easter on Mourning

Leader: You have turned our mourning into dancing! You have taken away our sackcloth and clothed us with gladness, so that our whole being—body, mind and soul— may sing your praise and not be silent. ...

The Lord calls us to examine the wounds of the Risen One and to see there the depth of his love for us. Let us therefore approach the throne of God in confidence as we pray for the people of God in Ch...

Death Is Common to All Shakespeare’s Queen Gertrude of Denmark implores her son Hamlet to move past mourning his deceased father, Thou know’st ‘tis common,—all that live must die, passing through n...

Preaching Commentary Death Is Common to All Shakespeare’s Queen Gertrude of Denmark implores her son Hamlet to move past mourning his deceased father, Thou know’st ‘tis common,—all that live must...

Gracious God, we confess that we think of Easter as the springtime holiday rather than the mystery holiday, the hope-time holiday, the now-its-up-to-us holiday. We’re more at home with bulbs and bunni...

Haunting gloom and flitting shades, Ghastly shapes, away! Christ is rising, and pervades Highest Heaven with day. He with His bright spear the night Dazzles and pursues: Earth wakes up, and glows with...

Some time back I had the thought that life, the Christian life, can be looked at through the two poles of Good Friday and Easter. While, of course, we would prefer to always be living an "Easter&...

…How still the Landscape stands! How nonchalant the hedge! As if the “Resurrection” Were nothing very strange!

Lord, like the women at the tomb on the first Easter, we come out of our darkness and into your light We come out of emptiness to enter your fullness We come out of our hopelessness to find your joy...

This vortex of dying and rising—Jesus’ and ours in him—is the paschal mystery. Christians still tell it and taste it, especially when we gather for worship on Sunday. Christ’s Pascha—the word for the...

Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.

Christ lay in death’s bonds given over for our sins, He has risen again and brought us life . . . It was a strange battle, that death and life waged, life claimed the victory, it devoured death. The s...

The story of Passion-Tide and Easter is the story of the winning of that freedom and of that victory over the evils of Time. The burden of the guilt is accepted (“He was made Sin”), the last agony of ...

Prayer of Adoration Thine is the glory – risen conquering Son Endless is the victory, Thou over death have won. Jesus – You are amazing! You are wonderful! What we couldn’t do – You’ve done: Breaki...

The Greek word for Easter, pascha, means “passage.” It evokes so many different passages for us: the Israelites’ passage from slavery to freedom, our own passage from sin to forgiveness, Jesus’ passag...

Our God, through the mighty resurrection of your son Jesus Christ you have liberated us from the power of dark­ness and brought us into the kingdom of your love; grant that as Christ was raised from t...

Think of a moment when someone that you least expected to see suddenly stands before you. A moment when something you’d lost is found again and you can scarcely believe your eyes. Think of a mome...

Almighty God, who by the death of your Son has destroyed sin and death, and by his resurrection has restored innocence and everlasting life in order that, deliv­ered from the power of sin, we may live...

Our God, as we stand before the empty tomb, like Mary and the disciples we find it hard to believe that Christ rose from the dead. Forgive our unbelief. Take from our minds the shadows of doubt and he...

Risen Christ, The world despised and rejected you You responded with grace, humility, and welcome The proud questioned your power, devised your death You responded with peace, forgiveness, and new lif...

We proclaim the resurrection of Christ when his light illuminates the dark moments of our existence.

God of holiness and light, in the mystery of dying and rising with Christ you have established a new covenant of reconciliation; cleanse our hearts and give a new spirit to all your people, that your ...

Thus on Easter we celebrate Christ’s Resurrection as something that happened and still happens to us. For each one of us received the gift of that new life and the power to accept it and to live by it...

I find that Holy Week is draining; no matter how many times I have lived through his crucifixion, my anxiety about his resurrection is undiminished—I am terrified that, this year, it won’t happen; tha...

Christ is risen: The angels of God are rejoicing. Christ is risen: The tomb is empty and still. Christ has indeed arisen from the dead. Glory and power are Christ’s for ever and ever. Amen.

Jesus – You rose before we did today. You met us at the door to lift burdens, sins and hurts from our shoulders and replace them with Your strength, forgiveness and healing. The word seems so small c...

PRAYER OF CONFESSION Pastor: Even in our Easter joy, we confess before our gracious God our failings and sin. For though our voices sing out Alleluias this day, we fail to live every day as Easter...

Pastor: Even on this joyous day of celebration let us not forget that we are sinful people who do not deserve the precious gift of salvation that God has given us in the death and resurrection of Je...

Lord Almighty, you have conquered sin and death. We celebrate that the grave cannot contain you. You are the author of life. However, we so often choose death. We choose to live for ourselves rather t...

And now brothers, I will ask you a terrible question, and God knows I ask it also of myself. Is the truth beyond all truths, beyond the stars, just this: that to live without him is the real death, th...