Long Green Valley Church of the Brethren
Long Green & Kanes Rds., near Glen Arm, Md.
April 4, 2010
7:30am
Easter Sunrise service
“Awaken” video
Scripture
Isaiah
25:6-9, 26:19, Ephesians 5:14b
1 - On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food
filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he
will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all
peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will
swallow up death forever.
2 - Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the
earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, Lo,
this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save
us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and
rejoice in his salvation.
1 - Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers
in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant
dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead.
2 - “Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine
on you.”
(1 is narrator and reads from lectern.
2 stands on lectern side of center area.
3 stands slightly to the pulpit side of
the center area, closer to the middle)
1- Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been
removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and
the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them,
2- “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know
where they have laid him.”
1 - Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward
the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple
outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in
and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.
3 - Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the
tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that
had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but
rolled up in a place by itself.
1 - Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also
went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not
understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.
3 - Then the disciples returned to their homes.
1 - But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she
bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in
white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at
the head and the other at the feet. They said to her,
3 - “Woman, why are you weeping?” (then move to
opposite side of 2)
1 - She said to them,
2 - “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they
have laid him.”
1 - When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus
standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus
said to her,
3 - “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”
1 - Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him,
2 - “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have
laid him, and I will take him away.”
1 - Jesus said to her,
3 - “Mary!”
1 - She turned and said to him in Hebrew,
2 - “Rabbouni!”
1 - (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her,
3 - “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to
the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am
ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your
God.’”
1 - Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples,
2 - “I have seen the Lord”;
1 - and she told them that he had said these things to her.
Let the same mind
be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the
form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be
exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he
humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even
death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave
him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of
Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under
the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Most wonderful
God, we no longer look for Jesus among the dead but the living.
We thank you for the glorious love that is now immortally among
us! We pray that we may abandon ourselves in adoration and
commit our energies to serving beside Christ in this world which
has now become a territory of much promise. To you be all
thanksgiving, praise and glory, on earth and in highest heaven!
prayer by
Bruce Prewer,
Uniting Church in Australia.
So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything
old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is
from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has
given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God
was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their
trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of
reconciliation to us.
Video"Brethren,
we have met to Jump"
Invitation
When God rolled
away the stone, did Jesus crawl out? Or did he leap? And we,
whom God calls to rise with Christ into newness of life, are we
slinkers or jumpers? The message of Easter is so utterly
fantastic, that we dare not leap for joy over it. Even if our
knees are not what they used to be, even if the spirit is
willing but the flesh is weak, we are called by God to soar.
“Awake, O sleeper, and RISE from the dead, for Christ shall give
you life.” A future promise and a present reality for God’s
Easter people.
If you didn’t
pick up from the last video, the youth of our denomination are
into “jumping.” It’s not simply a literal fad, something to be
done in front of a camera. It is a call to a way of life, just
like the tub and the towel has pointed beyond the act of
feetwashing toward a life of service. We are not called to
“crawl” into acts of kindness and mercy, as if we are ashamed to
do so. We are not called to “slink” into sharing the good news
in words and deeds, like we have no energy to do so. Quite the
contrary, it’s dynamite that we bear – God’s power. We are
invited to unashamedly leap into resurrection life, as if it was
worth every ounce of energy we have.Are you willing?
To close our
Easter sunrise service this morning, we will sing the familiar
hymn, “Low in the grave he lay,” but we’ll add some zest to our
singing of it. As you are able, I invite you to literally leap
on the refrain, as we sing, “up from the grave he arose…” Then,
when we’ve finished this song, I invite you to come forward and
we will videotape ourselves jumping together. You game? Okay,
let’s first sing our gospel hymn.
Thank you God for giving us food.
Thank you God for loving us too.
Tho’ we’re not the same, we will praise your name.
Thank you God for giving us food.