Due to the cold weather today, we moved the "Sunrise Service" into the Chapel. Though it is always more moving to be literally at 'The Foot of the Cross' for this service on Easter morning, it certainly was much more comfortable. We had a good turnout and afterward we all went down and had breakfast and then the "Easter Egg Hunt"
Thank you to Clyde Westcott and Bill Hungate for getting up early and draping the cross in white and taking down the placard and crown of thorns.
Be a blessing to someone today!
Christ is Risen!
Roy
Sunrise Service Easter 2018
Prelude: "Blessed Assurance"
Call To Worship:
Leader: Alleluia. Christ is risen!
People: The Lord has risen indeed! Alleluia!
Leader: May His grace and peace be with you all.
People: May He fill our hearts with joy!
Leader: The tomb is empty.
People: Praise be to God!
Leader: Our Lord has risen!
People: Praise be to God!
Leader: Christ leads us on the road to life.
People: Praise be to God!
Leader: Alleluia! Christ is risen!
People: Christ is here! Alleluia!
Opening Prayer:
Almighty and ever-loving God,
we gather to marvel at the mystery of Christ's resurrection.
In boldness you exalted the humble, empowering the weak.
In strength, you snatched victory from the jaws of death.
In love, you declared your crucified Son the savior of this world.
We celebrate this good news in an Easter festival of life.
With you, we join in this joy-filled day.
Make your presence known to us through this service of worship.
In your grace-filled and Holy name, we pray.
Amen.
Hymn: "Rock of Ages"
First Reading:
Isaiah 53:1-6 (NIV)
53 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Second Reading:
Luke 24:1-12 (NIV)
24 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words.
9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
Message:
This morning is so full of images - the empty tomb - the voice of angels - Mary's encounter with Jesus - the promises made through the prophets coming true it is so rich - so full - so basic to who we are as an Easter People.
Friday - sad Friday - the day we call Good Friday - is brushed aside in one glorious moment of realization one moment of startling fear and overwhelming joy - a moment of holy awe - as the significance of what is seen - and what is unseen comes crashing in.
Jesus has Risen. Death could not hold him. And if it cannot hold him, it cannot hold us.
All that Jesus said about life and death all that was understood only as idea - as a concept - as a vision is made real in that empty tomb
and in that encounter in the garden.
And we today - we standing here - before this rough and rude cross - we standing here before this emblem of suffering and shame
We share in it.
We share in the promises made to Children of Israel and to the entire world through the Prophets. We share in the promises made to the disciples and to all who listened to Jesus as he walked towards his death upon a slab of wood like these.
We share in it - for the word that he spoke to them - and to us
- is made true and real by what we testify to this morn,
it is made true by the resurrection.
And more yet - it is made true by the testimony of our hearts
hearts here among us - this very day - who have been touched by the spirit of the living Lord, hearts here which have heard Jesus knocking upon the door and have opened that door and had him come in and dine with them. Hearts that encountered the risen Christ after what is now almost thousands of years after the stone was first rolled back and the tomb shown to be empty and our Lord risen.
What is this Easter morn?
It is God's promise of a new day, It is God's promise of a new life
It is God's promise of a new world coming to pass in our midst.
Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.
Praise be to God for his great love, and to Jesus his only Son, and to the Spirit all three in one. Amen.
Hymn: "Jesus Paid It All"
Closing Prayer: (In Unison)
Almighty God, who through your only‑begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life‑giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.
Benediction:
Hymn: "Victory In Jesus"
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