Easter 1999: Resurrection: Now What?

 

Seekers Church:
A Christian Community
In the Tradition of the Church of the Saviour

Easter 1999

Resurrection: Now What?

Silent Reflection

It is the suffering already present in the world which we can either ignore or identify with. If pain were not real, if it were not the lot of so many, the way of the cross would be pathological. But in our world with its hungry and homeless and hopeless, it is pathological to live as if pain did not exist. The way of the cross means letting pain carve one’s life into a channel through which the healing stream of the spirit can flow to a world in need.

Parker Palmer, The Promise of Paradox, pg. 39

Prelude

Call To Worship

Leader:        Today, the rock is rolled away.

Community: Alleluia. Christ is risen.

Leader:        Yet we still find ourselves walking the way of the cross.

Community: Alleluia. Christ is with us.

Leader:        Side by side with resurrection stands pain.

Community: Alleluia. Christ cries with us.

Leader:        Come, Holy Spirit, rain down your blessing in this our Easter season.

Community: Alleluia. The Spirit brings strength where we are gathered.

Invocation

Hymn

Word for the Children

Silence

Litany

Leader:        The stream of spirit brings us to the cross,
and also takes us beyond.

Voice 1:       The way of the cross is a way not of despair but of joy.

Voice 2:       Jesus was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,"
yet he said "my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Voice 1:       What we lose on the cross
is the burden of falsehood and illusion.
What lives beyond the cross
is the uplifting power of love.

Voice 2:       The paradox of the crucifixion
is Christ’s victory over the illusion
that death is supreme.

Leader:        The paradox of our own crossing points
is that pain kills illusion
so that truth can bring joy.

Unison:        As we have the faith to live fully
in these painful contradictions
we experience transformation

Silence

Prayers

Common Confession

Leader:        Holy River of life and healing, you invite us into
your continuing participation
in the sorrows of the world.

Community: Too often we pretend that pain does not exist,
that life in your resurrected Body should be easy,
that we can avoid the way of the cross.

Leader:        Too often our joy in your resurrection
is only for ourselves,
forgetting that you came to heal the world.

Unison:        Forgive us when we resist your desire
to carve us into channels of your grace.

Individual Prayers of Confession

Assurance

Leader:        In the power of Christ’s resurrection,
we know the promise of God’s forgiving grace.

Prayers of the Community

Hymn

The Word

First Lesson

Silence

Gospel Lesson

Sermon

Silent Reflection

Offering

The first Sunday of each month we switch to a Communion Liturgy here.

Shared Reflections

Announcements

Hymn

Benediction

Leader:        Christ is risen!
Go forth as a channel of God’s healing stream.
Amen.

Liturgy Resources
Litany: After Parker Palmer, The Promise of Paradox, pg. 40