Resources for Worship on the First Sunday of Lent

These are worship resources for The First Sunday of Lent, 2021. The resources are gathered from a variety of sources and, while assembled mainly for The Anglican Church of St Thomas the Apostle, Kefalas, on the island of Crete in Greece, others may find them useful.

*Creation Covenant* from *The Saint John’s Bible*

Read

The readings appointed by Common Worship and the Revised Common Lectionary for the First Sunday of Lent are: Genesis 9:8-17, Psalm 25:1-9, 1 Peter 3:18-22, and Mark 1:9-15.

In the Anglican Church of St Thomas, Kefalas, Crete, we are observing February 21, 2021 as the Fourth Sunday Before Lent. The readings are: Isaiah 43.18-25, Psalm 41, 2 Corinthians 1.18-22, and Mark 2.1-11. The order of service for the Fourth Sunday Before Lent may be downloaded here:

an-order-for-the-fourth-sunday-before-lent-2021 Download

Please join us by clicking this link or by entering the following into your Zoom application: Meeting ID: 850 4483 9927 Passcode: 010209. This will be a Zoom-only service — we may start having Zoomed service in the church in the next few weeks, involving the leaders in the church with three or four congregants, and the rest of you joining in remotely on your computers.

Reflect

This is my First Sunday of Lent sermon from last year, 2020. It makes more sense with the wilderness accounts in Matthew and Luke.

Pray

Collect
Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ fasted forty days in the wilderness,
and was tempted as we are, yet without sin:
give us grace to discipline ourselves in obedience to your Spirit;
and, as you know our weakness,
so may we know your power to save;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

(or)

Heavenly Father,
your Son battled with the powers of darkness,
and grew closer to you in the desert:
help us to use these days to grow in wisdom and prayer
that we may witness to your saving love
in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

On the First Sunday of Lent you may wish to use The Litany or the form of intercessions below the biddings.

Biddings
I bid your prayers for the Church:

for Robert Innes & David Hamid, our bishops;
for Justin Welby our archbishop, Stephen Cottrell the Archbishop of York, and the General Synod of the Church of England;
we remember our beloved in Christ in other denominations, especially the leadership in:
- The Orthodox Church: Vartholomaĩos, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople; and Irinaios Athanasiadis, Archbishop of Crete; and the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece in Athens;
- The Roman Catholic Church, especially Pope Francis, and the bishop for Crete, Petros Stefanou;
- our relationship of full communion with the churches of the Porvoo agreement, especially The Church of Sweden, the Rev. Björn Kling, and Thomas Petersson, Bishop of Visby with oversight of the Church of Sweden Abroad;
- the Greek Evangelical Church, the independent Greek Pentecostal churches, and the various Lutheran, Reformed, and other Protestant churches ministering to foreign populations;
we pray especially for congregations that have been obliged to cease in-person services, and give thanks that we are able to gather over the internet;
for the churches and peoples of France, Germany, and Monaco (World Council of Churches Ecumenical Prayer Cycle);
in the Anglican Communion, we pray for The Church of the Province of Central Africa (Anglican Cycle of Prayer);
(from the Prayer Diary of the Diocese in Europe) pray:
- for the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht, and its Archbishop Bernd Wallet;
- for the Evangelical Lutheran Churches of Iceland, Latvia, and Lithuania;
in London,
- our Chancellor: Mark Hill;
- our Registrar: Aiden Hargreaves-Smith; and
in Brussels, the Communications Director: Damian Thwaites.

I bid your prayers for the leaders and people of the nations; especially

Katerini Sakellaropoulou, President of Greece, and
- Kyriakos Mitsotakis the Prime Minister of Greece;
Elizabeth, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and her other realms, and also in her role as Governor of the Church of England;
- and Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of her British government;
In the European Union,
- Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission;
- Charles Michel, President of the European Council; and
- Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy;
For the United Nations and its work, and its Secretary General, António Guterres;
For the peoples of the United States, and for their new President, Joe Biden and their new Vice-President, Kamala Harris; the Congress and the federal courts; and the state governors, legislatures, and state court systems;
the peoples of Myanmar, Belarus, Hong Kong, Russia, Sudan, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, Bolivia, Nigeria, Brazil, and Thailand as they continue to demonstrate for democracy and justice;
for the maintaining of peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and between Russia and Ukraine, North and South Korea, and for a final, just resolution to their conflicts;
for peace and justice between Palestinians and Israelis;
for advocates of Indigenous rights and the adoption and implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
prisoners and captives, especially the over one million Uygers being held in detention in China;
the over 79.5 million refugees and nearly 4 million stateless person, remembering especially the crucial situation of Greece, and the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHCR”);
for a lessening of tensions between Turkey and Greece; and
for peace in Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, and Ethiopia.

I bid your prayers for the sick and suffering and all who minister to their needs;

remembering the over twenty-two million active cases of the novel coronavirus, giving thanks that this number has begun to go down; but mourning with the families of the over 2.46 million who have died in the pandemic;
for the 1.64 million people in the UK with active cases of covid-19, the over 119,000 who have died of it there, and the 13,548 active cases here in Greece, and the families of the over 6249 dead here;
remembering those ill with other diseases, and those whose operations have been postponed;
all those having issues with mental health;
those suffering from addiction, and those in recovery;
those who have been affected severely by the economic effects of the pandemic, especially in food services and tourism;
and giving thanks for the efforts of researchers in finding vaccines, and for the rollout of vaccines across the world.

Intercession
With confidence and trust let us pray to the Father.

For the one holy catholic and apostolic Church …
let us pray to the Father.