Continue reading . Believing, as Jesus believed, that beyond pain and darkness and death, There are those who name the stars, who watch the sky by night, Many: On this day, we embrace faith by committing to love in action. If you look into the dust for long enough and contemplate its mystery, you shall find a resurrection. The Apostle Paul denies that Jesus resurrection was an actual physical resurrection. You wouldnt know very much about the civil rights movement, about Dr. Kings dream, his vision of equality, his struggle for inclusion, his cries for justice for the poor, his vision economic equality, or his passion for peace, and his commitment to non-violent resistance. give us the new joy and justice of Easter, Responsive Chant Psalm 118: 1-6, 15-18, 24, Anthem, or Creed, Prayers or other Response of Faith here. jQuery(document).on('change', '#submission-action', function(){ The small voice within my very soul said only one word Swim.. The face of CHRIST which must be seen if we are to end this madness. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. Little Crystal was only two and a half years old when she got hopelessly stuck. Youre not a lost sheep, or a lost coin, or even a lost child. As we receive Communion, these words are said: You are the Bread of Life. I remember flying out of there in a hot rage. Yes, the father should never have trusted his sons with all that he had, and when his lost son showed himself to be untrustworthy, he shouldnt have been welcomed with open arms, and as for the faithful, self-righteous son, well sometimes justice demands that we abandon the rules, if we are to achieve peace. that in losing our life we might find true Life Above the sky were the Heavens. At the time, I didnt know what the word countenance meant. 4 0 obj Alleluia! Oh, how I miss those Sunday closings! Let us be LOVE. That left my chamber-maiding at a local lodge where the housekeeper was always kind enough to keep my Sunday mornings free so that I could go to church, while hung-over colleagues struggled to clean up. Easter is the festival of the irrepressible God whom not even death can contain. To believe in the historicity of the resurrection is one thing. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of our God. Together, by your grace, we accept the life you offer. The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand. According to the story humans are in bondage to sin and we cannot free ourselves. Traditional interpretations of the life of Jesus insist that Jesus sacrificed himself, took all our respective punishment onto his shoulders, died for us, upon a cross, so that our relationship to our creator could be restored. Christ is risen! Join Us over Zoom, Tuesdays beginning February 21st at 7pm! I passed on to you what I received, which is of the greatest importance: that Christ died for our sins, as written in the Scriptures;that he was buried and that he was raised to life three days later, as written in the Scriptures;that he appeared to Peter and then to all twelve apostles. (1 Corinthians 15:1-6), Anna carefully underlined in red the phrase: Christ died for our sins, as written in the Scriptures. For far too long, my conditioning caused me to see this story as the story about casting away doubts and believing in Jesus physical resurrection. Required fields are marked *. Perhaps a story will help us move beyond what we think were looking for to actual miracle of resurrection. One of the whales rose out of the water and as she came crashing down, I marveled at the magnificence of this beast. I can see on that endless loop little families in Jerusalem, fleeing to the safety of the countryside, passing endless crucifixion sites. For Paul, like Jesus, lived as a Jew in Palestine under the oppression of Roman Empire, which insisted that peace could only be established and maintained through violence. Can, will, or indeed, should the Church Survive?. Certainly, in the church the Bible is considered to be the supreme authority of the nature of God. Easter Day: All Things Are Made New: a service of light with Holy Communion. First of all, I hadnt been born again, and then there was the dancing, and as for my serving beer to the crowd at the Legion, well, my roommates were concerned. Like many professional wrestlers my career began when I was but a child. Only a fool would welcome home with joy and abandon a wayward child who had used, rejected, dishonoured, and then returned only to try to use them again. Practicing resurrection begins when we huddle together refusing to let our fears entomb us. Your mommy told me that you reached into the vase for candy. jQuery('#submit-action').attr('href','/paupress/?rel=pauContent&pau_type='+thisact); Today, it doesnt matter how CHRIST rose nearly 2000 years ago. After warming myself on my cars heating vent, I caught sight of sundog begin to emerge as the Sun was still setting. Mark 10:35-45, Sermon: BAT KOL, the Daughter of a Sound Welling Up Within, Lent: Letting Go of our Tightly Held Piety to See Our Need of Confession, Wrestling With the Almighty: Locating Our Very Selves in the Sacred Story a sermon on Genesis 32:3-31, What Can We Learn from Jesus? Easter Sunrise We encourage you to celebrate the Resurrection with your family (and perhaps with neighbors, safely at a distance outdoors) by worshiping the Lord at sunrise using the liturgy below. Alison Etter. The first face of CHRIST belongs to a Ukrainian Father who is struggling to say good-bye to his young daughter. Change). Make them the food and drink of everlasting life, [After the Lords Prayer, the ministers and other worship leaders break the bread and place the pieces in baskets or on plates for distribution. He is risen indeed! Somehow the Parliamentarians managed with their smaller cannons or battering rams to shatter the wall and the cannon, Humpty Dumpty came tumbling down, shattered, irreparable. What shalom there will be as SHALOM is restored through justice. Gig Harbor, WA 98335 I thought, or hoped, sometimes even believed that the myth of redemptive violence could no longer tempt me. My own desire to resist the urge to respond to violence with violence weakens with every report of the injustices perpetrated as innocent lives are lost. Leader: Brothers and sisters in Christ, the gospels tell us that on the first day of the week, the same day on which our Lord rose from the dead, he appeared to his disciples and was made known to them in the breaking of the bread. The season of the church year called Eastertide lasts fifty days and includes Ascension, the day when we rejoice in the reign of Christ at God's right hand. We give thanks for Jesus of Nazareth who inspired us to put our hope and trust in the spirit of Life and Love moving in the depths of our being. Having this "catch-cry" as a . As the ancient storytellers weave their tail, Elijah was familiar with the voice of YHWH, so much so that he dared to argue with the voice. Too many Hollywood movies tempt me to flirt with violence, as I yearn for some secret agents to just take him out! This my body, given for you. When Grandma finally arrived, both Crystal and her mother were almost hysterical. LOVE and not violence. Send us your: ResourceEventNewsIdeasnow Please come, the meal is ready. Easter or New-life event. Somehow, the flight of the billionaire Bezos phallic Blue Horizon thrusting its five privileged passengers across our screens will capture more attention from those of us who are wealthy enough to own screens, than the roughly one and a half billion men, women, and children who are consigned to live in poverty. Easter is the sky that encloses the broken egg. your love came also to us in your servant Jesus. 2 0 obj April 17, 2022 (Readings on USCCB website) . that they may be washed away by the mercy of our risen Lord. When you sow, you do not sow the full-blown plant but a kernel of wheat or some other grain. The followers of Jesus began to understand themselves in a whole new way. by our unbelief and lack of understanding of Gods presence in us. He blessed it and broke it, and shared it with the disciples. Times when we must leave all that we have, all that we know, in order to seek, to find and to restore the lost, the abandoned, the wayward, and yes even the self-righteous religious types. 3:6 No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Whilst many were written for specific purposes or occasions, many are adaptable to suit others. We have tasted your nourishing, nurturing presence; Or study cells, or living things, seek truth with open hand. and for the mission of justice you have made our own. The free worship planning material is easy to locate using an extensive index. As tensions escalated and our world held our collective breath, the fragility of the peace we cling to, the peace built through military might, and threats of violence and mutual annihilation, this illusion of peace was threatened by the ambitions of a powerful oligarch obsessed with delusions of restoring tribal supremacy for his once mighty nation. } else { For a very long time, the story of Jesus appearance in the upper room where his followers were huddled in fear, conditioned me to focus my attention upon Jesus wounds, Thomas doubts, and back again to Jesus wounds, and then to Thomas belief. The LOVE which is the SACRED MYSTERY which is the LOVE that we call GOD. ), try clicking on the name of the season or celebration in the list of "Labels" at the lower right side of the page, or see this . Surely, the Americans have an agency for this. And so in this spirit of brightness and life, we celebrate. if ( thisact == "contact" ) { Christ is risen! What kind of body will they have? What a stupid question! My oh, my, oh my In my sacred imagination, I can see Paul sitting up from his letter writing and nodding as if to say, there that out to stop those endless arguments about the resuscitation of a corpse.. //jQuery('#submit-action').attr('href','/paupress/?rel=contact&pau_form=contact_form'); We break and share this bread, as Jesus broke and shared it. Come, drink together from the Cup of Gladness! United States The truth is Humpty Dumpty was not an egg. We lift them up to God. Some were staring vacantly through time, like the tens of millions of Ukrainians who were starved to death during the Holodomor by yet another brutal Russian dictator. Scholars tell us that the letter was written between the years 53 and 57. This piece of Scripture was followed by a passage from Pauls letter to the Romans, all of which was underlined in red: God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. For the Lord Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it (here the minister shall break the bread) and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Perhaps Jesus sensed that even their anger was a type of jockeying for position, when he insisted that, Anyone among you who aspires to greatness must serve the rest; whoever wants to rank first among you must serve the needs of all. It was an epic trip on which my once innocent 20-year-old self learned to swig akvavit like a Viking. Youll find it in the first Book of Kings. Bert Polman (bdp5@calvin.edu) is a hymnologist who is a professor and chair of the music department at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Rile em up! We were Stayin Alive, Stayin Alive all week long, working toward Saturday Night Fever, when we Should Be Dancing, dancing the night away. If you have not donated yet, please do so today. towards ourselves and towards all living beings. I was suspicious of the kind of youth I would meet on a Tuesday at a Pentecostal church, I convinced a fellow chambermaid to come along with me, so that if we had to, Id have company as I hitch-hiked my way back to Jasper. Life in the spirit continues in ways beyond our imagining. Metanoia is an invitation to think new thoughts. May our hearts be filled with wisdom and spirit so that we may listen to the Spirit, the Voice Within that always guides us toward our sacred self and what is best for us. Justice will exact our tears. Can you drink the dup I will drink or be baptized in the same baptism as I? We can, James and John replied. My reign as world champion would have continued if it werent for the abrupt ending of my amateur status. Anna explained that unless, I was prepared to be born again, under the tutelage of her pastor, I would need to find someplace else to live. Even though we may be worshiping in individual spaces, Through the Spirit, we are forever united. So, in the same way, we, of the Namaste Church, honor the Divinity in all people and this is why we called this church Namaste which means We honor the Divinity Within You.. Im in real danger of losing my ability to follow Jesus on what appears to all the world to be the foolish path of non-violent resistance to empire. Living accommodations were not a priority. Thank you. I dont know. Friends, let us come out of the darkness and join together in the light of Gods love. You are still in your sins, and those who have fallen asleep in Christ are the deadest of the dead. jQuery('#submit-action').click(); Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. They were an unusual couple in that we shared the uncommon habit of going to church. It took the Church until 1991 to concede that Galileo and not the writer of Joshua was right and that the Earth did indeed revolve around the Sun. //jQuery('#submit-action').attr('href','/paupress/?rel=contact&pau_form=contact_form'); Church that is. Listen carefully. It was as if my body was teaming up with my mind to convince my spirit to abandon this peculiar excursion. For heavens sake, when you sow a seed into the ground and it bursts forth into new life, that new life doesnt come in the form of a seed, it comes to life as a plant! You see the Pentecostal church was located down in the neighboring town of Hinton, about an hours drive away. Our kinship warmed me as I imagined their delight at our Suns sensuous self-giving display as it set. if ( '' != thisact ) { For none of us can do this kind of relentless, reckless abandon constantly. A quick glace toward the shoreline confirmed that I was well beyond where I would safely swim on a summer day and a strange sort of vertigo began to take hold over me. In the past he was patient and overlooked peoples sins; but in the present time he deals with their sins, in order to demonstrate his righteousness. All crosses can be transformed into trees of life. We proclaim and celebrate this Easter season because it links Jesus with all life, with transformation, and with possibility of life beyond our imagining. Somehow, hed managed to secure me with what we professional wrestlers call an arm bar. Imagine trying to understand who Dr. King was and focusing your attention upon his assassination. Settle into your seat, close your eyes and imagine a place that brings you comfort and peace. As we enter this season of Easter, we ask that the warm winds of the Spirit encircle this table and accompany us on our journey. I can only hope that each of you, have endured such moments in your life. Resurrection is a statement of how reality works. Imagining the horizons of my ancient ancestors, I could see in my minds eye a familiar worldview, a three-tiered universe, complete with an omnipotent god smiling and then frowning down at me. We thank you, God, for all the love You've given us and for the gift of Jesus. I do deny the resurrection and Im guessing that you do too! It was barely nine oclock and the sun was already beginning to set. O God, who gifts us moments of amazement, help us to accept the rhythm of the ordinary and the extraordinary that we may retain a steady awareness of your presence both in grey days and in bright. So, longing to escape the confines of my cozy isolation, out onto to the ice I trudged, as the cold air sharpened my vision. pour out your Holy Spirit upon us and upon these your gifts of bread and cup. What can Jesus teach us about God? 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