01 March 2026
Second Sunday of Lent
Welcome!
Welcome to excerpts from the worship held within the newly formed Westhills Church of Scotland Congregation. We know that not all members of the congregation are able to be in church on Sunday morning; offering these excerpts from the Sunday morning service might help you feel included. Where we can, we offer parts of the service in text and audio, whichever works best for you.
If this post helps you explore what happens within an act of worship then please read on…
Your Weekly Church Notices
Scripture
Romans 4: 13 – 17
John 3: 1 – 8
Praise – Be still for the presence of the Lord
Prayers
Creator God, you come among us in the colour and richness of this day holding out your word promise to us. In the joy of fellowship, we meet with you, walk with you, speak with you and listen for your voice. Living God, you move within us in the life and energy that gives rhythm to the day. In the faces of friends and of strangers we look for you.
Spirit of God You speak to us, and Your words challenge us and comfort us. Your words give purpose to our day, whispering encouragement and calling us to love, for You are Love. We listen for you.
If you were content, Lord God, you would not pursue us or call to us to follow. But you are restless; through anger and through love, you strive for all things to change and be made new. If your job were complete, Lord God, you would not need us. But you are always working, Lord, and you have asked us to join in Your work of fulfilling the hopes of the kingdom.
If we were perfect, Lord God, we would not have need of you. But we are fragile and fragmented people. We seek different goals and we serve contradictory causes. We talk liberation and live oppression; we shout peace and practice violence; we call for justice yet walk hand in hand with injustice. Through your compassion have mercy upon us. Enable us to hear Your voice, to walk Your path, to dream Your dreams and to speak Your truth. Enter our trusting, enter our fearing, enter our letting go, enter our holding back, that we might be renewed and opened afresh to your love in the service of your world.
It is in service to You that we bring our offering. Gifts laid before you that speak of our love and devotion, our desire to see the love of God touch the heart of humanity. These gifts are for Your church. Your Church is Your gift to the world that You fashioned and made. As we open our hearts to you so we open our hearts to our brother and sister and neighbour.
Hear us as we join in the words of the Lord’s Prayer saying…
Our Father who art in Heaven Hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory forever. Amen.
Address
I Swear. Don’t know if you have ever watched the film based on the life of John Davidson who suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome. If you haven’t watched – you should.
Of course, the film, the cast and Tourette’s syndrome has featured in our news recently. In a good way because the film won awards at the BAFTA’s with Robert Aramayo, who portrays John Davidson in the film, winning best actor, stealing that award from under the noses of some big Hollywood names.
In another way it has not been good. The media and social media has made a huge thing out of the racial slurs which John Davidson shouted out during the awards ceremony; that’s just part of John Davidson’s syndrome, he can’t do much about the involuntary tics that cause him to shout out some bad language. The word John Davidson shouted out held no intent to cause racial aggravation but those who heard it reacted to the racial slur. The BBC have been condemned for broadcasting an almost inaudible racial slur. The intent of a word used by the person who speaks it; and the interpretation given to that world by the person who hears it, can be two very different things. Is it any wonder that across race and culture humanity can be so divided? If we think this is a modern problem well, it’s not. Multi-cultural society and the problems associated with it are not new.
The generation in which Jesus grew up was an amazing melting pot of traditions, nationalities, outlooks and religions. There were occupying forces and reactionary freedom fighters. There was great wealth and great poverty. There were those greatly respected in society and those who were rejected and outcast by society. It was a time of real contrasts yet also a time when the whole world seemed to converge on Palestine and in the midst of this complex mixture of cultures; languages, religions and outlooks came Jesus with his Gospel.
Jesus had no problem at mixing with people from different cultures. Jews, Samaritans, Greeks, Romans, Ethiopians, Syrians, he met with them all at some time or other and he saw the good in them all. He met with people from the opposite extremes of society too, Zacchaeus the Tax Collector and therefore outcast, and Nicodemus the much-respected Pharisee.
Mention the Pharisees and we start putting the barriers up. Our Christian heritage has taught us to treat the Pharisees with disdain. Here are the people in authority who made life hard for the common people and who conspired against the Christ. We have a little bit of prejudice when really, we should try to see the good.
The Pharisees were zealous to keep the purity of God’s law and to see God’s people remaining faithful in the midst of a multi-cultural society. And we might sympathise with that. Jesus challenged many of the rules the Pharisees upheld and represented. But knowledge is power and for those like the Pharisees who knew all the rules and obeyed them it put them in a position of superiority over the common people. The Pharisees saw a multi-cultural society watering down their religion and their influence. These were tough times for the Pharisees.
Nicodemus is sent out to meet with Jesus. They seem to completely misunderstand each other as though they are from different worlds. What Jesus means is not what Nicodemus hears. “I tell you the truth,” says Jesus, “unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” It is one of the curious things of language, the word, which means “again” can also mean “from above”. Jesus is speaking about a spiritual birth but Nicodemus can only comprehend one kind of birth.
What Jesus tells him is clear and simple if radical; to enter the Kingdom of God we need a reorientation of life in which we are born from above. But Nicodemus thinks he is able to make it on his own to God. Just follow the rules and everything will be OK. Jesus and Nicodemus are from different cultures. They are worlds apart. What Jesus says is not what Nicodemus hears.
Nicodemus had devoted his whole life to being good, to doing it the right way. He had kept the sacred laws with his whole being. Nicodemus can only see Jesus teachings as absurd and impossible. “How can a man be born when he is old? How can a man enter a second time into his mother’s womb?”
Jesus is making the point that just as we are born into this world as a mortal beings, so we are born immortal into the Heavenly Kingdom as a Son and daughters of God. God, breathed into us the gift of natural life; and now, God breathes into us the gift of the Holy Spirit. Nicodemus still wonders how and he leaves the scene in apparent disbelief.
The story of Nicodemus leaves us wondering what he actually decided. Did he leave behind his old religion with all its rules and regulations and allow God to fill his heart with New Life or did he not?
And as for us, at a distance of 2000 years, living in a culture so different to our Lord’s; do we grasp the intent within Jesus words, or do we hear something completely different.
Praise – When we walk with the Lord
Prayers for Others
Heavenly Father, Your spirit moves in us, causing us to cry out “Abba Father” to You. You are a loving Dad who embraces us and holds us safe.
Hear the prayers that come from our hearts, our fears and vulnerabilities, and our hopes, knowing that our help comes from You; You hold us safe.
We pray for the church in all its forms, all its denominations; we pray for this church, our church, handing ourselves to you as a congregation of Your people.
May we learn the lessons of vulnerability, and hear the call to rebirth, to be constantly renewed and be prepared to remain helpless and nourished by You,
so that we can truly embody what the world needs us to be, and be a sign of Your love. We lift our eyes to You, Our helper and our strength. Hear our prayers…
We pray for our leaders, and leaders across the world, that they will be humble and selfless, and willing to work together for the common good. Fill them with Your spirit Lord, so that they might strive to create communities that welcome the stranger and protect the vulnerable. We lift our eyes to You, Our helper and our strength. Hear our prayers…
We pray for peace in all those parts of the world where there is conflict. We ask You to hear the cries of all those who are suffering in war, and in its place let peace and justice flow. We pray that we may be filled with compassion and not despair, that you may gift us with wisdom and generosity to know how to help those in need. We lift our eyes to You, Our helper and our strength. Hear us in our prayers…
Lord God, we offer to you a broken world for our prayers and yet know you to be a God of detail, a God of the small and insignificant, a God who counts the hairs on our heads, because we matter to you. Even me, just one human being amongst billions. So, we come to tell you where we need your help in our own lives, or for someone or some situation known to us at this time:
We Lift our eyes to You, Our helper and our strength. Hear our prayers…
Praise – There is a Redeemer
The Grace
And now… May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you and all whom you love, now and for evermore. AMEN.