An Easter Sunday Service for the dispersed community of Denman Island United Church on April 12, 2020.
A glance back at the service led by Elaine Julian on Apr. 21, 2019, looking ahead with great hope to a time when we will be able to gather again in body as well as in Spirit.
Choral Opening: MV#90, “Don’t Be Afraid” (2X)
Don’t be afraid, my love is stronger.
My love is stronger than your fear.
Don’t be afraid, my love is stronger
And I have promised, promised to be always near.
Lighting the Christ Candle
I invite you to quiet your body and mind, take a breath.
Focus on what you feel. Feel your heart beat in your chest.
Feel the air as you breathe.
We are here, listening, waiting, hoping,
Longing to sense, to feel, to experience the Holy.
May it be so in this time of worship.
A minute of silence, followed by the ringing of the bell.
Liturgy of the Rocks
After each Lenten rock is removed, all sing: VU#958
Halle, halle, halle-lujah!
Halle, halle, halle lujah!
Halle, halle, halle lujah!
Hallelujah, hallelujah!
ANTHEM: “In Christ Alone”
WE LISTEN FOR THE WORD OF GOD
Reading: John 20:1-18 (from “The Message” by Eugene Peterson)
Resurrection!
20 1-2 Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance. She ran at once to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, breathlessly panting, “They took the Master from the tomb. We don’t know where they’ve put him.”
3-10 Peter and the other disciple left immediately for the tomb. They ran, neck and neck. The other disciple got to the tomb first, outrunning Peter. Stooping to look in, he saw the pieces of linen cloth lying there, but he didn’t go in. Simon Peter arrived after him, entered the tomb, observed the linen cloths lying there, and the kerchief used to cover his head not lying with the linen cloths but separate, neatly folded by itself. Then the other disciple, the one who had gotten there first, went into the tomb, took one look at the evidence, and believed. No one yet knew from the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. The disciples then went back home.
11-13 But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus’ body had been laid. They said to her, “Woman, why do you weep?”
13-14 “They took my Master,” she said, “and I don’t know where they put him.” After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn’t recognize him.
15 Jesus spoke to her, “Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?”
She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, “Mister, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him.”
16 Jesus said, “Mary.”
Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” meaning “Teacher!”
17 Jesus said, “Don’t cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.’”
18 Mary Magdalene went, telling the news to the disciples: “I saw the Master!” And she told them everything he said to her.
Holy Wisdom, Holy Word.
Thanks be to God!
Reflection: “New Life From Old: God’s Four R’s”
Here in the northern hemisphere, it makes sense for the symbols of Easter to be spring images. As we celebrate the new life that Christ offers us, we are surrounded by signs of new life in the natural world: budding leaves and flowers, butterflies struggling out of their cocoons, baby chicks bursting from eggs. We revel in the sunshine after months of cloud and rain, and in the longer days as we tilt back towards the sun.
While I was thinking about this, and the cycle of the seasons, the word that popped into my mind was “recycle”. Of course, we usually associate that word recycle with the environment, with reducing waste and stress on our ecosystem. And as I thought about it, I realized that all of the 3 R’s of the conservation movement can also tell us something about God’s plan for the world revealed in Easter resurrection: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
Let’s start with recycling. In conservation, recycling means collecting things we have used and reprocessing the material that they’re made of into new items that can be used and not wasted. Creation does this too: the earth cycles and recycles through the seasons, last year’s fallen leaves and stems and grass cuttings break down and nourish this spring’s plants and flowers, moisture evaporates from lakes and falls again as rain.
And of course we’re all familiar with the image of a nurse log in the forest: an ancient tree fallen to earth, but nourishing all the new life that grows on and around it- fungi, plants, nesting birds and burrowing animals.
In God’s Easter recycling plan, symbols of death become symbols of new life: the cold, hard rocks become an unbelievable and joyously empty tomb, the dead wood of the cross is transformed into the Tree of Life. Nothing is wasted, nothing is lost forever.
In conservation, the idea of reducing is fairly straightforward: we try to reduce waste by reducing the amount of stuff that we buy and use. But what does God ask us to reduce in the Easter story?
The answer to that is the story itself.
I believe that the story of the life and death of Jesus contains all the other stories that we have ever told each other over the ages: the many, many stories of the triumph of life over death, good over evil: murder mysteries and westerns where the bad guy is always caught and punished, the modern archetypal stories of Harry Potter and Star Wars. Stories of betrayal and loss, and stories of love and generosity. At Easter, God calls us to reduce all our stories to this one truth: the power of the love that created us and the universe will never, ever be defeated in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Creation was born in and for God’s love, and when we reduce all our stories to that truth we also reduce our confusion about who we are and what we were made to do.
And speaking of stories, how many stories in the Bible are about the many ways in which God re-uses God’s people? Actually, I think the word re-purpose is an even better word for what God does in those stories. A people living in slavery is re-purposed to become a new nation founded on the laws of God. Reluctant and far-from-perfect people, sometimes evil people, are re-purposed over and over again to become the leaders of God’s people, leaders like the apostle Paul. As cool as it is to make a nice planter out of an old wooden pallet, or a beautiful garden sculpture out of old musical instruments, God’s repurposing is even more dramatic. And never more dramatic than what happens to Mary Magdalene in the Easter story.
Today’s reading begins and ends with Mary Magdalene: she is the first to find the empty tomb and run to fetch Jesus’ closest disciples, and after her incredible encounter with the living Christ she leaves to tell all the disciples what she has seen and heard.
There are many stories about Mary Magdalene’s life before and after she met Jesus: some of them are in the Gospels, some of them are part of long-standing church tradition, and some of them are part of today’s popular culture in movies and books like The DaVinci Code and all its imitators. But let’s put all those other stories aside, let’s reduce them to this one story: Mary meets Jesus and is healed. She becomes one of his closest followers, and after witnessing his death she is also the first witness to his resurrection. Through Jesus, God repurposes her not once but twice: first from a completely marginalized person to part of Jesus’ faithful inner circle, and finally from a grieving woman to God’s first joyful messenger of the triumph of life over death.
What a story! Can we let it be our story too? Can we let God reduce ourneeds and wants to only one need centered in God? As Jesus says to Martha, sister of another Mary, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing.[a] Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Can we let God take our imperfect selves and transform us into faithful followers and excited messengers? Can we let God reduce, reuse and recycle us? Can we find new life, hope and purpose in the Easter story, as Mary Magdalene did so long ago?
Because of course, there is a fourth R in God’s plan: resurrection, life emerging from death, triumph snatched from the jaws of defeat.
Jim Marsh from Bread of Life Church in Washington DC asks in an email reflection: “Is there a part of you that’s been dead a long while? Call its name. Nurture the bold little shoot rising from your winter’s ground. Look at all the greening that is going on. What a gift to see another spring. We are perennials after all.” In this time of enforced inactivity, we have been given the gift of time to look into hearts and nurture the dormant shoots struggling to grow.
Even in the midst of death there is life, and so we proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope. In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.
Responding with Hearts, Hands and Minds
Creation Station: making origami butterflies
Reflection Station:
Listen to “The Christ Hymn” by Alana Levandoski
What line especially catches your attention?
WE PREPARE OUR LIVES FOR THE WORK OF GOD
Invitation to Offering
We have heard the stories of resurrection;
We have been invited into the story ourselves.
Let us offer our gifts that others might also come to experience the power of Christ’s resurrection.
The needs of the church and the world continue even as we retreat into self isolation. Please contribute to your favourite charities that are serving the needs of your commmunity and the world, and contact Tish to donate towards the ongoing expenses of DIUC.
Offertory Chorus : MV#191
What can I do? What can I bring?
What can I say? What can I sing?
I’ll sing with joy. I’ll say a prayer.
I’ll bring my love. I’ll do my share.
*Prayer of Dedication:(in unison)
Good Shepherd, we bring the gifts created by our hands and by our minds. May they be a witness to your love for all creation. May they be used for the greater good that you personify. Amen.
Prayers of the People
For our prayers today, I invite you to make an Easter tree and decorate it with symbols of new life.
Let us pray.
Risen One, Holy Mystery, we thank you for the gift of Jesus,
for his life, death and resurrection,
and for all that your holy plan means for us.
We pray for all victims of violence, and for all those experiencing illness, loss and grief.
We ask especially that your love be made known to the entire world, locked down and isolated because of Covid-19. Heal the ill, comfort the grieving, and walk with us all in the joyful anticipation of new life born out of death.
The Prayer of Jesus (Paraphrase by Jim Cotter, VU p. 916)
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be.
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need to today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us,
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever. Amen.
*HYMN: VU#703, “In the Bulb There Is a Flower”
https://youtu.be/8RHek8k5WoY
*Commissioning
From the coldness of the ground comes beauty.
From the horror of the cross comes grace.
From faith shattered comes the passion for justice.
Go from here to live in beauty, with grace, and for justice.
*Benediction
Peace be with you….the peace of resurrection.
Peace be with you….the peace of Christ.
Peace be with you….the peace of faith.
And may God, Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit,
Bless and abide with you this Easter and forevermore. Amen.
*CHORAL CLOSING: VU#958
Halle, halle, halle-lujah!
Halle, halle, halle lujah!
Halle, halle, halle lujah!
Hallelujah, hallelujah!
Call to Worship by Jamie Miller, Offering Invitation by Frances Flook, Offering Dedication by Jim McKean, Commissioning by Robin Wardlaw, Benediction by Elaine Bidgood Sveet, used by permission from “Gathering” Lent/Easter 2019. Liturgy of the Rocks by Jen Dresser, used by permission from “Gathering” Lent/Easter 2016.
