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 144
Of David.
[1] Blessed be the LORD, my rock,
who trains my hands for war,
and my fingers for battle;
[2] he is my steadfast love and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield and he in whom I take refuge,
who subdues peoples under me.
[3] O LORD, what is man that you regard him,
or the son of man that you think of him?
[4] Man is like a breath;
his days are like a passing shadow.
[5] Bow your heavens, O LORD, and come down!
Touch the mountains so that they smoke!
[6] Flash forth the lightning and scatter them;
send out your arrows and rout them!
[7] Stretch out your hand from on high;
rescue me and deliver me from the many waters,
from the hand of foreigners,
[8] whose mouths speak lies
and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
[9] I will sing a new song to you, O God;
upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you,
[10] who gives victory to kings,
who rescues David his servant from the cruel sword.
[11] Rescue me and deliver me
from the hand of foreigners,
whose mouths speak lies
and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
[12] May our sons in their youth
be like plants full grown,
our daughters like corner pillars
cut for the structure of a palace;
[13] may our granaries be full,
providing all kinds of produce;
may our sheep bring forth thousands
and ten thousands in our fields;
[14] may our cattle be heavy with young,
suffering no mishap or failure in bearing;
may there be no cry of distress in our streets!
[15] Blessed are the people to whom such blessings fall!
Blessed are the people whose God is the LORD!
Old Testament Reading
Isaiah 22
[1] The oracle concerning the valley of vision.
What do you mean that you have gone up,
all of you, to the housetops,
[2] you who are full of shoutings,
tumultuous city, exultant town?
Your slain are not slain with the sword
or dead in battle.
[3] All your leaders have fled together;
without the bow they were captured.
All of you who were found were captured,
though they had fled far away.
[4] Therefore I said:
“Look away from me;
let me weep bitter tears;
do not labor to comfort me
concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
[5] For the Lord GOD of hosts has a day
of tumult and trampling and confusion
in the valley of vision,
a battering down of walls
and a shouting to the mountains.
[6] And Elam bore the quiver
with chariots and horsemen,
and Kir uncovered the shield.
[7] Your choicest valleys were full of chariots,
and the horsemen took their stand at the gates.
[8] He has taken away the covering of Judah.
In that day you looked to the weapons of the House of the Forest, [9] and you saw that the breaches of the city of David were many. You collected the waters of the lower pool, [10] and you counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall. [11] You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you did not look to him who did it, or see him who planned it long ago.
[12] In that day the Lord GOD of hosts
called for weeping and mourning,
for baldness and wearing sackcloth;
[13] and behold, joy and gladness,
killing oxen and slaughtering sheep,
eating flesh and drinking wine.
“Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.”
[14] The LORD of hosts has revealed himself in my ears:
“Surely this iniquity will not be atoned for you until you die,”
says the Lord GOD of hosts.
[15] Thus says the Lord GOD of hosts, “Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him: [16] What have you to do here, and whom have you here, that you have cut out here a tomb for yourself, you who cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock? [17] Behold, the LORD will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you [18] and whirl you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a wide land. There you shall die, and there shall be your glorious chariots, you shame of your master’s house. [19] I will thrust you from your office, and you will be pulled down from your station. [20] In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, [21] and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. [22] And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. [23] And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house. [24] And they will hang on him the whole honor of his father’s house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons. [25] In that day, declares the LORD of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a secure place will give way, and it will be cut down and fall, and the load that was on it will be cut off, for the LORD has spoken.”
New Testament Reading
2 Peter 3
[1] This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, [2] that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, [3] knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. [4] They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” [5] For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, [6] and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. [7] But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
[8] But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. [9] The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. [10] But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
[11] Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, [12] waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! [13] But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
[14] Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. [15] And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, [16] as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. [17] You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. [18] But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
- 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...
Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of 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)
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord and our neighbors.