the earth, * 

and the heights of the hills are yours also.

5 The sea is yours, for you made it, * 

and your hands have moulded the dry land.

6 Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, * 

and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

7 For you are our God, 

   and we are the people of your pasture

   and the sheep of your hand. * 

Oh, that today we would hearken to your voice!

8 “Harden not your hearts,

   as your forebears did in the wilderness, * 

at Meribah, and on that day at Massah,

   when they tempted me.

9 They put me to the test, * 

though they had seen my works.

10 Forty years long I detested that generation and said, * 

‘This people are wayward in their hearts;  

   they do not know my ways.’

11 So I swore in my wrath, * 

‘They shall not enter into my rest.’”

Glory to the holy and undivided Trinity, one God:

as it was in the beginning,

is now and will be for ever. Amen.

Exodus 17:1-7

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarrelled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’ So Moses cried out to the Lord, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.’ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’

Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

Thanks be to God.

The Responsory

Incline your ear to me;

Make haste to answer when I call.

Lord, hear my prayer and let my cry come before you.

Make haste to answer when I call.

Hide not your face from me in the day of my trouble.

Make haste to answer when I call.

You endure for ever and your name from age to age.

Make haste to answer when I call.

You will arise and have compassion on Zion,

   for it is time to have pity upon her.

Make haste to answer when I call.

Romans 5.1-11

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church

Thanks be to God.

The Song of Zechariah   (Luke 1.68-79)

Blessed are you, Lord, the God of Israel, *

you have come to your people and set them free.

You have raised up for us a mighty Saviour, *

born of the house of your servant David.

Through your holy prophets, *

you promised of old to save us from our enemies,

from the hands of all who hate us, *

to show mercy to our forebears,

   and to remember your holy covenant.

This was the oath you swore to our father Abraham: *

to set us free from the hands of our enemies,

free to worship you without fear, *

holy and righteous before you,

   all the days of our life.

And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, *

for you will go before the Lord to prepare the way,

to give God’s people knowledge of salvation *

by the forgiveness of their sins.

In the tender compassion of our God *

the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

to shine on those who dwell in darkness

and the shadow of death, *

and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Glory to God, Source of all being,

eternal Word and Holy Spirit:

as it was in the beginning,

is now and will be for ever. Amen.

Gospel

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ

according to John.

Glory to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

John 4:5-42

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’

The Gospel of Christ.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

Sermon  (Click here)

Hear, O Israel

O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart,

with all your soul, with all your mind,

and with all your strength.

This is the first and the great commandment.

The second is like it:

Love your neighbour as yourself.

There is no commandment greater than these.

The Prayers of the Community

The Litany

Let us offer our intercessions,

petitions and thanksgivings, saying,

‘God of our ancestors, hear our prayer.’

For the one holy catholic and apostolic Church

throughout the world,

God of our ancestors, hear our prayer.

For the mission of the Church,

that in faithful witness

it may preach the gospel to the ends of the earth,

God of our ancestors, hear our prayer.

For those preparing for baptism

and for their teachers and sponsors,

God of our ancestors, hear our prayer.

For peace in the world,

that a spirit of respect and reconciliation

may grow among nations and peoples,

God of our ancestors, hear our prayer.

For the poor, the persecuted, the sick

and all who suffer;

for refugees, prisoners and all in danger;

that they may be relieved and protected,

God of our ancestors, hear our prayer.

For all whom we have injured or offended,

God of our ancestors, hear our prayer.

For grace to amend our lives and to further your reign,

God of our ancestors, hear our prayer.

Anglican Communion

   Pray for the Church of England

      The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Justin Welby

            Archbishop of Canterbury

Anglican Church of Canada

   Diocese of the Arctic

      the Right Reverend David Parsons, Bishop

         the Right Reverends Annie Ittoshat, Lucy Netser,

           Joey Royal, Suffragan Bishops

Council of the North

    Territory of the People

       The Venerable Lincoln Mckoen, Bishop Elect

The Diocese of Edmonton

   All ministries, initiatives and committees in Edmonton diocese

      and all their coordinators, directors,

      committee chairs and officers

   Buyé Diocese, Mwumba Parish

      Jean Pierre Nsabimana, Rector

   Métis Nation of Alberta

 

(I will not place our individual parish prayers on the internet. 

We know who we pray for each week. 

Rest assured that your loved ones continue in our prayers.)

We continue to pray for Burundi and our twinned parishes

      Kabanga and St. Luke’s Bigombo

We also pray for the Canadian Armed Forces

  serving at home and abroad.

Loving God,

whose peace passes all our understanding:

as we face this present pandemic,

and experience fear and anxiety,

may we hear your voice,

bringing calm to the storms of our time.

Strengthen those who work

to limit the spread of infection,

and those who seek to care for the sick,

and keep us mindful of those most vulnerable.

May we shape our living to protect one another,

and may our changing habits,

practices and sacrifices,

be for the greater love of our community

and all your people.  Amen.

From the Diocese of Niagara.

The Collect of the Day

Gracious God,

you provide us with living water

in abundance for all to share.

Nourish us with this abundance, 

so that we may be streams of living water

to those who thirst for you;

through Jesus Christ, the rock of our salvation. 

Amen.                                                Propers Working Group (2016)

The Lord’s Prayer

Trusting in the compassion of God

and gathering our prayers and praises into one,

let us pray as our Saviour taught us,

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.

Save us from the time of trial,

and deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power,

and the glory are yours,

now and for ever. Amen.

Dismissal

May the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace

in believing through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Morning Prayer for Lent From Ash Wednesday until the Sunday before Palm/Passion Sunday

adapted from:

PRAY WITHOUT CEASING

Morning and Evening Prayer for the Seasons of the Church Year

Prepared by the Ven. Dr. Richard Leggett

for the Faith, Worship, and Ministry Committee Of the Anglican Church of Canada

The psalm is from:

A Liturgical Psalter

General Synod 2016 Edition

The Psalter of The Book of Alternative Services Emended for Contemporary Liturgical Use

Sermon for Lent 3 John 4:5-42

Today’s gospel is a long one.  If we were in the church building I normally would have invited people to sit through it if they wished.  There is so much in it that it would take a month of Sunday’s to even touch on the richness of all that is contained within it.

First, we are amazed with the fact that a conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman even took place.  Second, we are amazed at the type of conversation that ensues.  And third, we are richly blessed by the content of the conversation.

What strikes me is that Jesus does not talk down to nor point fingers at the woman to whom he is talking.  They discuss the five husbands but it does not result in shaming and blaming.  It results in inclusion.  It results in a broadened understanding of worship of God.  Wow!  In a world of finger pointing and shaming that is powerful. 

It strikes me that Jesus moves the religious debate from either this mountain or that mountain to both and so much more.  I have always found this in the teachings of Jesus, which is why I feel so strongly the abundance of life Jesus offers.  It is never a case of either this or that.  It is case of opening even wider.  It always amazes me that, given that broadness and openness, followers of Jesus today would make membership and acceptance ever narrower rather than more universal.

In a world of finger pointing and shaming, Jesus’ inclusion and broadening strike the Samaritan woman to her core.  Jesus knows all there is to know about her and yet he continues to hold the door open to her.  I can only speculate how this made a difference in her life – how it transformed her.

A woman who comes to the well alone at mid-day, instead of with the others in the cool of the morning or the evening, dashes off into the very community that has probably caused her isolation and proclaims that she has found the messiah.  She even speaks freely about that which isolated her – a powerful testimony to the healing and acceptance by Jesus.

The transformation of the woman has the people listening and running to see for themselves.  Their encounter with Jesus, the living water, also leaves them transformed.  They invite him to dwell among them, which he does for two days.  One can only imagine the mark this left on them for the rest of their lives.

It is the transformation and dwelling in community that I would like to explore briefly, especially in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Each of us is inspired and transformed by our encounter with Jesus – if we aren’t, I think we need to explore that a little more at a later date.  I have to admit that each day I encounter Jesus and explore the context and content, I am transformed by the encounter.  I learn something new and inspiring causing me to relook at my life and make the appropriate changes – a constant work in progress.  It is one of the reasons I love the scriptures so much. 

At some point we seriously ask Jesus to come and dwell within us.  And Jesus does!  Unlike with the Samaritan village where Jesus dwelt two days, Jesus comes to dwell within us permanently.  As such, our lives are transformed daily as we grow more fully into his likeness.

That is our witness to the world - the showing forth of Jesus’ presence in our daily lives.  As brutal as Covid-19 is, this is our opportunity to show Jesus’ presence even more strongly, even more visibly.  We do this by not panicking.  Our faith and trust in Jesus reassures us that we are never alone – even in this time of physical social distancing.  Our faith and trust in Jesus means that we do not go overboard in our reactions.  It means that we are always aware of how our actions affect and are read by the wider community.  It means we commit ourselves to learning about and helping the more vulnerable among us as we go through this pandemic.

This is the time that we reach out to each other – not just to close family and friends but to anyone we know may be isolated and scared.  We reach out to anyone we know might be in need.  This is the time that we get so creative it hurts.  How do we reach out the vulnerable and the lonely when we cannot be with them physically.  How do we speak of love and caring in tangible ways.  Yes, a phone call and various forms of messaging are a couple of ways.  But are there more concrete and creative ways to say we care?  There is a challenge – what creative ways can you come up with over the next few weeks?  Please share them in the comments below or with me personally.

Our faith and trust in Jesus helps us rethink what it means to be a worshipping community.  Is it just about our Sunday worship?  At this point we don’t have Sunday worship to define us.  The challenge is – how do we worship creatively as a community.  Here’s one way.  The church is now open at specific times.  I am going to bring a book in to our buildings (both St. Thomas and St. Mary’s).  I invite you come down at a time the church is open and write a wish or a prayer for the community or for an individual.  I invite you to write in a request for prayer for yourself or an individual.  I invite you all to read these and respond to each other also in this book.

Are there other creative ways we can care for each other and worship together in creative, tangible ways?  I would love to hear your suggestions either in person or in the comments below.

Above all – how do we, as individuals and as a community – show that Jesus dwells us among giving us hope during this time in history facing the next few weeks and possibly months.  I feel that the answers the Spirit inspires in you will help us grow and form a stronger community and witness for the years ahead – breathing new and abundant life into our Church.

I have edited this post to reflect the changing times. Please know that as much as I would love to see you face to face, that is not what is best for us and for others. So - office hours are no longer posted. If you need specific prayer - please phone me. Know that you are always in my heart and in my prayers.

Oh my goodness.  Two inspirations in one day after nearly two years of not writing.  I actually had other thoughts that I wanted to put down and work out over those two years but I was simply to lazy.  I wish I had as this blog tends to hold things for me and help me rethink as I go back over the years.  I am not always in agreement with my younger self but that in itself makes life more interesting.

Anyway, I was reading up on the Abelard and the Moral Influence Theory.  I mentioned below that I struggle with atonement theories this time of year.  Each year I try to more fully understand them.  It has not led to an acceptance of them but has helped me see more of what our struggles and brokenness are when it comes to our relationship with God.  Each theory was developed in a period of time and in a specific context.  Yet each theory speaks to where people are at still today.  As I read I can see how the developers of the theory felt the fullness and awesomeness of God's love as well as their unworthiness and attempted to understand the two through intellectualizing them.  They tried to make sense of the love and the cross.  For me, they attempted the impossible.  I believe that God's love and Jesus' sacrifice are beyond reason and explanation.  I can live with the mystery of the depth of God's love shown in the very special space of the Incarnation.  For me, it is enough to know God's love.

Don't get me wrong.  I am well aware of my unworthiness in my response to God's love.  I am well aware of my brokenness.  But God's love inspires and compels me to move beyond that to following Jesus the Christ into a better and fuller way of life.

All of this is not what inspired me to write twice today.  I was reading under an article on Abelard about Adam and sin.  The article spoke of denying that in Adam all have sinned.  I have always been uncomfortable with the idea that because of the fall we are all sinners.  I see the story of the eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil a symbol of our own brokenness on so many levels.  This is not the place to go into them.  But the idea that we are almost irredeemably sinful because of the actions of Adam and Eve has never sat well with me.  So my eyes "perked up" when I read this.  Hmm.  The article went on to say that it could not be that in Adam all have sinned because there was no agreement of our will.  In other words, we had no say in the matter, therefore we could not be held responsible for it down through the generations.

Okay, then that strange and convoluted mind of mine started off on one of its side trips.  I started thinking about the residential school issue.  I have always struggle answering my parishioners concerns over why we should be paying for our ancestors actions.  We had nothing to do with the residential schools.  I tend to agree with them.  We are not personally responsible for the residential schools.  So, yes, on one level,  why should we have to make payment for them.

But irregardless of whether or not we were responsible, personally for the residential school system, there are a few brutal realities we need to face.

1.  The attitudes that prompted the residential school system remain today.  We are still prejudiced against the First Nations people,  This is lived out in job markets, prison cells and coffee shops.  We need to work to change our attitudes.  The whole residential school issue is a wake up call to that fact.  In our attitudes we, ourselves, perpetuate the damage of the schools.  And so, yes we are still responsible and need to work to change this.

2.  Serious harm was done that affects people today.  Something must be done to bring about wholeness to all involved.  It is not paying for the sins of our ancestors.  It is about restoration and growth.  We need to work with our aboriginal sisters and brothers in restoring  themselves to the fullness and completeness of who they are meant to be.  Maybe in that process we will also travel further on our journey to wholeness.

So, the residential school did not actually have our agreement (although given the attitudes that still prevail today I think that is only a matter of logistics at times and for some than of agreement of will).  But we do bear responsibility because we are one people.  We are not First Nations.  We are not white.  We are God's people.  We are one under our Creator.  When one of us is hurt, we bear the responsibility and gift (not burden but gift) of reaching out to bring wholeness and healing.  The residential school system inflicted damage on both our cultures and yet only one culture really bore the pain of it.  It is only fair that we shoulder up to bear our share of the pain and burden.  We need to work for restoration and for reconciliation so that we are no longer two separate people but rather reconciled as one, celebrating our diversity of culture and deepening our experience of life.

Just some initial and imperfect thoughts while I avoid reading up on the atonement.

Love and Prayers,
Amie

Atonement Time

I love Lent, Holy Week and Easter.  They are my favorite times of the year.  (Now if only they could also be among the warmest times of the year my world would be near perfect.)  But they also bring to light my struggles with the idea of atonement.

The first issue for me is that of the story of the scriptures.  I do not find, in either the gospel writers or Paul, a preoccupation with the idea of atonement.  In general the theories are developed by taking a verse here and a verse there.  The theories appear, to me, to be a reading into scripture rather than a reading from scripture.  Ah, woe with me - it is ever thus - that I struggle with doctrine that does not necessarily involve a clear and straight forward reading of scripture.  I have a tendency to feel that we take a very human issue and then read it into the scriptures to develop theories and doctrines.  I believe that scriptures are not so much about the brain stuff as they are about a way of living for which we were created leading to wholeness and vitality.

And that is part of my issue with the theories of atonement.  I don't think it is God's issue.  I think it is ours.  Ransom, Satisfaction, Penal Substitution etc.  I think they stem from our own understandings of justice and our sense of unworthiness.  I feel they devalue the amazing gift and strength of God's love.  They develop out of our own sense of needing balance and payment.  They do not allow for the fact that God's ways are not our ways.   I believe that our biggest sin is shown in these theories.  Our biggest sin is that we cannot accept fully God's free gift of grace and then live it out in our lives.  We don't have enough faith in God and God's ability to have made us capable of following God out of and through love once we accept the freely and lavishly given gift of grace.  And in the end, I believe they also demean that other freely given and beautiful gift - free will.

So how do I see the Incarnation and the Passion.  I really don't know.  It is something with which I struggle and more so at this time of year.  I see the gospel stories as they are written.  When it comes to the passages most pertinent for this time of year I see Jesus' passion and willingness to face the cross coming out of his love for God and for his people (meaning in the long run of time - for us).  He had strong convictions stemming from his understanding of and relationship to God.  He was willing to die for them.  The resurrection shows that God will not be silenced and there is nothing we can do that will silence or defeat God.  

At the base of all this is God as love.  I keep going back to 1 John 4.  I do so love that passage.  God is love.  The Incarnation is a manifestation of that love - God so loved the world (John 3:16).  God gave the Law.  God sent the prophets.  Our hardness of heart prevented us from seeing those gifts fully and from responding.  So God sends the Son.  Pure love.  In the Son, God gives us actions to fill out the words.  God shows us what the Law and prophets attempted.  We learn how to live in love with God and with each other.  We learn that it can be done.  But our own hardness, greed, and self centeredness - our own lack of faith in God and God's way - lead us to respond with blind violence - the cross.  And out of that God's great love continued.  Still God did not wash God's hands of us.  Whereas we chose only to exercise our power of death, God chose to exercise God's power of life.  Our puny attempts could not contain or limit God's love.  The empty tomb and appearances of Jesus are proof to that.

For me, this is the beautiful story of the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection.  It is not atonement but Love.  For me, the theories of atonement speak of our brokenness and inability to freely accept God's wondrous and vast gift of love and grace rather than the love and beauty that is God.  Instead we cheapen this beautiful gift by instilling human ways and values up on it.  Because we have been conditioned that there be balance and payment of debts and punishment for wrongs, we insist that the cross also have these meanings.  And maybe our own sense of unworthiness plays into this.  We are not worthy of so great a sacrifice of love on God's part.  There has be a reason of more than just love for the cross.  There has to be something that makes us worthy of God's love.  Have I got news for each and everyone of us.  We will never, never be worthy of God's great love.  Never!!!  We are too human, too broken.  But this makes God's free gift of grace all the more great, powerful and awesome.  Freely given out of love for us, bearing all the consequences of our brokenness so that we might learn and have life and have it abundantly.   The Passion, Cross and Resurrection are solely and simply an outpouring of God's pure love for us.  They are the actions of God willing to work through our brokenness to bring us the promise of and way to the fullness of life here and now and ever after.

Love and Prayers,
Amie

(PS.  I also believe that our preoccupation with sin, punishment, etc stem from a huge lack of faith in God and an extreme sense of self centeredness, but that may be a topic for another day).