Prayer For Easter Sunday Service
Love overcame
Emerging from a cold tomb
All the truth, majesty and creativity of a living God
Transforming a broken heart
Making a quiet return, in a still and sorrowful garden
The grave stone rolled away, to release redemptive love
Jesus resurrected and restored
Comforts a weeping woman
Speaks with travelers on a journey
Meets with his faithful friends
And they bow down before Christ alive
And acknowledged that the savior has arrived
That the word of God has come alive
And that the extraordinary transformation of heaven and earth is complete.
Draw us forth, God of all creation. Draw us forward and away from limited certainty into the immense world of your love. Give us the capacity to even for a moment taste the richness of the feast you give us. Give us the peace to live with uncertainty, with questions, with doubts. Help us to experience the resurrection anew with open wonder and an increasing ability to see you in the people of Easter. Amen.
Dear Lord Jesus Christ, by Your radiant and magnificent 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!
Lord,
As we gather together as family and friends we invite you once again into our lives. May the hope of your resurrection color our days. May the promise of your spirit working in us light up our lives. May the love you revealed to us shape our giving. May the truth in your word guide our journeys, and may the joy of your kingdom fill our homes. As we gather together underneath the banner of your life, we thank you for all the wonderful food that we can now enjoy, and celebrate your glorious resurrection.
Thank you Lord. Amen.
Lord God, Jesus cried out to you on the cross,Why have you forsaken me? You seemed so far from his cry and from his distress. Those who stood at the foot of the cross wondered where you were, as they saw Jesus mocked and shamed and killed. Where were you then? Lord God, we, too, ask where you are, when there is trouble and suffering and death, and we cry out to you for help. Be near to us, and save us so that we may praise you for your deliverance. Lord God, we wait, on Friday, for the resurrection of Sunday and sometimes our lives seem a succession of Fridays and we cannot see what is Good. Teach us to call your name as Jesus did. Make us to trust in you like little children. In Jesus' name, Amen.
As the world sings triumphant cries to heaven over death that you conquered, help us, Lord, tomorrow as well, when the dresses are put away and the candy is all eaten and on with life we go let us not forget.
The celebration of your resurrection over death is a celebration of life that should continue well beyond the sunrise service and the music, rehearsed for days prior; it is beyond the sign of spring, beyond the lily, beyond new lambs grazing in open fields.
Resurrection is a daily celebration over fear; man's greatest and most powerful enemy. Fear of tomorrow, fear of our yesterdays, fear of what shall become of our young our old our unborn. Resurrection is replacing fear with physical action.
This alone, the most touching and profound of your signs that fear is dead and belief in you brings, not just hope but life.
What better living parable could You have brought? All fear death. All. Even in the garden, You took on our fear if for only moments, it was as real as our fears can be real and You knew then that this single enemy must be destroyed.
And, You sacrificed your life, leaving those who had been comfort, and follower; You left them behind, to conquer fear.I shall cling to this now, and the tomorrows given me.Peace and thanksgiving lifted unto you.
Amen.
Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord's resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Lord, the resurrection of Your Son has given us new life and renewed hope. Help us to live as new people in pursuit of the Christian ideal. Grant us wisdom to know what we must do, the will to want to do it, the courage to undertake it, the perseverance to continue to do it, and the strength to complete it.