Easter
The fullness of the resurrection requires more than a day to unpack. The Easter season is a fifty-day celebration that ends on Pentecost Sunday (the Greek word pentekoste means “fiftieth”). The Easter season is a time to let the implications of the resurrection sink in deeper, inviting us to realign our worldview and conform our living to the reality that we have been raised with Christ to new life. Easter is full of joy and the laughter of love—the grave is empty, love has won, Christ is risen! Give yourself over to the experience of that joy—take in the absolute wonder of God’s purposeful plan of salvation (from Seeking God’s Face by Philip Reinders).
- Calling -
O Lord, open our lips.
And our mouth shall proclaim Your praise.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever. Amen. Alleluia!
Alleluia. The Lord is risen indeed:
O come, let us adore him. Alleluia.
- Constitution -
Read/Listen, Meditate, Pray, and Contemplate on God’s Word, remembering that God is with you and ready to speak to you because he loves you.
Praying the Psalms
Psalm 33
[1] Shout for joy in the LORD, O you righteous!
Praise befits the upright.
[2] Give thanks to the LORD with the lyre;
make melody to him with the harp of ten strings!
[3] Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
[4] For the word of the LORD is upright,
and all his work is done in faithfulness.
[5] He loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD.
[6] By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,
and by the breath of his mouth all their host.
[7] He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap;
he puts the deeps in storehouses.
[8] Let all the earth fear the LORD;
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
[9] For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.
[10] The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
[11] The counsel of the LORD stands forever,
the plans of his heart to all generations.
[12] Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!
[13] The LORD looks down from heaven;
he sees all the children of man;
[14] from where he sits enthroned he looks out
on all the inhabitants of the earth,
[15] he who fashions the hearts of them all
and observes all their deeds.
[16] The king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
[17] The war horse is a false hope for salvation,
and by its great might it cannot rescue.
[18] Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
[19] that he may deliver their soul from death
and keep them alive in famine.
[20] Our soul waits for the LORD;
he is our help and our shield.
[21] For our heart is glad in him,
because we trust in his holy name.
[22] Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.
Old Testament Reading
Leviticus 26
[1] “You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the LORD your God. [2] You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD.
[3] “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, [4] then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. [5] Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely. [6] I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land. [7] You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. [8] Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. [9] I will turn to you and make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you. [10] You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. [11] I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. [12] And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. [13] I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.
[14] “But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, [15] if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, [16] then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. [17] I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you. [18] And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins, [19] and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. [20] And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.
[21] “Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins. [22] And I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that your roads shall be deserted.
[23] “And if by this discipline you are not turned to me but walk contrary to me, [24] then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. [25] And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. [26] When I break your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.
[27] “But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, [28] then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. [29] You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. [30] And I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you. [31] And I will lay your cities waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing aromas. [32] And I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it. [33] And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
[34] “Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. [35] As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. [36] And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. [37] They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. [38] And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. [39] And those of you who are left shall rot away in your enemies’ lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.
[40] “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, [41] so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, [42] then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. [43] But the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. [44] Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, for I am the LORD their God. [45] But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.”
[46] These are the statutes and rules and laws that the LORD made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai.
- Communion -
Pray for yourself, others, our church, our neighbors, and the world.
Pray the Lord’s Prayer & the collect of the week:
Our Father who art in heaven...
O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people; Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
- Commission -
May the God of peace, who raised to life the great shepherd of the sheep, make us ready to do his will in every good thing, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.
(Based on Hebrews 13:20-21)
Let us go forth in the name of Christ.