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 7
A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the LORD concerning the words of Cush, a Benjaminite.
[1] O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge;
save me from all my pursuers and deliver me,
[2] lest like a lion they tear my soul apart,
rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.
[3] O LORD my God, if I have done this,
if there is wrong in my hands,
[4] if I have repaid my friend with evil
or plundered my enemy without cause,
[5] let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it,
and let him trample my life to the ground
and lay my glory in the dust. Selah
[6] Arise, O LORD, in your anger;
lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies;
awake for me; you have appointed a judgment.
[7] Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you;
over it return on high.
[8] The LORD judges the peoples;
judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness
and according to the integrity that is in me.
[9] Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
and may you establish the righteous—
you who test the minds and hearts,
O righteous God!
[10] My shield is with God,
who saves the upright in heart.
[11] God is a righteous judge,
and a God who feels indignation every day.
[12] If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword;
he has bent and readied his bow;
[13] he has prepared for him his deadly weapons,
making his arrows fiery shafts.
[14] Behold, the wicked man conceives evil
and is pregnant with mischief
and gives birth to lies.
[15] He makes a pit, digging it out,
and falls into the hole that he has made.
[16] His mischief returns upon his own head,
and on his own skull his violence descends.
[17] I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness,
and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.
Psalm 8
To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.
[1] O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
[2] Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.
[3] When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
[4] what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
[5] Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
[6] You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
[7] all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
[8] the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
[9] O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Psalm 9
To the choirmaster: according to Muth-labben. A Psalm of David.
[1] I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
[2] I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
[3] When my enemies turn back,
they stumble and perish before your presence.
[4] For you have maintained my just cause;
you have sat on the throne, giving righteous judgment.
[5] You have rebuked the nations; you have made the wicked perish;
you have blotted out their name forever and ever.
[6] The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins;
their cities you rooted out;
the very memory of them has perished.
[7] But the LORD sits enthroned forever;
he has established his throne for justice,
[8] and he judges the world with righteousness;
he judges the peoples with uprightness.
[9] The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
[10] And those who know your name put their trust in you,
for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you.
[11] Sing praises to the LORD, who sits enthroned in Zion!
Tell among the peoples his deeds!
[12] For he who avenges blood is mindful of them;
he does not forget the cry of the afflicted.
[13] Be gracious to me, O LORD!
See my affliction from those who hate me,
O you who lift me up from the gates of death,
[14] that I may recount all your praises,
that in the gates of the daughter of Zion
I may rejoice in your salvation.
[15] The nations have sunk in the pit that they made;
in the net that they hid, their own foot has been caught.
[16] The LORD has made himself known; he has executed judgment;
the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. Higgaion. Selah
[17] The wicked shall return to Sheol,
all the nations that forget God.
[18] For the needy shall not always be forgotten,
and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever.
[19] Arise, O LORD! Let not man prevail;
let the nations be judged before you!
[20] Put them in fear, O LORD!
Let the nations know that they are but men! Selah
Old Testament Reading
Isaiah 29
[1] Ah, Ariel, Ariel,
the city where David encamped!
Add year to year;
let the feasts run their round.
[2] Yet I will distress Ariel,
and there shall be moaning and lamentation,
and she shall be to me like an Ariel.
[3] And I will encamp against you all around,
and will besiege you with towers
and I will raise siegeworks against you.
[4] And you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak,
and from the dust your speech will be bowed down;
your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost,
and from the dust your speech shall whisper.
[5] But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust,
and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff.
And in an instant, suddenly,
[6] you will be visited by the LORD of hosts
with thunder and with earthquake and great noise,
with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.
[7] And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her,
shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.
[8] As when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he is eating,
and awakes with his hunger not satisfied,
or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he is drinking,
and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched,
so shall the multitude of all the nations be
that fight against Mount Zion.
[9] Astonish yourselves and be astonished;
blind yourselves and be blind!
Be drunk, but not with wine;
stagger, but not with strong drink!
[10] For the LORD has poured out upon you
a spirit of deep sleep,
and has closed your eyes (the prophets),
and covered your heads (the seers).
[11] And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” [12] And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot read.”
[13] And the Lord said:
“Because this people draw near with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from me,
and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
[14] therefore, behold, I will again
do wonderful things with this people,
with wonder upon wonder;
and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”
[15] Ah, you who hide deep from the LORD your counsel,
whose deeds are in the dark,
and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”
[16] You turn things upside down!
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,
that the thing made should say of its maker,
“He did not make me”;
or the thing formed say of him who formed it,
“He has no understanding”?
[17] Is it not yet a very little while
until Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest?
[18] In that day the deaf shall hear
the words of a book,
and out of their gloom and darkness
the eyes of the blind shall see.
[19] The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD,
and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.
[20] For the ruthless shall come to nothing
and the scoffer cease,
and all who watch to do evil shall be cut off,
[21] who by a word make a man out to be an offender,
and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate,
and with an empty plea turn aside him who is in the right.
[22] Therefore thus says the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob:
“Jacob shall no more be ashamed,
no more shall his face grow pale.
[23] For when he sees his children,
the work of my hands, in his midst,
they will sanctify my name;
they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob
and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
[24] And those who go astray in spirit will come to understanding,
and those who murmur will accept instruction.”
New Testament Reading
3 John
[1] The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth.
[2] Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul. [3] For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. [4] I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
[5] Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, [6] who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. [7] For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. [8] Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.
[9] I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. [10] So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.
[11] Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God. [12] Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself. We also add our testimony, and you know that our testimony is true.
[13] I had much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink. [14] I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face.
[15] Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends, each by name.
- 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)
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord and our neighbors.