Fifth Sunday of Lent Passion Sunday 2025 St Andrew’s Milngavie
Today we celebrated Passion Sunday accompanied by Hugh, we sang traditional and much loved Passion Hymns.
After the service we bid farewell and thank you to Kath and Harry as they depart to pastures new at St James’ Bishopbriggs, to be nearer home.
We also shared out many beautiful tomato plants kindly grown and nurtured by James, a bountiful harvest is earnestly hoped and prayed for.
This week
Tuesday 10am – Prayer Group in the Garden Room
2pm – Lent Course, All Saints Small Hall
Thursday 10am – Said Holy Communion followed by coffee in Friendship House.
Sunday – Palm Sunday – Sung Eucharist including the reading of the Passion.
Readings for next Sunday – Palm Sunday – Philippians 2:5-11 Luke 22:14-23:56
Services for Holy Week
Tuesday 10am – Prayer Group
Maundy Thursday 10am Sung Eucharist for Maundy Thursday
Good Friday 11am Walk of Witness starting at Gavin’s Mill finishing with refreshments at St Paul’s
2pm Service of the Cross in church
Easter Day 7am Short Dawn Service with Cairns – Preacher’s Brae
10am Sung Eucharist for Easter
Easter Festival in St Paul’s – Tuesday – Friday of Holy Week 10am – 4pm(until 6pm on Thursday )
An exhibition in the Church telling the Easter Story in Fabric and Flora designed by various organisations including a children’s craft corner and a tea room.
Holy Week Ecumenical Services in United Free Church 7.30pm Monday to Friday – see notice board for details
Today’s readings – Isaiah 43:16-21, Philippians 3:4-14, John 12:1-8
Today is Passion Sunday which marks the start of the church’s season of Passiontide. It heralds the journey of Holy Week, a time when Christians around the world take part in God’s Passion – Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem, his last days with his disciples and then his death on a cross. After which we wait with anticipation for the great celebration of Easter – the resurrection of Christ. As we wait, we are reminded of the words from St John’s prologue, which even at the beginning of his gospel speak of salvation.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” John 1:5
But today on this Passion Sunday we think about the love of Jesus!
For many people the Cross is “a sign of love, victory and life’. A sign that encourages us to recognise and receive Christ’s love – even to allow ourselves to be smitten by his love’.
In our Gospel Jesus has dinner at Lazarus’s home in Bethany, we hear how Mary is smitten by his love’. She anointed Jesus’s feet with oil and wiped them with her hair to express her love and devotion. In doing this Mary’s loving extravagance mirrors and anticipates the great love of Christ. Just as Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, so she anoints his feet regardless of what other may say.
However, the shadow of the cross lies over the whole incident, and Mary wants to declare her love unmistakably.
This gospel account gives us a wonderful description of Mary kneeling at the feet of Jesus, anointing them with the expensive ointment of pure nard, and wiping them with her unbound hair. It is a dramatic action, beautiful in the eyes of Jesus. Mary was expressing her great love for him in an act of penitence, adoration and a costly outpouring of devotion.
Here we see that Mary has shown how much she loves Jesus; she has shown her generous love to him. Jesus recognised this act of love but knows in part it is a preparation for his death and burial.
As we turn to the other characters in this story, we may ask ourselves where would we fit in? Martha was serving; Lazarus was sharing; Mary was adoring; Judas was complaining.’ ‘Where are we in this picture?’
In the epistle Paul shows us that knowing Christ is no vague theory, rather it results in a transformed life. Paul writes: ‘I want to know Christ’. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and that means knowing Christ by “the sharing of his sufferings”. Philippians 3:10
But Paul’s great desire was always to know Christ.
Is this our desire? Do we long to ‘know Christ’ more? From Passion Sunday to Good Friday, we focus on the sufferings of Christ. Jesus suffered and died on the Cross so we can receive his love and salvation.
The Old Testament reading from Isaiah has a great sense of anticipation and expectancy – how exciting that God is about to do something new and amazing! God will make ‘a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.’ Isaiah 43:19
Isaiah is keen to point out that God’s life and love are available for all who are spiritually thirsty.
This year, if we wish to know Christ more nearly and dearly, we need to believe and receive that wonderful love anew.
We also need to remind ourselves that we do receive that wonderful gift of love from Christ when we stand at the alter each week and receive the sacrament.
Passionate, overflowing love is at the heart of the Passion story.
During holy week we can express our love for God in our worship and in ministries. By walking the journey of Holy week together we can arrive at the resurrection knowing we have participated in our Lord’s passion and knowing that we are part of his resurrection.
A truth, in this troubled world today, that we need to know.
We need to have faith that resurrection is possible, new beginnings are possible: in our nation, in our church, in our homes and in our suffering world.
Over the next two weeks we will sing together the moving and inspiring passion hymns and remind ourselves of those poignant words from Cecil Frances Alexander’s hymn:
“There is a Green Hill Far Away ”
“O dearly, dearly has he loved, and we must love him too,
and trust in his redeeming blood and try his works to do”.
Amen