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 50
A Psalm of Asaph.
[1] The Mighty One, God the LORD,
speaks and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
[2] Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God shines forth.
[3] Our God comes; he does not keep silence;
before him is a devouring fire,
around him a mighty tempest.
[4] He calls to the heavens above
and to the earth, that he may judge his people:
[5] “Gather to me my faithful ones,
who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”
[6] The heavens declare his righteousness,
for God himself is judge! Selah
[7] “Hear, O my people, and I will speak;
O Israel, I will testify against you.
I am God, your God.
[8] Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
your burnt offerings are continually before me.
[9] I will not accept a bull from your house
or goats from your folds.
[10] For every beast of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
[11] I know all the birds of the hills,
and all that moves in the field is mine.
[12] “If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and its fullness are mine.
[13] Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
[14] Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and perform your vows to the Most High,
[15] and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
[16] But to the wicked God says:
“What right have you to recite my statutes
or take my covenant on your lips?
[17] For you hate discipline,
and you cast my words behind you.
[18] If you see a thief, you are pleased with him,
and you keep company with adulterers.
[19] “You give your mouth free rein for evil,
and your tongue frames deceit.
[20] You sit and speak against your brother;
you slander your own mother’s son.
[21] These things you have done, and I have been silent;
you thought that I was one like yourself.
But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.
[22] “Mark this, then, you who forget God,
lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!
[23] The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;
to one who orders his way rightly
I will show the salvation of God!”
Old Testament Reading
Numbers 14
[1] Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. [2] And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! [3] Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” [4] And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
[5] Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel. [6] And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes [7] and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, “The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. [8] If the LORD delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. [9] Only do not rebel against the LORD. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them.” [10] Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of the LORD appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel.
[11] And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? [12] I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
[13] But Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them, [14] and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O LORD, are in the midst of this people. For you, O LORD, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. [15] Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, [16] ‘It is because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness.’ [17] And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, [18] ‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ [19] Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.”
[20] Then the LORD said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. [21] But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD, [22] none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, [23] shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. [24] But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it. [25] Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.”
[26] And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, [27] “How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. [28] Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: [29] your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, [30] not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. [31] But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. [32] But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. [33] And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. [34] According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ [35] I, the LORD, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”
[36] And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land—[37] the men who brought up a bad report of the land—died by plague before the LORD. [38] Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive.
[39] When Moses told these words to all the people of Israel, the people mourned greatly. [40] And they rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, “Here we are. We will go up to the place that the LORD has promised, for we have sinned.” [41] But Moses said, “Why now are you transgressing the command of the LORD, when that will not succeed? [42] Do not go up, for the LORD is not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies. [43] For there the Amalekites and the Canaanites are facing you, and you shall fall by the sword. Because you have turned back from following the LORD, the LORD will not be with you.” [44] But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country, although neither the ark of the covenant of the LORD nor Moses departed out of the camp. [45] Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and defeated them and pursued them, even to Hormah.
- 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, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, 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.