Sunday 12^th April 2020 EASTER DAY

It feels very strange to be celebrating Easter in our homes. Many will be alone today and we will all be missing our church communities, our friends and our families. You might like to use this short act of Easter worship at the same time you would normally go to church and then you will know that others will be saying it with you.

Call to Worship: Christ is risen, he is risen indeed alleluia!  

Hymn: Christ the Lord is Risen today (Singing the Faith  298)

1.Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!  All creation joins to say, Alleluia!  Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!  Sing, you heavens, and earth reply, Alleluia! 

2 Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia!  Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!  Vain the stone, the watch, the seal, Alleluia!  Christ has burst the gates of hell, Alleluia! 

3 Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!  Where, O death, is now your sting? Alleluia!  Once he died our souls to save, Alleluia!  Where's thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia! 

4 Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!  Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!  Made like him, like him we rise, Alleluia!  Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia! 

5 King of glory, soul of bliss, Alleluia!  Everlasting life is this, Alleluia!  You to know, your power to prove, Alleluia!  Thus to sing, and thus to love, Alleluia! 

Charles Wesley (1707-1788)

Let us pray together

Resurrection God, you offer life overcoming death, love overcoming emptiness, light overcoming darkness.

I give you thanks for the hundred small and powerful ways I experience resurrection every day.

Thank you for Jesus, who shows us how to live as a resurrection people, living defiant and in resistance to death.

For those times when I have failed to challenge the things of death, the political systems, relationships, selfish desires, I’m sorry.

For those times when I have failed to resist death and ignored your call to live the life I am gifted, I’m sorry.

I trust that you forgive me, I hear your forgiveness intertwined with your call to me to live the life I am gifted, and I trust that you are merciful in all ways. Amen.

Read Today’s Gospel Reading: John 20:1-18

Time to Reflect

The Rev’d Andrew Dart has offered us some thoughts for today (see separate sheet)

Hymn: I know that my Redeemer lives (Singing the Faith 303)

1 know that my Redeemer lives; what joy the blest assurance gives! He lives, He lives, who once was dead; He lives, my everlasting Head.

2 He lives to bless me with His love, He lives to plead for me above, He lives my hungry soul to feed, He lives to help in time of need.

3 He lives and grants me daily breath; He lives and I shall conquer death; He lives my mansion to prepare; He lives to bring me safely there.

8 He lives, all glory to His name! He lives, my Jesus, still the same. What joy the blest assurance gives, I know that my Redeemer lives!

Samuel Medley (1738-1799)

A time of prayer

Resurrection God I bring before you now my hopes, desires, needs and concerns and I trust that you hear me and help me.

For your church, a people of resurrection; frightened, weary, hopeful – may we all know your love empowering us to live the life we are gifted.

For your world, a people and creation; frightened, weary, determined – may we all know your love empowering us to live the life we are gifted.

For your vulnerable ones, the sick, the grieving, the isolated; frightened, weary, loved – may we all know your love empowering us to live the life we are gifted.

I especially want to pray for …..

Resurrection God,

These are my prayers, our hopes, concerns, desires and needs and I trust that you hear me and will help me, help me to be your hands, your feet, your voice in all those situations and with all those people who need to know your gift of life. Amen.

Our Father ……

Hymn: Thine be the Glory (Singing the Faith 313)

1 Thine be the glory,

risen, conquering Son: endless is the victory

thou o’er death hast won; angels in bright raiment

rolled the stone away, kept the folded grave-clothes

where thy body lay.

Thine be the glory,

risen, conquering Son; endless is the victory

thou o’er death hast won.

2 Lo! Jesus meets us,

risen from the tomb; lovingly he greets us,

scatters fear and gloom; let the church with gladness,

hymns of triumph sing, for her Lord now liveth,

death hath lost its sting.

3 No more we doubt thee,

glorious Prince of life; life is naught without thee:

aid us in our strife; make us more than conquerors,

through thy deathless love: bring us safe through Jordan

to thy home above.

Edmond Budry (1854-1932)

A prayer of blessing

May you know life rising from the death,

May you know hope rising from the pain,

May you know light rising from the darkness,

May you know and live love,

May you know and live the life you are gifted.  Amen

Service compiled by Charity Hamilton and members of the Methodist Connexional Team, adapted by the Rev’d Andrew Dart.

A Sermon for Easter Day 12^th April 2020

John 20:1-18

A time of loss

Under lockdown this Easter, we will all be conscious of what we have lost. I will miss spending time with my family, doing Easter egg hunts and making Easter biscuits with my children; I will miss visiting my mother who has not been in the best of health; and I will miss being with you all in my congregations celebrating Easter with rousing hymns and with bread and wine.

In these strange times it is helpful to remember that the first Easter was not so much a time of celebration but a coming to terms with loss and a change to reality. In our gospel reading we find Mary Magdalene at the tomb where she had gone before dawn, to anoint Jesus’ body for burial. When she arrives she is distraught to see that the stone has been moved and Jesus has gone and she believes that his body has been stolen. We can imagine how distressed she must have felt. She was already grief stricken and weighed down with sorrow - now she is beside herself with fear and bewilderment.

It is then, when she is at her lowest and when her emotions are laid bare, that Jesus appears to Mary. We see more into her state of mind when we read that she does not recognise Jesus but mistakes him for the gardener. It is only when Jesus speaks her name that it begins to dawn on her that Jesus is alive.

Intimate Resurrection

The story of Mary and Jesus is of a beautiful reunion between two close friends. Jesus comes to Mary when she most afraid and confused and his reassuring words turn her fear to joy. It is an intimate moment. When we study all the resurrection accounts we begin to discover that they are all intimate moments. Jesus appears to his friends in the upper room and stands among them and blesses them with his peace. Jesus walks with the two disciples as, grief stricken, they walk home to Emmaus after all their hopes and dreams have been shattered. Jesus comes to Thomas to dispel his doubts and fears. Jesus appears on the beach and cooks breakfast for his friends.

Each of these stories is an encounter between people who know one another well and they take place in what are essentially private spaces. Jesus does not appear to strangers or to those in power or to third parties but only to his friends.

Intimate Easter

Normally our celebration of Easter is a very public occasion. Our churches are fuller than usual and we often welcome old friends and strangers to our fellowship. In many traditions, Easter is a time when new members are baptized or confirmed and many communities across the world have their own customs which have been celebrated for centuries.

This year though we will not be able to do any of that. We will stay at home. Many of us will be alone and although we are joined by our love for each other and by God’s love for us all we will nonetheless be more or less celebrating Easter privately. This year we will be having intimate Easters.

Last week, on a Zoom conference of faith leaders, an Imam reminded us that Islam began in people’s homes. At the beginning, he explained, there were no mosques, no public acts of worship and no congregations. He noted that the current crisis was reminding his people of how their faith began. His observations helpfully reminded me that this was how Christianity began too. At the beginning there were no churches, and worship was held in homes, often around a table as people shared food along with their faith.

At times Christians even met in secret as they were being arrested and persecuted and even put to death. A few years ago when I was visiting Rome we went to the catacombs and deep underground you could still stand in the places where the early Christian communities had worshipped in secret amidst the tombs. They often marked the entrance to these secret places with special symbols such as the sign of the fish or with the letters PP (Peter and Paul).

In the early days of Methodism our forebears also often worshipped behind closed doors, afraid of being attacked by the mobs. They would gather in homes and read the scriptures and sing hymns and find strength from one another and in their prayers they called upon God’s Spirit to come and strengthen them and comfort them.

Lockdown Easter

This Easter, circumstances we never dreamed of, are forcing us to do the same thing. We will gather in our homes, in ones or twos or in families, and together we will read the Easter story and sing familiar hymns and offer our prayers to God. We will be mindful of the thousands of families across the world who will have been visited by grief and sorrow during this pandemic; we will remember those we cannot be with this Easter; and we will look forward in hope to the time when we can once again be truly resurrection people. And as we meet, we will remember  the weeping Mary and we will remember the fearful Thomas and we will remember the two grieving disciples on their way home to Emmaus. And we will recall with wonder how Jesus appeared just to them and how one by one he set their hearts at rest and calmed their fear and assured them of his presence. And we will pray, that Jesus will come to us too, that he will come to the brave workers in our NHS, that he will come to the dying on the Covid wards, that he will appear to grieving widows and daughters and sons and husbands, and we will pray that wherever we are he might assure us that, as the great mystic Mother Julian of Norwich once declared: “And all shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be exceeding well.”

On behalf of my colleagues and on behalf of all the circuit stewards in the Lambeth Circuit, may I wish you a happy and hopeful Easter. For Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia! Amen.

Rev’d Andrew Dart. Easter 2020.