Sunrise Service
April 21, 2019
6:30 am
The people gather in the cemetery.
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Hymn, “In the Darkness of the Morning” 229
Prayer of the Day
Brightness of God’s love and glory
whom death could not conquer
nor the tomb imprison:
as you have shared our frailty in human flesh,
help us to share your resurrection life in the Spirit.
Let no shadow of the grave terrify us,
and no fear of darkness turn our hearts from you.
Reveal yourself to us this day and all our days,
as the first and the last, the Living One,
our Savior and Lord,
Jesus Christ our God. BCW, 2018
God of life and love:
we celebrate and pray for the women,
the apostles to the apostles,
upon whose testimony and preaching our faith is based,
without whose words we would not know
of your resurrection.
We pray for those who mourn
over a world which seems bereft of your Presence,
a world which smashes every precious thing,
a world which corrupts the innocent,
a world which squashes goodness at every turn,
a world which seems to be an endless tomb.
We pray with women who weep,
as Jesus’ mother did,
over the tortured bodies of their children.
- We pray with Uighur women in western China.
- We pray with Rohingya women in Myanmar.
- We pray with the women of Palestine.
- We pray with the women of Venezuela.
- We pray with the women of eastern Ukraine.
- We pray with the women of Syria.
- We pray with the women of Yemen.
- We pray with the women who die in childbirth.
- We pray with the women fleeing violence in Central America, whose children are forcibly taken from them at our border.
- We pray with women who have lost children to addiction.
- We pray with women who have lost children to gun violence.
- We pray with women who are victims of rape, sexual assault, and human trafficking.
We pray that we may always listen to the words of women.
Amen.
Scripture Reading
Narrators say the words in regular print. Words in bold are said in unison. Italicized words are said by women.
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn,
Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.
They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed 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, but has risen.
Remember how he told you,
while he was still in Galilee,
that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners,
and be crucified,
and on the third day rise again.’
Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.
But [it] seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
Hymn, “Christ Has Risen, While Earth Slumbers” 231
But Mary [went back and] stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw [the] 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,
‘Woman, why are you weeping?’
She said to them,
‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’
When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her,
‘Woman, why are you weeping?
For whom are you looking?’
Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him,
‘Sir, if you have carried him away,
tell me where you have laid him,
and I will take him away.’
Jesus said to her,
‘Mary!’
She turned and said to him in Hebrew,
‘Rabbouni!’
(which means Teacher). Jesus said to her,
‘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.” ’
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples,
‘I have seen the Lord’;
and she told them that he had said these things to her.
From Luke 24:1-12 & John 20:1-18
Hymn, “Welcome, Happy Morning!”
Benediction
God of Resurrection Life:
Send us into our world with the message of the women
that you are not conquered by death!
Life always finds a way!
You defeat and neutralize the power of death,
revealing your love and life with and within us!
For Christ is risen from the dead,
trampling down death by death,
and upon those in the tombs
bestowing life!
Amen.
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!
Alleluia!
We depart in joy to reassemble at the Lord’s Table in the Sanctuary at 11 am.
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