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.
- Easter MEDITATION -
“What hard travail God does in death!
He strives in sleep, our despair,
And all flesh shudders underneath
The nightmare of his sepulcher.
The earth shakes, grinding its deep stone;
All night the cold wind heaves and pries;
Creation straining sinew and bone
Against the dark door where he lies.
The sky bent, pent in seed, grows straight
And stands. Pain breaks in song. Surprising
The merely dead, graves fill with light
Like opened eyes. He rests in rising.”
- Wendell Berry
REMEMBER – Today is the feast day of all feast days! Break your fast for good, gather for worship with God’s people, and celebrate Christ’s resurrection.
- 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 87
A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. A Song.
[1] On the holy mount stands the city he founded;
[2] the LORD loves the gates of Zion
more than all the dwelling places of Jacob.
[3] Glorious things of you are spoken,
O city of God. Selah
[4] Among those who know me I mention Rahab and Babylon;
behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Cush—
“This one was born there,” they say.
[5] And of Zion it shall be said,
“This one and that one were born in her”;
for the Most High himself will establish her.
[6] The LORD records as he registers the peoples,
“This one was born there.” Selah
[7] Singers and dancers alike say,
“All my springs are in you.”
Psalm 88
A Song. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.
[1] O LORD, God of my salvation,
I cry out day and night before you.
[2] Let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry!
[3] For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
[4] I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am a man who has no strength,
[5] like one set loose among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more,
for they are cut off from your hand.
[6] You have put me in the depths of the pit,
in the regions dark and deep.
[7] Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah
[8] You have caused my companions to shun me;
you have made me a horror to them.
I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
[9] my eye grows dim through sorrow.
Every day I call upon you, O LORD;
I spread out my hands to you.
[10] Do you work wonders for the dead?
Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah
[11] Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,
or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
[12] Are your wonders known in the darkness,
or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
[13] But I, O LORD, cry to you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
[14] O LORD, why do you cast my soul away?
Why do you hide your face from me?
[15] Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,
I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.
[16] Your wrath has swept over me;
your dreadful assaults destroy me.
[17] They surround me like a flood all day long;
they close in on me together.
[18] You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;
my companions have become darkness.
Old Testament Reading
Ecclesiastes 7
[1] A good name is better than precious ointment,
and the day of death than the day of birth.
[2] It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of all mankind,
and the living will lay it to heart.
[3] Sorrow is better than laughter,
for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
[4] The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
[5] It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise
than to hear the song of fools.
[6] For as the crackling of thorns under a pot,
so is the laughter of the fools;
this also is vanity.
[7] Surely oppression drives the wise into madness,
and a bribe corrupts the heart.
[8] Better is the end of a thing than its beginning,
and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.
[9] Be not quick in your spirit to become angry,
for anger lodges in the heart of fools.
[10] Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?”
For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.
[11] Wisdom is good with an inheritance,
an advantage to those who see the sun.
[12] For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money,
and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.
[13] Consider the work of God:
who can make straight what he has made crooked?
[14] In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.
[15] In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. [16] Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? [17] Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? [18] It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.
[19] Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city.
[20] Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.
[21] Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. [22] Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.
[23] All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. [24] That which has been is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out?
[25] I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. [26] And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. [27] Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things—[28] which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found. [29] See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.
New Testament Reading
2 Timothy 3
[1] But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. [2] For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, [3] heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, [4] treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, [5] having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. [6] For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, [7] always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. [8] Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. [9] But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.
[10] You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, [11] my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. [12] Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, [13] while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. [14] But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it [15] and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. [16] All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, [17] that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
- 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...
Glorious Lord of Life, we praise you, that by the mighty resurrection of your Son, you have delivered us from sin and death and made your whole creation new; grant that we who celebrate with joy Christ’s rising from the dead, may be raised from the death of sin to the life of righteousness; for he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for 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.