Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118: 1-2, 14-24
1 Cor 15:1 – 11
Mark 16:1-8
See also resources for Year A and Year C
“The resurrection of Jesus Christ was (and is!) the proclamation of a new understanding of God’s activity in human life.” (Charles Cousar, p.279 – Texts for Preaching – A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, Year B, Walter Brueggeman, Charles Cousar, Beverley Gaventa and James Newsome]
If Christ did not rise for us, then he did not rise at all…
In him the world arose, in him heaven arose, in him the earth arose.
For there will be a new heaven and a new earth. (St. Amborse of Milan, c. 379)
Let us give thanks for the rising of the sun dispelling the shadows that can rule in our hearts, evidence of everyday resurrection.
May I rise this day with the power of Love.
Let us give thanks for the Body of Christ,
mystical presence of the divine in the world in which we are called to play our part.
May I rise this day with the power of Love.
Let us give thanks for Spirit,
that holy breath bringing life and energy to every element of creation.
May I rise this day with the power of Love.
(Rev Christine Gilbert, St Andrews by the Sea, Glenelg)
Merciful One,
I enter the garden of your presence
open to the mystery of your love.
The hurt I have caused and the hurt I have borne
I lay to rest in the tomb of your grace.
All resentment, shame, dread and anxiety
I wrap in the linens of your mercy.
All distrust and defiance
I lay in the ground of your patient redeeming.
See if there be any evil in me,
and in your tender mercy lay it to rest.
Dawning One,
let Christ rise in me,
free of all fear, free of the power of doubt
and the shroud of the past.
Let Christ rise to new life in me,
wounded but whole,
radiant, forgiving and alive with your love.
Create me anew: by your grace let there be light.
This is the day you are making;
let me rejoice, and be glad in it.
(Source: Steve Garnaas-Holmes, Unfolding Light)
Rev Steve Koski, reflecting on Easter Sunday, writes:
On this Easter morning, I turn, as is my tradition to the best Easter book ever written by my favorite theologian, On Beyond Zebra by Dr. Seuss:
“…from beginning to end, from start to the close,
everyone knows Z is as far as the alphabet goes.
Then he almost fell flat on his face on the floor,
when I picked up the chalk and drew one letter more.
A letter he’d never dreamed of before.
In the places I go and the people I see,
I couldn’t survive if I stopped at Z.
So ON BEYOND ZEBRA, it’s high time you were shown ,
that maybe you don’t know all there is to be known.”
Love wins! Love always wins! If love isn’t winning it simply means the story isn’t over yet!
Wishing everyone one letter more on this Easter and encouraging us all to imagine and pick up the chalk and draw one letter more for our world – a letter we’ve never dreamed of before.
“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”~ Mary Oliver
If you were not risen,
Lord Christ, to whom would we go
to discover a radiance
of the face of God?
If you were not risen,
we would not be together
seeking your communion.
We would not find in your presence
forgiveness,
wellspring of a new beginning.
If you were not risen,
where would we draw the energy
for following you
right to the end of our existence,
for choosing you again and anew?
(Source: Brother Roger of Taize)
EASTER BLESSINGS
“On this Easter morning, let us look again at the lives we have been so generously given and let us let fall away the useless baggage that we carry – old pains, old habits, old ways of seeing and feeling – and let us have the courage to begin again. Life is very short, and we are no sooner here than it is time to depart again, and we should use to the full the time that we still have.
We don’t realize all the good we can do. A kind, encouraging word or helping hand can bring many a person through dark valleys in their lives. We weren’t put here to make money or to acquire status or reputation. We were sent here to search for the light of Easter in our hearts, and when we find it we are meant to give it away generously.
May the spirit and light of this Easter morning bless us all, watch over us and protect us on our journey, open us from the darkness into the light of peace and hope and transfiguration.”
(Source: John O’Donohue, Dawn Mass Reflections, excerpts from WALKING ON THE PASTURES OF WONDER)
Prayer of Invocation
Spirit of Life, come to me.
Enter the cold corners of my heart,
filling me with love and hope
as the realities of life drone on.
Help me get a sense of your presence
in the beauty of my prayer
and in the silence between my words.
Renew my faith that I might know the power of your resurrection. Amen.
(Rev Christine Gilbert, St Andrews by the Sea, Glenelg)
