Watsonville First United Methodist Church

You are invited to Earth Day Sunday: Festival of God’s Creation on April 27 at 10 am. The bulletin for this Sunday is available for viewing HERE.

You can worship live on ZOOM by clicking the link below:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9658816441      Meeting ID: 965 881 6441

You can also watch Sunday services at your convenience by going to our website “watsonville1stumc.org” and click YouTube or Facebook. Each Sunday worship will be uploaded on Sunday afternoon for your viewing.

Earth Day Sunday
Festival of God’s Creation

Sunday, April 27, 2025, 10 am

Children’s Time               “Can You Go Any Slower?”                  Pastor John

Instead of running from predators, sloths rely on stealth. Their slow movement helps them blend in with the trees and avoid being noticed by things like eagles, jaguars, or humans. They even grow algae on their fur, which adds to their camouflage.

Choir Anthem: Praise the Lord! O Heavens, Adore Him
Words from Psalm 148 and by Edward Osley
Music by Hal H. Hopson
Based on the tune, HOLY MANNA, Southern Harmony, 1835

Resplendent Quetzal

Message                            “All Things Costa Rica”                      Rev. John Song

You are in for a treat! This Sunday you will indeed see the Festival of God’s Creation as we celebrate the Earth Day Sunday. Pastor John will give a slide presentation of all the fascinating creatures he saw from his recent trip to Costa Rica. Be sure sit near the screen to see the wonders of God’s creation.

Psalm 104: 24-25
O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
There is the sea, great and wide;
creeping things innumerable are there,
living things both small and great.

Romans 1:20
“Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature,
invisible though they are,
have been understood and seen through the things God has made.”

Reverence and Relationship with the Earth
“The earth is not broken, but our relationship to the earth and
one another is broken. Restoring the earth without restoring
our relationship with the earth is an empty exercise.” 
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass

“In this light my spirit saw through all things,
and I recognize God in all creatures, grass and plants.”
~ St. Francis of Assisi

“Every creature is the word of God.”
~ Meister Eckhart

Red-eyed Leaf Frog

You are invited to the Easter Sunday Service on April 20 at 10 am. The bulletin for this Sunday is available for viewing HERE.

You can worship live on ZOOM by clicking the link below:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9658816441      Meeting ID: 965 881 6441

You can also watch Sunday services at your convenience by going to our website “watsonville1stumc.org” and click YouTube or Facebook. Each Sunday worship will be uploaded on Sunday afternoon for your viewing.

Easter Sunday with the Reception of New Members
Sunday, April 20, 2025, 10 am

You are invited to the celebration of Reception of New Members:
Helene Nakano, Lorrie Rubio, Tony Rubio

Children’s Time          “Why Christians Celebrate Easter?”           Pastor John

Choir Anthem: He Is the Risen Lord
Words and Music by Joseph M. Martin

Easter Message                  Harrowing of Hades:                      Rev. John Song
“He Descended into Hell”

What really happened when Jesus was entombed in the cave during those 3 days between his death and resurrection? What is the cosmic significance of the Holy Saturday? We Protestant Christians don’t talk much about, if at all, the work of Jesus while he was entombed. We will explore the Paschal Mystery of Jesus where he underwent the transformation of death and resurrection that continues to reverberate throughout the universe. We will delve into its implication for our own salvation and transformation.

Ephesians 4:9-10 ~ When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.

“Awake, you who sleep, and rise from the dead! The earth trembled and now is still, because God has fallen asleep in the flesh, and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hades trembles with fear.” ~ St. Melito, the Bishop of Sardis in the late 2nd century AD

Joint Good Friday Contemplative Taizé Service
with Lutheran Church

Friday, April 18
3:00 pm in-person worship service, Sanctuary

You are invited to the Palm Passion Sunday Service with Holy Baptism on April 13 at 10 am. The bulletin for this Sunday is available for viewing HERE.

You can worship live on ZOOM by clicking the link below:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9658816441      Meeting ID: 965 881 6441

You can also watch Sunday services at your convenience by going to our website “watsonville1stumc.org” and click YouTube or Facebook. Each Sunday worship will be uploaded on Sunday afternoon for your viewing.

Palm Passion Sunday with Holy Baptism
Sunday, April 13, 2025, 10 am

Today is Sunday School with Joan!
[First, children will be in worship. Following the Special Music,
the teacher, Joan Culbertson, will lead our children to the Sunday School room.]

You are invited to the celebration of Holy Baptism of Lorrie Rubio!

Children’s Time               “What Is Baptism?”                    Pastor John

Matthew 3:13-17 
The Baptism of Jesus

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Special Music: Prelude by Johann Sebastian Bach
Marina Thomas, Piano Solo

Message                       Numinous Mystical Fire:                  Rev. John Song
Part 4) “Transfiguration of St. Seraphim”

St. Seraphim is one of the most renowned Russian saints and is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. He is generally considered the greatest of the 18th-century startsy (elder spiritual advisor). Seraphim extended the monastic teachings contemplation, and self-denial to the layperson. He taught that the purpose of the Christian life was to receive the Holy Spirit. Perhaps his most popular quotation amongst his devotees is “acquire a peaceful spirit, and thousands around you will be saved.”

“In the times in which we live, we have reached such a degree of lukewarmness and lack of ardor towards communion with God, we have departed almost entirely from the true Christian life. Our lack of understanding of God results from the fact that we have departed so far from the primitive simplicity of Christian knowledge. As the soul soars upwards, the soul is reduced to absolute dumbness both of speech and thought.”
~ St. Seraphim of Sarov, the 18^th century Russian saint (1754 – 1833)

Divine Light: Mystery of “Transfiguration” 
“The divine light becomes the principle of our understanding; 
in it we come to know God and ourselves. 
The divine light manifests itself in this life in space and in time.
It is revealed in history, but it is not of this world. It is eternal.”
~ Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church

Exodus 34: 29-30, 33-35
The Shining Face of Moses

Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; but whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

Transfiguration of St. Seraphim

You are invited to Worship with Holy Communion on April 6 at 10 am. The bulletin for this Sunday is available for viewing HERE.

You can worship live on ZOOM by clicking the link below:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9658816441      Meeting ID: 965 881 6441

You can also watch Sunday services at your convenience by going to our website “watsonville1stumc.org” and click YouTube or Facebook. Each Sunday worship will be uploaded on Sunday afternoon for your viewing.

Fifth Sunday in Lent
with Holy Communion
Sunday, April 6, 2025, 10 am

Children’s Time                  “Being an Everyday Mystic”                        Pastor John
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
~ Mary Oliver

Message                             Numinous Mystical Fire:                       Rev. John Song
Part 3) “Blaise Pascal’s Night of Fire”

Blaise Pascal was the French 17th-century philosopher, mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and famous for the collection of fragments in, The Pensées, which was published in 1670.

On, November 23, 1654, Pascal’s horses bolted and plunged off a bridge. Pascal was thrown into the roadway. He saw this as a warning directly from God. That night he encountered numinous mystical fire of God that would cause his outstanding scientific work to take second place in his pursuits to serve God.

For the rest of his life Pascal carried around a piece of parchment sewn into his coat–a parchment that inscribed his experience of the divine encounter. Light flooded his room. He saw fire, all-consuming fire. He recognized Jesus, the Word.

After his death, eight years later, at the age 39 (on August 19, 1662, Paris), a servant going through his effects felt a lump in the interior lining of his coat. Investigating, he found written on a parchment worn but carefully preserved paper in Pascal’s own handwriting of the record of his fateful night of encountering the numinous Light of God on November 23, 1654.

Pascal wrote down a summary of the experience the divine visitation of the “Night of Fire” in a brief document entitled the Memorial, which he sewed into his coat that touched his heart and carried with him until his death. 

Here are excerpts from his ecstatic phrases:

FIRE
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob
Not of the philosophers and scholars.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
God of Jesus Christ…

Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except God.

Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of Joy,
I have separated myself from Him
My God, wilt Thou leave me?
Let me not be separated from Thee.

This is the eternal life,
that they might know Thee,
the only true God,
and the one whom Thou has sent, Jesus Christ”

Renunciation, total and sweet
Submission, total and sweet
Total submission to Jesus-Christ… Eternally in joy…
Amen.

From that day forward, Blaise Pascal realized even more deeply that he must live primarily in service for God.

Exodus 3:1-6
The Burning Bush 

“Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

Not Light but Fire
“But if you wish to know these things come about
Ask desire, not understanding
The groaning of prayer, not diligent reading
The Lover, not the teacher
Not light, but the fire
That totally inflames and carries us into God.”
~ St. Bonaventure