resurrection

growing into the likeness

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
CompositeJesus, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
Spirit of Truth, direct our attention to the life of Jesus
    so that we might see what you would have us be.
Make us, like him, teachers of your good law.
Make us, like him, performers of miraculous cures.
Make us, like him, proclaimers of your kingdom.
Make us, like him, loving the poor, the outcast, the children.
Make us, like him, silent when the world tempts us
    to respond in the world’s terms.
Make us, like him, ready to suffer.
 
We know we cannot be like Jesus
    except as Jesus was unlike us, being your Son.
Make us cherish that unlikeness,
    that we may grow into the likeness
    made possible by Jesus’ resurrection.
Amen
 
Stanley Hauerwas, 1940- , American ethicist and theologian
____________________
 
 
The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. 
And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, 
    he will give life to your mortal bodies 
    by this same Spirit living within you.

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Prayer professing faith

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painting by Carl Heinrich Bloch, 1881 via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
God, Creator, you planned from the beginning –
    telling evil that the woman’s offspring would crush it.
You called to Abraham from his land on the margins to follow you. 
He and three more generations relied on you to live in a strange land. 
Later, you led the descendants of Israel out of Egypt, out of bondage. 
You led your people with judges like Deborah, 
    with kings like David whose family included migrants, 
    and with prophets like Daniel who lived as minorities in strange lands. 
In all these ways you remind us to focus our hope on your salvation 
    rather than in an earth-bound culture. 
And when it seemed that you were absent, you sent your Only Son.

Transgressing our sense of power, your Son was born as the baby of a virgin. 
Tempted in the ways we still are – riches, fame, and glory – 
    he chose a life of humble service, service to others even while he was betrayed. 
He drank the full cup of suffering. 
In his humiliation he was deprived of justice and tortured. 
Jesus suffered outside the city gate to make people holy through his own blood.

When he died, he crossed the border of hell. 
Three days later God raised him from the grave, exchanging death for life. 
He appeared to Mary, Mary Magdelen, Salome, and Joanna; 
    he walked with Celopas and another disciple on the road to Emmaus 
    to those on the margins. 
Then he appeared to Peter and the twelve, 
Christ, raised from the dead, presents us with salvation.
 
complied by Claudio Carvalhaes, professor of worship in New York City
 
___________________________
 
 
Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, 
    “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 
     and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations,
     beginning at Jerusalem.”
 

seeing Easter through fresh eyes

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The Women at the Sepulchre, Benjamin West, Brooklyn Museum
 
Lord,
as if the shock of Good Friday wasn’t enough for your closest followers…

We feel for those faithful women who went to visit you
just after sunrise on that Sunday morning,
and fled, trembling and bewildered and afraid.

You were not there.

Forgive us when we sanitise your death.
And forgive us, too, if we belittle your resurrection!

Please help us to see this most incredible of moments,
this greatest twist of any plot,
through fresh eyes,
on this bewildering, yet most joyful of mornings.

Help us to see it through the tear-filled eyes of those women.

Help us to see it through the disbelieving eyes of the men,
some of whom came running.

And help us to glimpse it through your own eyes,
which must have blinked into the early morning sunlight
of that first Easter Day,
from out of complete, and utter, darkness,
and refocused,
and creased, with a smile.

You are risen indeed.
 
 
Brian Draper, Christian writer in the UK 
 
_________________________________
 
 
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, 
    the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 
They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 
    but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 
While they were wondering about this, 
    suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 
In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, 
    but the men said to them, 
        “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 
          He is not here; he has risen! 
          Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 
           ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, 
             be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 
Then they remembered his words.
 

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Prayer for Holy Saturday

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Lamentation of Christ, Andrea Mantegna, via Wikimedia Commons

Today a tomb holds him who holds the creation in the hollow of his hand; 
    a stone covers him who covered the heavens with glory. 
Life sleeps and hell trembles, and Adam is set free from his bonds. 
Glory to your dispensation, whereby you have accomplished all things, 
    granting us an eternal Sabbath, your most holy Resurrection from the dead.

What is this sight that we behold? What is this present rest? 
The King of the ages, having through his passion fulfilled the plan of salvation, 
    keeps Sabbath in the tomb, granting us a new Sabbath. 
Unto him let us cry aloud: Arise, O Lord, judge the earth,
    for measureless is your great mercy and you reign forever.

Come, let us see our Life lying in the tomb, 
    that he may give life to those that in their tombs lie dead. 
Come, let us look today on the Son of Judah as he sleeps, 
    and with the prophet let us cry aloud to him: 
You have lain down, you have slept as a lion; 
    who shall awaken you, O King? 
But of your own free will you rise up, 
    who willingly gives yourself for us. 
O Lord, glory to thee
 
Mattins, Holy Saturday, Orthodox
The Oxford Book of Prayer slightly modernized
 
___________________________________
 
 
The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph 
    and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 
Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. 
But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.

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God of good ideas

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image, Bureau of Land Management, CC0 via flickr
 
 
God of good ideas,
    who began the world
    with light and word,
    who began again
    with flood and rainbow;
we acknowledge our frustrations with your church:
    its committees and structures,
    its method and systems.
These things have made us angry and sapped our energy.
 
God of new beginnings
    who began a new way
    of living with resurrection,
    who began a new community
    with tongues of fire;
    begin again here
    that structures may bend
    like dancing saplings;
    the past, present and future
    may be woven into 
    a fresh path of commitment.
 
May our ideas for your world and this community
    resonate in your presence,
    so that tested, tried, and challenged
    they may blossom in us
    as do dry places
    when longed-for rain falls.
 
Janet Lees
 
________________________
 
 
Sing to the Lord a new song,
    his praise from the end of the earth,
you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it,
    the coastlands and their inhabitants.
Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice,
    the villages that Kedar inhabits;
let the habitants of Sela sing for joy,
    let them shout from the top of the mountains.
Let them give glory to the Lord,
    and declare his praise in the coastlands.

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prayer to the Holy Spirit

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image, Serbian Monastery, BrankaVV, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

 
 
Good spirit, Holy giver of life . . .  
We are born again in You, created a second time. 
In You is all knowledge, which illuminates our minds 
    so that we might see the Lord, our Savior. 
In Him is life, wisdom, beyond words, 
    knowledge that surpasses the senses, 
    brightness beyond understanding – all life, all power, all glory – 
for He is the God who carries our burdens and forgives us. 
 
Make me entirely Yours. 
Give me life according to Your will. 
Resurrect those parts of me that sin has brought down. 
Enlighten my heart, which is darkened by evil desires, 
   and bring life to my soul, which is dead in its sin. 
Unfurl the threefold mantle of my passions. 
    Have mercy on me in my poverty. 
    Deliver me from every enemy who, from without or within, rises up over me. 
    Deliver me from every evil thing. 
Forgive my reprehensible deeds, and plant your perfect love inside of me.
 
Write your servant’s name in the Book of Life, 
    and give me a good end so that, as I rise victorious over the devil, 
    I might bow confidently before Your kingly throne. 
Make my heart good soil, Lord, and sow it with good seeds. 
Cover me with Your grace like the morning dew, and harvest that which is good: 
    humble prayer, restraint, watchfulness, and tears. 
 
John the Deacon, 15th Century, Orthodox
 
___________________________
 
 
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, 
    for he will not speak on his own authority, 
    but whatever he hears he will speak, 
    and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 
He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

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to share in your triumph

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painting by Duccio di Buoninsegna, via Wikimedia Commons

 
O Christ, the brightness of God’s glory
    and express image of his person,
  whom death could not conquer,
    nor the tomb imprison;
as you have shared our mortal frailty in the flesh,
    help us to share your immortal triumph in the spirit.
Let no shadow of the grave affright us
    and no fear of darkness turn our hearts from you.
Reveal yourself to us as the first and the last,
    that Living One, 
    our immortal Savior and Lord.
Amen.
 
Henry Van Dyke, 1852 – 1933, American diplomat and Presbyterian clergyman
________________________
 
 
But our citizenship is in heaven. 
And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,
    who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, 
    will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

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believing in the resurrection of Jesus

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image, by William Hole, via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
Almighty God,
Who through the death of your Son 
    has destroyed sin and death,
And by his resurrection 
    has restored innocence and everlasting life,
That we may be delivered from the dominion of the devil,
    and our mortal bodies raised up from the dead:
Grant that we may confidently and whole-heartedly 
    believe this,
And, finally, with your saints, 
    share in the joyful resurrection of the just;
through the same Jesus Christ,
    your Son, our Lord.

Martin Luther, 1483-1546, German Reformer
 
_______________________________
 
 
But these are written that you may believe 
    that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, 
and that by believing 
    you may have life in his name.
 

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Easter Prayer of Pope Gregory the Great

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source by Luca Giordano via Wikipedia
 
It is only right, with all the powers of our heart and mind, 
    to praise You Father and Your Only-Begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Dear Father, by Your wondrous condescension of Loving-Kindness
    toward us, Your servants, You gave up Your Son.
Dear Jesus You paid the debt of Adam for us to the Eternal Father 
    by Your Blood poured forth in Loving-Kindness.
You cleared away the darkness of sin 
    by Your magnificent and radiant Resurrection.
You broke the bonds of death and rose from the grave as a Conqueror.
You reconciled Heaven and earth.
Our life had no hope of Eternal Happiness before You redeemed us.
Your Resurrection has washed away our sins, 
    restored our innocence and brought us joy.
How inestimable is the tenderness of Your Love!

We pray You, Lord, to preserve Your servants 
    in the peaceful enjoyment of this Easter happiness.
We ask this through Jesus Christ Our Lord, 
    Who lives and reigns with God The Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 
    forever and ever.

Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540 – 604) of Rome, Patron Saint of Teachers
_________________________
 
 
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! 
According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again 
to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead

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waiting prayer for Holy Saturday

/ Eric Mathews / 1 Comment
Holy Saturday by Roxolana Luczakowsky via Facebook
 
 
This is the hardest time to pray:
after the drama and catastrophe,
before the angels and the big reveal.
The passion, the agony, the desperate grief
have given way to numbness
and absence
in this time in between.

God seems to be offstage,
preparing for the final scene,
taking care of ancient souls in other worlds
or clothing the hidden, broken body
in resurrection glory.

So let our prayer this day be plain
and to the point:

May God be with us in the waiting,
and may we wait with hope,
today
and every time in between.

Amen.

 
Kerry Greenhill, Methodist Deacon and Minister
 
____________________________
 
 
As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, 
    who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. 
Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him.
Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 
    and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. 
He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. 
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.

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