Topical Prayer: God, we are all the characters int he story. The women who find the stone rolled away, and are terrified of the angel, the disciples who do not believe the resurrection to be true, Peter who runs to see it all only to be left with the wrappings from the tomb. As we experience this story, let us embrace the amazement and perplexity of the events. They are truly beyond human ken. Though that is uncomfortable, let us sit with the wonder that Easter is we pray. Amen.
Easter Sunday Prayers
Journey to Resurrection
April 4
Resurrection
Resurrection of Our Lord
Luke 24:1-12: http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=476536856
Psalm 118: 17, 21-24: http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=476536876
Call to Worship:
God, I thank you that you have become my salvation
Look! The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone
This is the day that the Lord has made!
Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
Christ is risen!
Christ is risen, indeed, alleluia.
Invitation: Let all who are astonished by the resurrection confess themselves to God.
Confession: God we confess that we too are perplexed by the resurrection. How did it happen? Is it real? Did it truly happen to save us all? Help us in our confusion and questions. Give us the courage to ask about the things we don’t know and the wisdom to let some things be mysterious. Help us to be a resurrection people, ready to go out and proclaim the mystery and the truth of God’s love to all we meet. In the name of your risen son Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon: Christ is alive! Risen to forgive all sins. Let us tell the truth: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.
Prayer of the Day/Dedication: God we are in great need of alleluias! Let us go into Easter with full hearts and dripping with grace we pray.
Communion Prayer: Lord Jesus, it is a great honor to celebrate your death once again. This time in the midst of the very resurrection you promised. You remind us that we cannot have resurrection without death. Comfort us as we mourn your death, and enable us to celebrate your life all within this meal. Send you Holy Spirit to dance upon our tongues and give us a foretaste of the feast in heaven, with all the saints that were and are and will be we pray. Amen.
Hymns: Christ is Alive!, Come Ye Faithful Raise the Strain, The Day of Resurrection!, Thine is the Glory, Jesus Christ is Risen Today!,
Taize: Laudate Dominum: Sing, Praise and Bless the Lord, Peoples, Nations, Alleluia!
For the Complete List of Narrative Lectionary Lent Resources can be found here including a way to receive a doc copy
Looking to Heaven: Eastertide
Jesus went to heaven, and the disciples would have liked to have stayed there.
Looking at the heavens.
Just like the transfiguration.
Let’s move in, we are ready for heaven.
Or at least we can spend all the time with the pure ones, the disciples, the ones in the know.
And Jesus said, don’t worry I’m going to send you to the ends of the earth, don’t worry I’m going to give you a million Easters, 2,000 years to learn; 2,000 years of grace.
Talk about a grace period for one’s debts.
Many weeks and Sunday for Easter to unfold into your hearts, and your children’s hearts and your children’s children’s children’s house.
I’m going to give you time to learn how to be community.
I’m going to leave you with my one commandment, love one another.
Stop looking at heaven, the answer isn’ there.
Look to earth, to the relationships.
Easter Unfolding: Narrative Lectionary Seeds of Faith Resources
Remember: Easter didn’t happen in one day. It started at dawn with a few women and slowly unfolded. Next the disciples were stuck in a room for 50 days til Pentecost. Then Pentecost Easter started to be shared with the public. We have been unfurling Easter for the 2,000 years since. Every Sunday is a piece of Easter, Easter, the resurrection, the promise that Christ will return is still taking place today. Easter never was a one day event. That’s why Mark ends so abruptly, it was the beginning.
April 19th: Acts 1 and Mark 6 You Shall Be My Witness/Acts(ion)
Bulletin & Sermonby Dr. Barb Hedges-Goettl
I Want Answers: Confession about the God I want & the Grace I Need
Grief: Missing the Big & Small Things
Looking to Heaven (for answers)
Apr. 26, 2020
Peter Heals in Jerusalem Prayers: Call to Confession, etc
Bulletin & Sermon by Dr. Barb Hedges-Goettl
Prayer:Healing Touch
Prayer/Meditation: Standing in the Breach
May 3, 2020
With Ref to Amos 5:24
May 10th, 2020
May 17th, 2020
Faith, Hope, and Love: Resources, Commentaries and Prayers by Rev. Dr. Barbara Hedges-Goettl
1 Corinthians 13: Rewritten for the Pandemic
Mother’s Day Confession Prayer
Mother’s Day Litany Prayer (in light of the pandemic)
May 24, 2020
May 31, 2020
Pentecost
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Easter is the beginning
Remember: Easter didn’t happen in one day. It started at dawn with a few women and slowly unfolded. Next the disciples were stuck in a room for 50 days til Pentecost. Then Pentecost Easter started to be shared with the public. We have been unfurling Easter for the 2,000 years since. Every Sunday is a piece of Easter, Easter, the resurrection, the promise that Christ will return is still taking place today. Easter never was a one day event. That’s why Mark ends so abruptly, it was the beginning.
Can You Hear Easter (the good news)
Can you hear Easter?
It’s ringing in the stilled bells, the empty chapels, creeping up with the quiet growth of spring
It’s on the lips of exhausted doctors and nurses—too tired to murmur
It’s in the silent wave between neighbors, keeping too far away to talk, but close enough for company
It’s in the silent hug between family members stuck together; where entire conversations flow through the body
It’s on the breath of the sick, in that place between waking and sleeping
It’d in the angel’s nod of greeting to the women, the absence of guards and the rolling away of the stone
If s a stone rolls away and nobody hears it; does it make a sound?
It booms like the rise thunderous sun, bedecked in glory, shining out the news wordless in its proclamation
Can you hear Easter?
Say Nothing Easter
Here we are Jesus, at our say nothing Easter.
And the truth is, I really don’t know what to say. An angel told us you’re alive, but what does that really mean?
Your angels are frightening God, full of life & death; we cannot fully understand who or what they are. We are blinded by the angels eyes, and need some holy shade to think. And we are not exactly filled with hope.
Where is Jesus? He promised to return, but here we are and Mark leaves us with a rolled back stone, one angel and bunch of women. Who would believe what they had to say anyway?
Would Peter and the disciples really hear what needed to be done?
This is a say nothing Easter, where we are alone with ourselves and think, what can we say.
What will you say?
Presence over Perfection
Lord God,
Remember me? I was the one who realized at the tender age of 3 that I would never be perfect.
Then at 5 I proclaimed I didn’t want to be perfect anymore, I just didn’t want to make any more mistakes
At 8 or 9 I decided it was ok to make mistakes, as long as I don’t make the same ones over and over again.
In seminary, I really understood that knowing what my faults are is not the same as being able to fix them (having been well aware of my faults for years at that point)
Here I am, thrust in the middle of crises and I am valuing presence over perfection.
I am sending out videos and virtual worships and trying not to review what went wrong.
I’m trying to let go of the fact I prayed the Lord’s Prayer Incorrectly last week.
I’m trying not to worry that I left someone off the contact list completely, and didn’t call her when I first called everyone else.
I’m trying to not clench my teeth every time I remember that somehow I thought ahead and wrote Ether instead of Rubina on someone’s sent envelope.
Let’s not talk about the zoom prayer that really never came together.
And Homeschooling is more for sanity’s sake than the illusion my children will actually learn anything new.
I’m making the videos, I’m throwing together the worships, the prayers, the phonecalls.
I’m appreciating the fact that my 8 year old son wanted to help me to very sloppily put labels on the Easter Cards, I’m trying to appreciate that for the first time ever I’m sending out Easter cards.
I’m finding special things for my kiddos to do.
I’m trying to remember the ways I am praying for family, colleagues and facebook friends. I’m trying to appreciate every essential person who is still working onsite right now.
And my family did get to have a “Zoom Dinner.”
I’m finding scattered time for you, God, in the midst of pulling my hair out.
I’m imagining Mary and Martha, standing tear-stained by the tomb. I’m remembering that when they saw you (tending the garden of course), they couldn’t even recognize you.
I’m remembering the same thing happened on the way to Emmaus, where the disciples even got to talk to you and didn’t realize you were Christ.
But in both instances, the meeting wasn’t about perfection, it was about presence.
The time they spent with you, the time you spent with them.
Easter was all about showing up!
So as I cobble together Holy Week, as I know that there will be no flowers, no choir & no little children running about sharing their joy. Help me to find Presence, I pray.
Remind me today and every day, O Lord: Presence Over Perfection.
Breathe in the Presence, Breathe out the Perfection,
Amen.
Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday was the premature victory parade.
People in the streets, gathering because they thought the battle was over.
In the great tradition of Greek & Roman celebrations, they came and laid cloaks and palms at the victor’s feet to soften his path.
But Jesus, knew the hardest things would be next–
The Sedar Meal where Jesus spends his last night on earth with his beloved.
Then he tries to tell the disciples that he is–that they all are–betrayed, but no one believes him, and Judas denies his complicity
I wonder if this is the moment that Jesus decides he’s going to wash his disciples feet. Lavishing love upon them one last time, giving them another more personal memory to be layered upon the parade where I’m sure the disciples walked on the dusty ground near Jesus.
The long journey to Jerusalem, the cries of victory and the soothing touch of the Lord Jesus, the bellies full of good food all of the makings of the end of a good day.
Palm Sunday was the premature victory parade; people gathered in the streets thinking that there was going a battle that needed to be won. Unaware that it would instead be about healing.
I think about this as Holy Week seems creeps into today. In the midst of a pandemic I feel the need to celebrate the good, the anguish of seeing people die, the waiting, waiting, waiting of Holy Saturday.
I don’t want any premature victories, let me tell you that straight off. And I don’t want us to be going to war. And I already tire of the heightened violence, the excuse for evil racist attacks, the righteous violence of those who knock over people who are spitting on food or violating the social distancing rule–Peter’s anger in the garden seems way more present these days.
I want reconciliation, I want healing. I want us to all act like Easter is coming. Not according to any human calendar or calculation, but because Shalom is the ultimate goal. I want to work towards the healing of the world, because it’s the right thing to do, not because I need this victory or that one.
Palm Sunday was fine, but I’ll wait for Easter as long as this Holy Saturday takes.
More Prayers and Resources about the Pandemic Here
Seeds of #prayer: Liturgy for #Easter Abundant Discipleship
Matthew 28:1-10 and Psalm 118: 19-24
Call to Worship
Jesus, Lord, you have become our salvation.
I shall not die, but I shall live.
I was pushed so hard, that I was falling, the Lord helps me.
The Lord is my strength and my might, he has become my salvation.
Call to Worship
Let us proclaim the good news
He is risen
He is risen Indeed.
Come let us celebrate the resurrection.
Call to Worship
It is a new day, the first day
Come let us see the new creation God has wrought.
See the stone has been rolled away.
Surely, Jesus is here! Come let us worship him.
Prayer of Confession: Lord we confess that we are not always an Easter people. Too often we dwell with our sins, too afraid to confess them, and too stubborn to change our ways. Remind us that you make all things new. Roll the stone in our hearts away, create an earthquake in our souls, so that we too may experience the grace of Jesus Christ we pray.
Prayer of Confession: Lord, we confess that even when the stone has been rolled away and the good news has been proclaimed, we are sometimes afraid to see your glory. We feel inadequate or unprepared. Remind us of God’s favor and grace, and open our eyes so we may see the visions of God’s love.
Assurance of Pardon: Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. In these words we know the truth: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.
Communion Prayer: Risen Lord, we know that you are an embodied God, promising to be particularly present in the holy bread and cup. Send your promised encourager and advocate here. Bless this bread and bless this cup so we can be filled with your life and light. Renew us with the power of your resurrection we pray. Amen.
Prayer of Dedication: Christ alive, be present with us here today, from this moment on. Walk with us into the world, guide our hearts and minds and steps so that we can bring Easter to all the world we pray. Amen.
Hymns
Amazing Grace
What Wondrous Love is This
Christ is Alive!
Jesus Christ is Risen Today!
The Day of Resurrection!
Thine is the glory!
Full List of Lenten Resources (Of course some prayers may be appropriate for other weeks)
