OPENING PRAYER

O God, in your plan of salvation your Son Jesus Christ accepted the cross and freed us from the power of the enemy. May we come to share the glory of his resurrection, for he lives and rules with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever. Amen.

READING I: Isaiah 50:4-9a
The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens — wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord GOD who helps me; who will declare me guilty?

READING II: St. Mark 14:1-11

It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; for they said, “Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.”

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world,what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”

Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. When they heard it, they were greatly pleased, and promised to give him money. So he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.

READING III: Toyohiko Kagawa (1888 - 1960)

With sorrowful heart,

Yet for the joy of atonement,

You went, O Christ to Calvary.

If the stars ceased to twinkle

and the sun forgot to shine,

The ever-increasing rays of God's love

would find an earthward passage

Through you.

O Christ,

That a thousand and a thousand years

Have passed since Golgotha you braved:

And still men gasp with fear

And grasp with greed--and suffer:

Let us swing into the orbit of your love.

Hasten the day

When we can forget the borders of countries,

the hues of the skin;

When we--all of us together--

Can praise in harmony your love.

O let us see more vividly

Your blood of love from Calvary,

Streaming like ever-increasing rays....

Earthward.

CLOSING PRAYER

My Lord and my God: You see how much of hypocrisy and falsehood dwells within me, in my worldliness as well as in my piety. You see how I spurn your love by spurning those to whom you send me, and how I thereby deliver you anew to death and the cross. Lord, forgive me! Lord, convert me! Lord, prepare me for a true Easter! Amen.

Per Lonning (1928 ---)