Deuteronomy chapter 32 verses 1 to 4, is the beginning of long prayer in form of a Song of Moses. Soon before Moses’s death, he prays in the presence of all the people of Israel after passing on leadership to Joshua.
Reading: Deuteronomy 32:1-4
1 Listen, you heavens, and I will speak; hear, you earth, the words of my mouth
2 Let
my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like
dew,
like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on
tender plants.
3 I
will proclaim the name of the Lord. Oh, praise
the greatness of our God!
4 He is the Rock, his
works are perfect, and all his ways are just.
A
faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just
is he.
Prayer :
We pray for peace, we ask that you will be with all refugees, those caught up in conflict, and those who are thirsty, only able to drink contaminated water.
We give you thanks Lord, for the charities building and maintaining freshwater pumps and wells. We thank you that people are generous with time and money. We pray for the work of UNICEF, and of the Red Cross. We pray for doctors, nurses, and emergency services. We pray for people suffering from diseases and viruses, here and abroad, that cures may be found. God who created water, we beg you to pour your refreshment into our lives. Give us the power of the springs of water from the Holy Spirit, so that we might live lives that honour you. God who is called the Word, we beg you to make our words like fresh water to bless the people we speak to. God of justice and righteousness, we beg you to bring fresh water to our local and national and world leaders. Help them speak words that will fall like a gentle, cleansing, and empowering rain on our broken earth. Father God we thank you for your son our Saviour Jesus our refuge and our great reward. Without His grace we waste away, like flowers that wither and decay. Thank you, Lord that all people are in your hands.
Amen
Song: River wash over me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIIyK9N2gDc
Reading: Second book of Kings, chapter 5, verses 1 to 15
1 Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.
2 Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”
4 Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. 5 “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing. 6 The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.”
7 As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!”
8 When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.” 9 So Na-aman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”
11 But Na-aman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. 12 Are not Abana and farpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.
13 Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” 14 So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.
15 Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”
16 The prophet answered, “As surely as the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will not accept a thing.” And even though Naaman urged him, he refused.
17 “If you will not,” said Naaman, “please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord. 18 But may the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I have to bow there also—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this.”
Back in those days a leper would have been classed as an outcast and a sinner. For Naaman to be unclean was devastating, so he was sent to the river Jordan, not a lovely clean local river, but through the water cleaning him, he came to the living God.
Song: On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIr21lLgFpg
Reading: Matthew’s gospel, chapter 3, verses 1 to 17
3 In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
‘A
voice of one calling in the wilderness,
“Prepare the way for
the Lord,
make straight paths for him.”
4 John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt round his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. 5 People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. 6 Confessing their sins, they were baptised by him in the River Jordan.
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptising, he said to them: ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father.” I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10 The axe has been laid to the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
11 ‘I baptise you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing-floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John. 14 But John tried to deter him, saying, ‘I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to me?’
15 Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfil all righteousness.’ Then John consented.
16 As soon as Jesus was baptised, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’
This is the same river that Naaman was cleansed in; the river where John baptised and washed peoples sins away. The same river that Jesus was baptised in; where God’s voice was heard and that he was pleased with Jesus.
Song: Down in the river to pray.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJEY9LecV5k
Reading: John’s gospel, chapter 13, verses 1 to 17
Jesus Washes His Disciples’ Feet
13 It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”
9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”
10 Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.
12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
Washing feet was a yucky filthy job back in them days, with only sandals on the feet, you could not walk without treading on donkey & horse muck, cow dung, also possibly human excrement. The streets were covered with dust & sand, not only were feet sore and dusty but also smelly.
This job was only fit for the lowest of the low a slave.
Jesus was showing that to follow him we had to do the same as him to to the work of a slave the words to our next hymn some up Jesus’s teaching.
Song: Jesu, Jesu,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvQz513Jl8M
Reading: John’s gospel, chapter 4 verses 1 to 14
Jesus talks with a Samaritan woman
4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptising more disciples than John – 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptised, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’ 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.’
11 ‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?’
13 Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
Jacob’s Well, where Jesus asked a Samaritan woman for a drink and offered her “living water”, lies in the crypt of a modern Greek Orthodox Church at Nablus in the west bank.
It is often considered the most authentic site in the Holy Land — since no one can move a well that was originally more than 40 metres deep.
Jewish, Samaritan, Christian and Muslim traditions all associate the well with Jacob.
The location, at the entrance to a mountain pass between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, is 2km (about 1.5 UK miles) east of Nablus. It is near the archaeological site of Tell Balata — thought to be the biblical Shechem — and about 63km ( just over 39 U.K. miles) north of Jerusalem .
The well has never run dry The women had to go to the well at the hottest part of the day because she was a sinner living with a man that was not her husband. But after she has talked with Jesus, her life changes. There is nothing for us to be afraid of, the burdens of guilt and regret can be lifted If we trust him as you read this next prayer
Prayer:
Jesus, with each ebb of the tide, I feel my sins drawing me down. Drowning me in sorrow and guilt. I have carried bitterness and hate a long time. I do not want to feel like this any more. I am sorry for the hurt I have caused, help me to forgive others for I want you to forgive me. Jesus wash away my sin as the tide washes over the beach, cleanse me of my guilt and fill me with fresh living water that flows from the fountain that runs by the throne of God. Become real to me as you did with Naaman Amen.
Song: Deep and wide
Chorus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfBrLIGyynM
Reading: Revelation chapter 22, verses 1 to 5
1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
Song: Shall we gather at the river
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzkXMUon7LY
Go
now from this worship to the service of God’s people near and
far, refreshed by the living water that Jesus offers to you. Listen
for the parched voices of the least of these; search out the dry
places and the arid souls, and become for them a spring of living
water. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit wash over you, fill you, and
give you peace. Amen
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