Order of Service for the 11am Service:

HYMN # 105 Dust and Ashes

READING: “It was on the Friday…”

It was on the Friday
that they ended it all.

Of course
they didn't do it one by one.
They weren't brave enough.
All the stones at the one time
or no stones thrown at all.
They did it in crowds ...
in crowds where you can feel safe
and lose yourself
and shout things
you would never shout on your own,
and do things
you would never do
if you felt the camera was watching you.

It was a crowd in the church that did it,
and a crowd in the civil service that did it,
and a crowd in the street that did it,
and a crowd on the hill that did it.

And he said nothing ...

He took the insults,
the bruises,
the spit on his face,
the thongs on his back,
the curses in his ears.
He took the sight of his friends turning away,
running away.

And he said nothing ...

He let them do their worst,
until their worst was done,
It was on Friday they ended it all ...
and would have finished themselves
had he not cried,"Father, forgive them ..."

CHOIR ANTHEM: Face the Cross

READING: “It was on the Sunday”
It was on the Sunday
that he pulled the corn ...

They arrived with flowers,
shuffling through the dawn
as the dawn snuffed out
the last candles of night.
Their faces betrayed their belief
that yesterday would always be better
than tomorrow
despite what he said.
He would not say it again,
so why bother to believe him on that score?

And the flowers,
they too were silent witnesses to disbelief.
Like the grass,
they were cut to be dried to death,
cut off from their roots,
their bulb, their source of life.
He was the flower they cherished,
the flower now perished
whose fate the lilies of the field,
now tight in handwould re-enact.

So when they passed the crouched figure
at the edge of the road,
they thought little of him,
scarcely seeing his form through their tears.
Had they looked even a little,
they would have seen a man
letting grain fall through his fingers,
dropping to the earth
to die and yet to rise again.

It was on the Sunday
that he pulled the corn ...

SCRIPTURE READING: Luke 24: 1 – 12

PRAYER:
One: Jesus Christ, we greet you!
Your hands still have holes in them,
your feet are wet from the dew;
and with the memory of our names
undimmed by three days of death
you meet us,
risen from the grave.
All: We fail to understand how;
we puzzle at the reason why.
One: But you have come:
not to answer our questions,
but to show us your face.
All: You are alive
and the world can rejoice again.
Hallelujah !!
One: This is the Good News:
The grave is empty,
Christ is Risen.
All: Hallelujah !!
One: This is the Good News:
The light shines in the darkness
and the darkness can never put it out.
All: Hallelujah !!
One: This is the Good News:
Once we were no people,
now we are God’s people.
All: Hallelujah !!
One: Christ is our peace,
The indestructible peace
we now share with each other
All: and with the world !! Amen.
One: The Church is Easter.
Out of Death:
Life.
All: Out of Darkness:
A lush green world.
Flowers in the ice,
Sunrays in the storm,
Mustard seeds galore.
One: Our souls enter a spiritual springtime,
All: our bodies given over to leaping and dancing,
our very beings saturated with hosannas.
One: Our shouting crashes in upon this world:
The Lord Lives.
All: We live !!
One: Resurrection resounds throughout our community !!
All: Christ is Risen !!! Hallelujah !!
HYMN # 155 Jesus Christ is Risen Today

PRAYER:
One: Lord God,
early in the morning,
when the world was young,
you made life in all its beauty and terror;
you gave birth to all that we know.
Hallowed be your name,
All: Hallowed be your name.
One: Early in the morning,
when the world least expected it,
a newborn child crying in a cradle
announced that you had come among us,
that you were one of us.
Hallowed be your name,
All: Hallowed be your name.
One: Early in the morning,
surrounded by respectable liars,
religious leaders,
anxious statesmen
and silent friends,
you accepted the penalty for doing good,
for being God:
you shouldered and suffered the cross.
Hallowed be your name,
All: Hallowed be your name.
One: Early in the morning,
a voice in a guarded graveyard
and footsteps in the dew

proved that you had risen,
that you had come back
to those and for those
who had forgotten, denied and destroyed you.
Hallowed by your name,
All: Hallowed be your name.
One: This morning,
in the multi-colored company
of your Church on earth and in heaven,
we celebrate your creation, your life,
your death and resurrection,
your interest in us;
so we pray,
All: Lord, bring new life,
where we are worn and tired;
new love,
where we have turned hard-hearted;
forgiveness,
where we feel hurt
and where we have wounded;
and the joy and freedom
of your Holy Spirit,
where we are prisoners of ourselves.
(silence)
One: To all and to each,
on his community and on his friends,
where regret is real,
Jesus pronounces his pardon
and grants us the right to begin again.
Thanks be to God !
All: Amen.

HYMN # insert Deep in Our Hearts

SCRIPTURE READING:
Isaiah 65: 17 – 25 & Acts 10: 34 – 43

HYMN # 179 Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Give Thanks

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND MINUTE FOR MISSION

THE STORY STOOL

HYMN # insert Every morning is Easter Morning

PRAYER:
One: We are not alone.
All: We live in God’s world.
We believe in God:
who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus,
the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,
who works in us and others
by the Spirit.
We trust in God.
We are called to be the Church:
to celebrate God’s presence,
to live with respect in Creation,
to love and serve others,
to seek justice and resist evil,
to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
our judge and our hope.
In life, in death, in life beyond death,
God is with is.
We are not alone.
Thanks be to God.
One: In life, in death, in life beyond death,
All: Jesus Christ is Lord.
One: Over powers and principalities,
over all who determine, control,
govern or finance the affairs of humankind,
All: Jesus Christ is Lord.
One: Of the poor, of the broken,
of the sinned against and the sinner,
All: Jesus Christ is Lord.
One: Above the Church,
beyond our most excellent theologies
and in the quiet corners of our hearts,
All: Jesus Christ is Lord.
One: Thanks be to God.
All: Amen.
CHOIR ANTHEM: Who is He?

REFLECTION:

This weekend, the Canadian media has been occupied by the events surrounding the 90th Anniversary of the battle known to us now as Vimy. One of the happenings that caught my attention in the midst of the hub-bub has been the reburial of the remains of a soldier who for the bulk of the past 90 years has been listed among the 11 000 who were simply missing in action.

This weekend with military pomp and circumstance, the remains of Private Hebert Peterson who died in battle 90 years ago … What caught my attention was the use of the word closure repeatedly by the media. Over and over the reporters spoke of this event bringing “closure” for the family of Herbert Peterson. I had to wonder what kind of “closure” was possible for a family who now knew of Pte. Peterson only as a name on the family tree – his parents and siblings and even those nieces and nephews who MAY have known him being long gone … Yet, the use of the term “closure” has floated around in the reporting of this story …

In the story of Pte. Peterson finally being laid to rest under his OWN name, we find a microcosm of early Christianity in its first stirrings … 90 years after the fact, we as citizens of Canada are invited to honour a fallen hero – we are asked to assume much, we are given a sparse story and told to believe certain things, and we are told with no proof whatsoever that Pte Peterson died a hero’s death …

In Christianity we hear the words of Paul who was writing a decade or more after Jesus death about Resurrection … but we can not be certain what he meant by Resurrection …

In Christianity, we hear the words of the Gospels who speak to us of Resurrection from the perspective of several decades removed from Jesus’ own death … but we can not be certain what they meant by Resurrection …

In Christianity, we speak repeatedly of Resurrection in the Church and as an Easter people … but we can not be certain of what we even mean by Resurrection …

We are an Easter People. We are a people defined by the Resurrection. But now 1900 centuries removed from that happening in Jerusalem, we are asked to assume much … we are given a sparse story and told to believe certain things and we have no proof AT ALL that Jesus died a hero’s death, but rather we have every indication that he died the horrible, pathetic death of one who had run amuck of the authorities of his day and died a victim’s death …

There is nothing exemplary nor heroic in how Jesus died. Yet we are to believe that he died as God’s chosen hero … and today on Easter Morning we tell the phenomenal story of his Resurrection – and as a Church we can’t even agree what the Resurrection was …

So, as an Easter People who are defined by the Resurrection – what do we do ???
Shall we stifle the voices that say – “He is Risen?” and remain silent?

Or shall we courageously wrestle with the very idea of Resurrection, and struggle to understand what Resurrection means to us in the modern era?
(I know what I want to do – and since I’m the preacher … let’s have a bit of a background lesson about the understanding of Resurrection in Jesus’ world …)

In Jesus’ world there was only one figure in the Jewish faith who never died. Elijah, the one our Jewish sisters and brothers continue to wait for at Passover, had not died, but rather had been taken up bodily into heaven by a chariot sent by God. Elijah was the one who’s coming at Passover would herald the arrival of the Messiah – God’s chosen one.

The very idea of a resurrection of the dead was a NEW idea … that’s a hard concept to wrap our heads around. We have been part of a culture that for centuries has believed whole-heartedly in an after life, and in an apocalyptic moment of history when the dead will be raised and the good ushered into a heavenly paradise, and the lacking punished for eternity.

It was actually not that long ago that the ideas of Hell and Purgatory (a sort of holding area for souls awaiting resurrection) were wide spread in our society – and some of us still hold to those ideas to some degree … Yet, the very idea of everyone living on beyond this life is an idea that scholars can trace back in human history.

In Jesus’ world, only the very important and prominent would live on beyond this life … the idea that EVERYONE would have a share in a paradise beyond this life was startling and new … So, when the words – “today you WILL be with me in paradise” are posited on Jesus’ lips and directed to a criminal of ALL people, it caught people’s attention. It was radical and totally off the wall …

In time when Paul spoke of Jesus’ resurrection, it would seem that he was speaking in broad terms – of the resurrection of ALL, not just some. Death would not swallow up everyone – but would be conquered by God’s gift of resurrection for ALL people … EVERYONE would be resurrected – everyone.

It was a startling concept – it went totally counter to the physical evidence of HOW Jesus died … yet, from our Scriptural evidence, it is the notion that the disciples of Jesus held in those first moments of time following his death …

Jesus died a loser … his death was pointless and accomplished nothing … he died in a garbage dump amongst criminals outside the walls of the city … there could be no lower and more reviled form of death than his … he died a criminal himself …

BUT – God wasn’t finished with him yet … God couldn’t be finished with him yet … the teachings and the ministry and the mission of Jesus couldn’t die shattered on the hill of Golgotha … God had more in store …

And the resurrection began …

This week I read a commentary that offers the notion (not a new one) that there was NO body following Jesus’ crucifixion, but rather like the other thousands of victims of crucifixion, Jesus ended up in the piles of carrion that were left on the back side of Golgotha for the elements, scavengers and time to deal with … It’s not a comfortable thought for modern Christians – and is provocative in the fullest sense of that word.

But it is not far off the realm of possibility, and if we are to fully comprehend and experience the Resurrection as members of a post-modern society, we have to consider the possibility that the Easter Story was simply a case of Jesus dying a criminal death, his body being unceremoniously dumped over the back of Golgotha, and his followers left bewildered, frightened and terrified …

But then … like our modern hymn I was there to hear your borning cry so boldly proclaims – “when the evening gently closes in, and you shut your weary eyes, I’ll be there as I have always been, with just one more surprise …”

Just when all seemed hopeless and lost, when his life ended in humiliation, shame, embarrassment and when all seemed utterly desolate … the message of Jesus stirred and reminded his followers and his disciples that God was NOT finished … There is and remains one more surprise …

The message of Jesus was and remains so radical that it was never a case of believing BECAUSE Jesus was resurrected, but it was a case of believing he WAS resurrected BECAUSE of the spirit-filled life that he had guided his followers to … it was a case of believing he was resurrected because of the spirit-filled life that he had lead his followers to … it was a case of believing that he was resurrected because of the spirit-filled life that God was offering all of us if we dared to believe …

The Resurrection as we know it may well be layer upon layer of embellishment and explanations rather than factual history … But the resurrection as Jesus’ followers understood and lived it, comes from the moment of utter failure and loss, and finds them stepping into the future knowing that God never lets the story simply end in death …

The telling words for us today are those uttered by Jesus from the cross – “today you WILL be with me in paradise …” we can not underscore the radical idea of a criminal being offered the resurrection of eternity … and this very utterance is central to the radical teachings of this rabbi from Nazareth who showed us a bold new way of life, death and eternity …

In life, in death … in life beyond death – God is with us – we are not alone … thanks be to God …
The resurrection is NOT what we may expect … and it is NOT what we may think it to be … but the resurrection WILL happen … again and again and again …

If we dare – we will see it every day …

May it be so … thanks be to God …

OFFERING, OFFERTORY AND PRAYER OF DEDICATION

HYMN # 161 Welcome, Happy Morning

SCRIPTURE READING: Luke 24: 13 – 35

PRAYER:
One: Jesus Christ, you meet us;
your hands still holed,
but your breath warm,
and your conversation engaging.
Death has not changed your accent
or diminished your love.
And though the world
should still show signs of its imperfection,
the good news is that you have destined it
and all its people to be made whole.
All: So, as on this Easter Day
we are gathered in your house
and cheered by your gospel,
join us,
as you joined your first disciples
and make our worship your Emmaus road.
Amen.

HYMN # 245 Praise the Lord with the Sound of Trumpet

COMMISSIONING & BENEDICTION:
One: Today and tomorrow,
All: Today and tomorrow,
One: Lo, I am with you always,
All: when we try to do your will,
One: I am with you always,
All: when we go where we do not know,
One: I am with you always,
All: when we meet one we do not recognize,
One: I am with you always,
All: where faith ends and doubt begins,
One: I am with you always.
All: and should we forget you…
One: I am with you always.
All: Today and tomorrow,
Today and tomorrow,
You are with us always
to the end of the world.
Amen.
HYMN # 173 (vs 1,2) Thine Is the Glory


The worship has ended….
…the work of God’s people has just begun.
Go in peace.