ABC PARISH: 3/25/12

REMINDERS —
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28TH —
ABC AD COUNCIL MEETING AT 6PM @ AUMC
LENTEN SERVICES IN ADAIR U.M.C. @ 7 P.M.
REV.ED KAIL WILL MEET WITH AUMC @ 8PM

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
SUNDAY, APRIL 1ST —
THIS IS PALM SUNDAY

PALM SUNDAY BRUNCH AT CUMC AFTER
MORNING SERVICE

OUR COLOR IS RED OR PURPLE
SCRIPTURE READINGS ARE:

• LITURGY OF THE PASSION •
ISAIAH 50:4-9 (The Message)
This week's services are a vigil on the suffering,
death and resurrection of Jesus. This Servant of
the Lord faced spitting, beating, whipping, and
plucking of the beard when he declared God's
truth in the face of the powers in his day, but it
would not stop him.
4 The Master, God, has given me a well-taught
tongue, So I know how to encourage tired people.
He wakes me up in the morning, Wakes me up,
opens my ears to listen as one ready to take orders.
5 The Master, God, opened my ears, and I didn't go
back to sleep, didn't pull the covers over my head.
6 I followed orders, stood there and took it while
they beat me, held steady while they pulled out my
beard, Didn't dodge their insults, faced them as they
spit in my face.
7 And the Master, God, stays right there and helps
me, so I'm not disgraced. Therefore I set my face
like flint, confident that I'll never regret this.
8 My champion is right here. Let's take our stand
together! Who dares bring suit against me?
Let him try!
9 Look! the Master, God, is right here. Who would
dare call me guilty? Look! My accusers are a
clothes bin of threadbare socks and shirts,
fodder for moths!

PSALM 31:9-16 (UMH 764) (The Message)
This psalm expresses the personal pain of
human suffering at the hands of others and
the toll it takes.
9 Be kind to me, God - I'm in deep, deep trouble
again. I've cried my eyes out; I feel hollow inside.
10 My life leaks away, groan by groan; my years
fade out in sighs. My troubles have worn me out,
turned my bones to powder.
11 To my enemies I'm a monster; I'm ridiculed by the
neighbors. My friends are horrified; they cross the
street to avoid me.
12 They want to blot me from memory, forget me
like a corpse in a grave, discard me like a broken
dish in the trash.
13 The street-talk gossip has me "criminally insane"!
Behind locked doors they plot how to ruin me for good.
14 Desperate, I throw myself on you: you are my God!
15 Hour by hour I place my days in your hand, safe
from the hands out to get me.
16 Warm me, your servant, with a smile; save me
because you love me.

PHILIPPIANS 2:5-11 (The Message)
This is the way of Jesus Christ - - emptying
himself, taking the form of a servant, accepting
death on a Roman crucifix.
5 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought
of himself.
6 He had equal status with God but didn't think so
much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages
of that status no matter what.
7 Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the
privileges of a deity and took on the status of a slave,
became human!
8 Having become human, he stayed human. It was
an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special
privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life
and then died a selfless, obedient death - and the
worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.
9 Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and
honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever,
10 so that all created beings in heaven and on earth -
even those long ago dead and buried - will bow in
worship before this Jesus Christ,
11 and call out in praise that he is the Master of all,
to the glorious honor of God the Father.
MARK 14:1-15:47 and MARK15:1-47
— LONG VERSION —
(The Message)
The story of the suffering and execution of Jesus,
as told by Mark, is the centerpiece of the service
today. This is the longer form of Mark's story of
the Passion of Jesus.
• Jesus was not arrested, tortured, and executed
because he loved people and taught people how
to love their neighbors as themselves. He was
arrested, tortured, and executed because he
proclaimed God's kingdom would overthrow
many of the existing religious, political, and
economic policies that made up the temple
system at that time.
MARK 14:1-15:47
1 In only two days the eight-day Festival of
Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread
would begin. The high priests and religion scholars
were looking for a way they could seize Jesus by
stealth and kill him.
2 They agreed that it should not be done during
Passover Week. "We don't want the crowds up in
arms," they said.
3 Jesus was at Bethany, a guest of Simon the Leper.
While he was eating dinner, a woman came up
carrying a bottle of very expensive perfume. Opening
the bottle, she poured it on his head.4 Some of the guests became furious among
themselves. "That's criminal! A sheer waste!
5 This perfume could have been sold for well over
a year's wages and handed out to the poor." They
swelled up in anger, nearly bursting with indignation
over her.
6 But Jesus said, "Let her alone. Why are you giving
her a hard time? She has just done something
wonderfully significant for me.
7 You will have the poor with you every day for the
rest of your lives. Whenever you feel like it, you can
do something for them. Not so with me.
8 She did what she could when she could - she
pre-anointed my body for burial.
9 And you can be sure that wherever in the whole
world the Message is preached, what she just did
is going to be talked about admiringly."
10 Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the
cabal of high priests, determined to betray him.
11 They couldn't believe their ears, and promised to
pay him well. He started looking for just the right
moment to hand him over.12 On the first of the Days of Unleavened Bread,
the day they prepare the Passover sacrifice, his
disciples asked him, "Where do you want us to go
and make preparations so you can eat the Passover
meal?"
13 He directed two of his disciples, "Go into the city.
A man carrying a water jug will meet you. Follow him.
14 Ask the owner of whichever house he enters, 'The
Teacher wants to know, Where is my guest room
where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?'
15 He will show you a spacious second-story room,
swept and ready. Prepare for us there."
16 The disciples left, came to the city, found everything
just as he had told them, and prepared the Passover
meal.
17 After sunset he came with the Twelve.
18 As they were at the supper table eating, Jesus
said, "I have something hard but important to say
to you: One of you is going to hand me over to the
conspirators, one who at this moment is eating with
me."19 Stunned, they started asking, one after another,
"It isn't me, is it?"
20 He said, "It's one of the Twelve, one who eats
with me out of the same bowl.
21 In one sense, it turns out that the Son of Man is
entering into a way of treachery well-marked by the
Scriptures - no surprises here. In another sense,
the man who turns him in, turns traitor to the Son
of Man - better never to have been born than do
this!" "This Is My Body"
22 In the course of their meal, having taken and
blessed the bread, he broke it and gave it to them.
Then he said, Take, this is my body.
23 Taking the chalice, he gave it to them, thanking
God, and they all drank from it.
24 He said, This is my blood, God's new covenant,
Poured out for many people.
25 "I'll not be drinking wine again until the new day
when I drink it in the kingdom of God."
26 They sang a hymn and then went directly to
Mount Olives.
27 Jesus told them, "You're all going to feel that
your world is falling apart and that it's my fault.
There's a Scripture that says, I will strike the
shepherd; The sheep will go helter-skelter.
28 "But after I am raised up, I will go ahead of you,
leading the way to Galilee."
29 Peter blurted out, "Even if everyone else is
ashamed of you when things fall to pieces, I won't be."
30 Jesus said, "Don't be so sure. Today, this very
night in fact, before the rooster crows twice, you will
deny me three times."
31 He blustered in protest, "Even if I have to die with
you, I will never deny you." All the others said the
same thing.
32 They came to an area called Gethsemane. Jesus
told his disciples, "Sit here while I pray."
33 He took Peter, James, and John with him. He
plunged into a sinkhole of dreadful agony.
34 He told them, "I feel bad enough right now to die.
Stay here and keep vigil with me."
35 Going a little ahead, he fell to the ground and
prayed for a way out:
36 "Papa, Father, you can - can't you? - get me out
of this. Take this cup away from me. But please, not
what I want - what do you want?"37 He came back and found them sound asleep.
He said to Peter, "Simon, you went to sleep on me?
Can't you stick it out with me a single hour?
38 Stay alert, be in prayer, so you don't enter the
danger zone without even knowing it. Don't be naive.
Part of you is eager, ready for anything in God; but
another part is as lazy as an old dog sleeping by
the fire."
39 He then went back and prayed the same prayer.
40 Returning, he again found them sound asleep.
They simply couldn't keep their eyes open, and they
didn't have a plausible excuse.
41 He came back a third time and said, "Are you
going to sleep all night? No - you've slept long enough.Time's up. The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into
the hands of sinners.
42 Get up. Let's get going. My betrayer has arrived."
43 No sooner were the words out of his mouth when
Judas, the one out of the Twelve, showed up, and with
him a gang of ruffians, sent by the high priests, religion
scholars, and leaders, brandishing swords and clubs.
44 The betrayer had worked out a signal with them:
"The one I kiss, that's the one - seize him. Make sure
he doesn't get away."45 He went straight to Jesus and said, "Rabbi!" and
kissed him.
46 The others then grabbed him and roughed him up.
47 One of the men standing there unsheathed his
sword, swung, and came down on the Chief Priest's
servant, lopping off the man's ear.
48 Jesus said to them, "What is this, coming after me
with swords and clubs as if I were a dangerous
criminal?
49 Day after day I've been sitting in the Temple
teaching, and you never so much as lifted a hand
against me.
What you in fact have done is confirm the prophetic
writings."
50 All the disciples cut and ran.
51 A young man was following along. All he had on
was a bedsheet. Some of the men grabbed him
52 but he got away, running off naked, leaving them
holding the sheet.
53 They led Jesus to the Chief Priest, where the high
priests, religious leaders, and scholars had gathered
together.
54 Peter followed at a safe distance until they got to
the Chief Priest's courtyard, where he mingled with
the servants and warmed himself at the fire.
55 The high priests conspiring with the Jewish
Council looked high and low for evidence against
Jesus by which they could sentence him to death.
They found nothing.
56 Plenty of people were willing to bring in false
charges, but nothing added up, and they ended up
canceling each other out.
57 Then a few of them stood up and lied:
58 "We heard him say, 'I am going to tear down this
Temple, built by hard labor, and in three days build
another without lifting a hand.'"
59 But even they couldn't agree exactly.
60 In the middle of this, the Chief Priest stood up
and asked Jesus, "What do you have to say to the
accusation?"
61 Jesus was silent. He said nothing. The Chief
Priest tried again, this time asking, "Are you the
Messiah, the Son of the Blessed?"
62 Jesus said, "Yes, I am, and you'll see it yourself:
The Son of Man seated At the right hand of the
Mighty One, Arriving on the clouds of heaven."
63 The Chief Priest lost his temper. Ripping his
clothes, he yelled, "Did you hear that? After that do
we need witnesses?
64 You heard the blasphemy. Are you going to stand
for it?" They condemned him, one and all.
The sentence: death.65 Some of them started spitting at him. They
blindfolded his eyes, then hit him, saying, "Who hit
you? Prophesy!" The guards, punching and slapping,
took him away.
66 While all this was going on, Peter was down in
the courtyard. One of the Chief Priest's servant girls
came in
67 and, seeing Peter warming himself there, looked
hard at him and said, "You were with the Nazarene,
Jesus."
68 He denied it: "I don't know what you're talking
about." He went out on the porch. A rooster crowed.
69 The girl spotted him and began telling the people
standing around, "He's one of them."
70 He denied it again. After a little while, the
bystanders brought it up again. "You've got to be one
of them. You've got 'Galilean' written all over you."
71 Now Peter got really nervous and swore, "I never
laid eyes on this man you're talking about."
72 Just then the rooster crowed a second time. Peter
remembered how Jesus had said, "Before a rooster
crows twice, you'll deny me three times."
He collapsed in tears.
MARK 15:1-46
1 At dawn's first light, the high priests, with the religious
leaders and scholars, arranged a conference with the
entire Jewish Council. After tying Jesus securely, they
took him out and presented him to Pilate.
2 Pilate asked him, "Are you the 'King of the Jews'?"
3 The high priests let loose a barrage of accusations.
4 Pilate asked again, "Aren't you going to answer
anything? That's quite a list of accusations."
5 Still, he said nothing. Pilate was impressed, really
impressed.
6 It was a custom at the Feast to release a prisoner,
anyone the people asked for.
7 There was one prisoner called Barabbas, locked
up with the insurrectionists who had committed
murder during the uprising against Rome.
8 As the crowd came up and began to present its
petition for him to release a prisoner,
9 Pilate anticipated them: "Do you want me to
release the King of the Jews to you?"
10 Pilate knew by this time that it was through sheer
spite that the high priests had turned Jesus over to him.
11 But the high priests by then had worked up the
crowd to ask for the release of Barabbas.
12 Pilate came back, "So what do I do with this man
you call King of the Jews?"
13 They yelled, "Nail him to a cross!"
14 Pilate objected, "But for what crime?" But they
yelled all the louder, "Nail him to a cross!"
15 Pilate gave the crowd what it wanted, set Barabbas
free and turned Jesus over for whipping and crucifixion.
16 The soldiers took Jesus into the palace (called
Praetorium) and called together the entire brigade.
17 They dressed him up in purple and put a crown
plaited from a thorn bush on his head.
18 Then they began their mockery: "Bravo, King of
the Jews!"
19 They banged on his head with a club, spit on him,
and knelt down in mock worship.
20 After they had had their fun, they took off the purple
cape and put his own clothes back on him. Then they
marched out to nail him to the cross.
21 There was a man walking by, coming from work,
Simon from Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus.
They made him carry Jesus' cross.
22 The soldiers brought Jesus to Golgotha, meaning
"Skull Hill."
23 They offered him a mild painkiller (wine mixed with
myrrh), but he wouldn't take it.24 And they nailed him to the cross. They divided up
his clothes and threw dice to see who would get them.
25 They nailed him up at nine o'clock in the morning.
26 The charge against him - the king of the jews -
was printed on a poster.
27 Along with him, they crucified two criminals, one
to his right, the other to his left.
29 People passing along the road jeered, shaking their
heads in mock lament: "You bragged that you could tear
down the Temple and then rebuild it in three days -
30 so show us your stuff! Save yourself! If you're really
God's Son, come down from that cross!"
31 The high priests, along with the religion scholars,
were right there mixing it up with the rest of them,
having a great time poking fun at him: "He saved others
- but he can't save himself!
32 Messiah, is he? King of Israel? Then let him climb
down from that cross. We'll all become believers then!"
Even the men crucified alongside him joined in the
mockery.
33 At noon the sky became extremely dark.
34 The darkness lasted three hours. At three o'clock,
Jesus groaned out of the depths, crying loudly, "Eloi,
Eloi, lama sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my
God, why have you abandoned me?"
35 Some of the bystanders who heard him said,
"Listen, he's calling for Elijah."
36 Someone ran off, soaked a sponge in sour wine,
put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying,
"Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down."
37 But Jesus, with a loud cry, gave his last breath.
38 At that moment the Temple curtain ripped right
down the middle.
39 When the Roman captain standing guard in front
of him saw that he had quit breathing, he said, "This
has to be the Son of God!"
40 There were women watching from a distance,
among them Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of
the younger James and Joses, and Salome.
41 When Jesus was in Galilee, these women
followed and served him, and had come up with
him to Jerusalem.
42 Late in the afternoon, since it was the Day of
Preparation (that is, Sabbath eve),
43 Joseph of Arimathea, a highly respected member
of the Jewish Council, came. He was one who lived
expectantly, on the lookout for the kingdom of God.
Working up his courage, he went to Pilate and asked
for Jesus' body.
44 Pilate questioned whether he could be dead that
soon and called for the captain to verify that he was
really dead.45 Assured by the captain, he gave Joseph the corpse.
46 Having already purchased a linen shroud, Joseph
took him down, wrapped him in the shroud,
placed him in a tomb that had been cut into the rock,
and rolled a large stone across the opening.
47 Mary Magdalene and Mary, mother of Jesus,
watched the burial.
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
MONDAY, APRIL 2ND —
This is Pastor Bob's and Naomi's day off.
The Office will be closed today.
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3RD —
Adair U.M.W. will meet in the church at 9:00 A.M.
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
THURSDAY, APRIL 5TH —
HOLY THURSDAY SERVICE IN CASEY U.M.C.
AT 7 PMWe will have Holy Communion.
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
FRIDAY, APRIL 6TH —
THIS IS GOOD FRIDAY
The children will have spring break today through
Monday, April 9th.
No school until Tuesday, April 10th.
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
Sunday, April 8th is Easter Sunday
Happy Easter!