Worship
for the Lord’s Day: Easter Sunday
April 12,
2020
A Note
before we begin this day’s worship:
There are several images that mark
this day – the vacant cross, the empty tomb, and decorated Easter eggs. I encourage you to set your worship space
with reminders of these visual markers.
If you have a cross (even a necklace or a drawing of one), a stone to
represent the empty tomb, and brightly colored eggs (even a plastic one will
do), place them around you this morning.
Decorated eggs aren’t usually associated with the Christian symbols of
Easter; they are more of the secular
adaptation for Easter, but I think this year we need the joy and brightness
that these eggs bring to us. Again, get
creative, this is your celebration and our celebration together!
Let’s
begin:
Opening
Prayer
Lord,
this Lenten journey has certainly been filled with the unexpected. You have asked us to look deeper within
ourselves than we ever thought we could to identify the many ways in which we
have turned away from You. As we worship
You this day, we ask that You open our hearts to receive Your word of redemptive
healing and resurrection hope. Bring us
through this time with confidence and trust in Your eternal love. AMEN.
Prayer
of Confession
Gracious
and Patient God, we bow before You this day with so many fears, worries,
anxieties and concerns which weigh us down. We would like an "easy" faith, one
that doesn’t cause us to look too deeply within ourselves to identify the many
ways in which we have forsaken You. But,
we have come to know and realize that faith is never easy. It requires our very souls. Forgive us, God, for all the ways in which we
have neglected to care for one another; to help someone else be closer to You. Heal our hearts from the wounds which have
been inflicted upon us by the anger and misunderstandings which occur in
relationships. And prepare our lives to
be of more service to You. In silence we
wait for the day when we too can emerge from the tomb. We long for Your presence and Your healing
touch. AMEN
Words
of Assurance
God
is merciful. God is slow to anger and
abounding in steadfast love. Feel the healing, loving power of God in your
lives, for it is given to you through Jesus Christ. AMEN
Pastoral
Prayer
God
of Awesome Joy, be with us this day as we celebrate the resurrection of your
Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. As we
witness the surprise of the women at the tomb, the appearance of the Savior to
Mary, and her good news brought to the disciples, let us remember that this
good news exists for us today. Darkness
does not win. Death is not victorious. Christ
is Risen, for each of us. We are raised with Christ to a new life of hope and
service. Let the light of Your love
flood into our lives and through us to all those who have been captured by
darkness, that the light may give them healing, freedom and hope. Let us look to children and see joy. Let us look to the elderly and see
wisdom. Let us look to one another and
see Christ. Let us look to the earth and
see beauty.
Even
in the midst of newness of the Spring, we are painfully aware that our world
lives in great need of Your renewal, and that new life has not come in its
fullness. We ask to be your instruments
in bringing that renewal to our own sphere of influence. May we reach out to those who need a hand for
friendship, a meal for strength, a roof for protection, or a peacekeeper for
safety. May the love of the One who
lives forever shine through our hearts, our words, and our acts in ever new
ways.
Let
the joy of this good news swirl around in our hearts. Let us truly be the “Easter People” that You
have called us to be.
I lift my own prayers up to You now….
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.
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,
and the power, and the glory, forever.
AMEN.
Scripture
Readings
Old
Testament Reading: Jeremiah 31:1-6
At that time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all the
families of Israel, and they shall be my people. 2Thus says
the Lord: The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness;
when Israel sought for rest, 3the Lord appeared to
him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have
continued my faithfulness to you. 4Again I will build you, and
you shall be built, O virgin Israel! Again you shall take your tambourines, and
go forth in the dance of the merrymakers. 5Again you shall
plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant, and
shall enjoy the fruit. 6For there shall be a day when sentinels
will call in the hill country of Ephraim: “Come, let us go up to Zion, to
the Lord our God.”
New
Testament Reading: John 20:1-18
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from
the tomb. 2So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other
disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord
out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3Then
Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4The
two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the
tomb first. 5He bent down to look in and saw the linen
wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter
came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying
there, 7and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying
with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8Then
the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and
believed; 9for as yet they did not understand the scripture,
that he must rise from the dead. 10Then the disciples returned
to their homes.
11But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent
over to look into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white,
sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other
at the feet. 13They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they
have laid him.” 14When she had said this, she turned around and
saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus
said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing
him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away,
tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16Jesus
said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which
means Teacher). 17Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me,
because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to
them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your
God.’” 18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I
have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
Anthem: Was It a Morning Like This
Sermon
Hallelujah!
Christ is Risen! These are words
we hear every Easter Morning. Easter is
THE most joyful day of the Christian year; as one pastor said, “It is the Super
Bowl of Sundays.” It’s the
Sunday, the one we’ve all been waiting so patiently for, as this Sunday follows
the 40-day period of Lent. It arrives,
for us in Pennsylvania, just at the beginning of Spring; meaning that it’s a
day of symbolic spiritual resurrection as well as the physical one witnessed
all around us. Spring emerges as buds
form on trees and the tips of green brighten the landscape, from the
forsythias, hyacinths, lilies, and tulips erupting in glorious color. It is a welcome sight after a long, dark, and
gloomy winter.
I remember growing up in the suburbs outside
Philadelphia and donning our new Easter outfits mom and dad bought for my
sister and me. I’d be in a brand new
suit with matching tie, carefully coifed hair.
She’d be in a brand new dress, bows in her hair, new white shoes that
clicked on the pavement as we walked down the sidewalk toward church. It was a day of joy and celebration.
In churches all across America children would
be given a basket or bag to hunt for Easter Eggs in the church building or
outside on the lawn. Moms, Dads, and
Grandparents all would watch nearby as the children would race around the area
searching for the brightly colored plastic eggs. The church bells would ring and everyone in
their glorious spring attire would file into the church; ladies donning hats,
gentlemen in their Sunday best. Each
family would have specific Easter obligations to complete that day, often based
on either ethnic background or family traditions.
That was 50 years ago. Not much as really changed. The throngs still gather on Easter Sunday like
no other Sunday in the year. But this
year, there are no throngs driving off to worship celebrations at church or
family gatherings for dinner afterward.
So, what is Easter without the pomp and circumstance, without the throngs?
While we certainly welcome the throngs on Easter
morning of years past and enjoy the splendor of the day, we should note that on
the first Easter morning, there were very, very, very few
people present. And those who were
present were confused, uncertain, and flat out terrified. Matthew points out that there were earthquakes
between the crucifixion on Friday and Resurrection Day. All creation trembled. And the disciples were hiding away in a
locked room in fear.
Only a small number of them ventured out that
first Easter morning. Depending on whose
account you read, Matthew’s, Mark’s, Luke’s, or John’s, the few that went to
the tomb changes. Maybe it was Peter and
John who went first. Maybe it was the
women who wanted to complete the task of burial. Maybe it was Mary alone.
Mark’s account ends with the final scene of the
women discovering the empty tomb; but instead of celebrating, they flee, “for
terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they
were afraid.”
The reality is for this Easter in the year 2020,
we are in much the same place of disappointment and dissatisfaction, not
because Jesus’ did not rise from the grave, but our expectations for what we’d
wanted to have happen this day have gone unfulfilled and have had to change. The expectations the disciples had weren’t aligned
with what they found. But, over the
course of a few short days or weeks they adapted to their new reality. They witnessed Christ who visited them on several
occasions, they were given the power to believe in the resurrection itself,
they were reminded of all that Jesus taught and showed them. In the end they were empowered to move from
their place of disappointment, dissatisfaction, and mostly importantly, they
were able to move to the other side of FEAR.
They were then able to live into that resurrection hope and change the
world.
May this Easter be the catalyst for us to move
beyond disappointment, dissatisfaction and fear and become more like the disciples
when we can finally emerge and…change the world.
A colleague in ministry sent this poem for
today’s Easter celebration.
How the Virus Stole Easter
By Kristi Bothur with a nod to Dr. Seuss
Twas late
in ‘19 when the virus began
Bringing
chaos and fear to all people, each land.
People
were sick, hospitals full,
Doctors
overwhelmed, no one in school.
As winter
gave way to the promise of spring,
The virus
raged on, touching peasant and king.
People
hid in their homes from the enemy unseen.
They
YouTubed and Zoomed, social-distanced, and cleaned.
April
approached and churches were closed.
“There
won’t be an Easter,” the world supposed.
“There
won’t be church services, and egg hunts are out.
No reason
for new dresses when we can’t go about.”
Holy Week
started, as bleak as the rest.
The world
was focused on masks and on tests.
“Easter
can’t happen this year,” it proclaimed.
“Online
and at home, it just won’t be the same.”
Maundy Thursday,
Good Friday, the days came and went.
The virus
pressed on; it just would not relent.
The world
woke Sunday and nothing had changed.
The virus
still menaced, the people, estranged.
“Pooh
pooh to the saints,” the world was grumbling.
“They’re
finding out now that no Easter is coming.
“They’re
just waking up! We know just what they’ll do!
Their
mouths will hang open a minute or two,
And then
all the saints will all cry boo-hoo.
“That
noise,” said the world, “will be something to hear.”
So it
paused and the world put a hand to its ear.
And it
did hear a sound coming through all the skies.
It
started down low, then it started to rise.
But the
sound wasn’t depressed.
Why, this
sound was triumphant!
It
couldn’t be so!
But it
grew with abundance!
The world
stared around, popping its eyes.
Then it
shook! What it saw was a shocking surprise!
Every
saint in every nation, the tall and the small,
Was
celebrating Jesus in spite of it all!
It hadn’t
stopped Easter from coming! It came!
Somehow
or other, it came just the same!
And the
world with its life quite stuck in quarantine
Stood
puzzling and puzzling.
“Just how
can it be?”
“It came
without bonnets, it came without bunnies,
It came
without egg hunts, cantatas, or money.”
Then the
world thought of something it hadn’t before.
“Maybe
Easter,” it thought, “doesn’t come from a store.
Maybe
Easter, perhaps, means a little bit more.”
And what
happened then?
Well....the
story’s not done.
What will
YOU do?
Will you
share with that one
Or two or
more people needing hope in this night?
Will you
share the source of your life in this fight?
The
churches are empty - but so is the tomb,
And Jesus
is victor over death, doom, and gloom.
So this
year at Easter, let this be our prayer,
As the
virus still rages all around, everywhere.
May the
world see hope when it looks at God’s people.
May the
world see the church is not a building or steeple.
May the
world find Faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection,
May the
world find Joy in a time of dejection.
May 2020
be known as the year of survival,
But not
only that -
Let it
start a revival.
I’ve
included an organ only version of this hymn so that you can sing the words
below. These words were written
specifically for this year.
AURELIA
7.6.7.6 D ("The Church's One Foundation")
This
Easter celebration is not like ones we've known.
We pray
in isolation, we sing the hymns alone.
We're
distant from our neighbors — from worship leaders, too.
No
flowers grace the chancel to set a festive mood.
No
gathered choirs are singing; no banners lead the way.
O God of
love and promise, where's joy this Easter Day?
With
sanctuaries empty, may homes become the place
we ponder
resurrection and celebrate your grace.
Our joy
won't come from worship that's in a crowded room
but from
the news of women who saw the empty tomb.
Our joy
comes from disciples who ran with haste to see —
who heard
that Christ is risen, and then, by grace, believed.
In all
the grief and suffering, may we remember well:
Christ
suffered crucifixion and faced the powers of hell.
Each
Easter bears the promise: Christ rose that glorious day!
Now
nothing in creation can keep your love away.
We thank
you that on Easter, your church is blessed to be
a
scattered, faithful body that's doing ministry.
In homes
and in the places of help and healing, too,
we live
the Easter message by gladly serving you.
Tune:
Samuel Sebastian Wesley, 1864 ("The Church's One Foundation")
Text:
Copyright © 2020 by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. All rights reserved.
Benediction
Christ is
Risen!
He is Risen,
Indeed!
And He
goes before us, into this world of fear and pain. He has called us to bring the Good News of
healing and hope, of redemption.
Go in
peace, and feel the presence of the Risen Lord with you, now and forever. AMEN.
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