Songs:
“Lift Up Your Heads, O Ye Gates”
George Frideric Handel
“Christ the Lord is Risen Today”
Charles Wesley
“All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name”
Oliver Holden, Edward Perronet & John Rippon
“And Can it Be”
Charles Wesley
“He Will Hold Me Fast”
Ada Ruth Habershon & Matthew Merker
“Is He Worthy”
Andrew Peterson & Ben Shive
“Christ Our Hope in Life and Death”
Keith Getty, Matt Boswell, Jordan Kauflin, Matt Merker & Matt Papa
“Doxology”
from “All People that on Earth Do Dwell”
William Kethe
“Spring” (from “The Four Seasons”)
Antonio Vivaldi
Call To Worship: Resurrection
Leader: Jesus Christ is risen!
People: Jesus Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Leader: Let us praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
People: He made us a resurrection people by raising Jesus from the dead.
Leader: We celebrate His victory over death.
People: We recognize His presence among us.
Leader: We praise Him for His grace and mercy!
People: We declare our love and devotion to Him!
Leader: Rejoice, then, for He has called you from darkness into light.
People: We will rejoice and give thanks! For Jesus Christ has risen to give us new life! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Curate’s Prayer
Oh God and Father, how we are humbled by the gift of your Son, he is the promise fulfilled and our highest good restored.
Hope is in your face Christ, the risen one, in whom and by whom the rendering of mercy delivers us from the crumbling rubble of self-sufficient kingdoms, and the scattered bone yards of the wars of small emperors.
The guilty, shamed and cynical find their cold hearts melted by the embrace of mercy, transforming fallow ground into plowed, ready for seeds of hope.
Places and circumstances of fear are pillowed in peace, because hope is not temporal, because of the risen Christ.
How grateful we are that this is a hope not reliant on our strength or courage but on you Christ, the object of our hope – and as we commune with you, walk with you, know you and are known by you, hope is birthed and nurtured. Merciful hope that seizes all of us repentant prodigals and doubters — that washes us clean, so we might sing in the upward river of praise, born of the downward rain of tears.
And we thank you our Father, that our hope does not end. Because of Christ, the shadow of death is folded up like yesterday’s night in the radiance of your glory and resurrected son, that we might one day also join an eternal hope.
God this is the tether, the holdfast, the sustaining hope of Christ, that we praise you for, and remind each other of every Sunday. And we rejoice in the privilege of joining our voices together to say…
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
Creed: Christ Our King
People: That I am not my own, but belong – body and soul, in life and in death – to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
Leader: How does Christ’s resurrection benefit us?
People: First, by His resurrection He has overcome death, so that He could make us share in the righteousness He had obtained for us by His death. Second, by His power we too are raised up to a new life. Third, Christ’s resurrection is to us a sure pledge of our glorious resurrection.