April 16, 2006
Easter Sunday
We are heirs to God’s great promise in Christ and are called to continue the ministry of Jesus in our daily lives. God invites all to share in the new life of Easter. God will give good things and destroy death for “all people.” In what ways will you tell the astonishing story that God invites all people to live in God’s reign?
Prelude “Low In the Grave” by R. Lowry
A time of silent preparation—Lighting the Christ Candle
Call to Worship (Responsive)
One: Easter is—
All: Chocolate rabbits, fuzzy yellow chicks and vacation!
One: Easter is—
All: Joy, life renewing, and a renewal of faith and spirit!
One: Easter is—
All: The great turning point, a risen One, a celebration in Christ!
One: Sunrise is—
All: Beautiful! The end of darkness! The beginning of new life!
One: Hope is—
All: What makes the world go round; a way into the future; a light at the end of a dark spiritual tunnel.
One: Hope is—
All: A new friendship; getting free from fear; what keeps us going,
One: Hope is—
All: In Christ’s victory—the end of despair! Amen.
Dear God, this past week has been one of mixed emotions; of faith struggling to understand. We have greeted you with palm branches; we have sat at table with you to share a farewell meal. We have witnessed your death on a simple wooden cross. Yet on the third day, you come to us again in victory. By this, we know that death is not the final word. As the sun boldly rises to meet a new day, rise in our lives this Easter morning, for you are our hope, our life, and our joy. Amen.
Hymn #173 “Thine Is the Glory”
Conversation Time
Prayer of Transformation & Assurance of Pardon
Dear God, Creator of the heavens and Maker of each small thing: what a wondrous universe you have spread before us. Each day overflows with the richness of life: with growing green and bursting blossoms, with relationships which nurture and challenge, with missions accomplished and justice to be done. Each day is full of your meaning. And yet many times we do not see this. With much around us to be done, we complain of boredom. Or we are so busy we lose track of your presence and calling. Too often we scurry to and fro without appreciation, delight, or much sense of purpose. Call us, God, out of emotional poverty into the richness of life lived in love. Move us toward you and one another…(Silent Reflection)
Assurance of Pardon (One)
Biblical Notes
Acts 10:34-43 From the Epistle Pg. 164
Peter’s Speech
Other lessons for your personal consideration from today’s lections are: From the Hebrew Scriptures – Isaiah 25:6-9; From the Psalms – Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Congregation #157 “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today”
The Resurrection (Read from the New Revised Standard Version)
One: This is the Good News of Jesus Christ
Hymn #166 “Joy Comes with the Dawn”
We Respond In Giving And Gratitude
Offertory “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth” by Handel; arr. Smith
(Tanya Hoffarth: piano)
For the gift of creation, the gift of your love,
and the gift of the Spirit by which we live,
we thank you and give you the fruit of our hands.
May your grace be proclaimed by the gifts that we give.
Hymn #586 “We Shall Go Out with Hope of Resurrection”
Commissioning (One)
Burst forth from the cocoons which enslave you! Fly free as the butterfly. Shine bright as the rainbow. Christ has risen! Go in peace. Go in joy.
Choral Amen
#884 “You Shall Go Out With Joy” (x2)
You shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace;
the mountains and the hills will break forth before you;
there'll be shouts of joy, and all the trees of the field
will clap, will clap their hands!
And all the trees of the field will clap their hands, (clap, clap)
the trees of the field will clap their hands, (clap, clap)
the trees of the field will clap their hands (clap, clap)
while you go out with joy.
Postlude “Christ Triumphant” by O. Oberg
The Life And Work Of The Congregation
Influenza Awareness Booklets were given to those who attended Dr. Schnee’s presentation last Sunday. For those unable to attend, there are booklets available (one per household) at the back of the Sanctuary or on the ramp.
Council of Canadians forum on Water – next Tues. Apr. 25th @ 7:00 p.m. in the Sanctuary. This is an opportunity to share your views, ask some questions and to be informed.
Celebration of Life Service – Sun. Apr. 30th in the Saamis Memorial funeral Chapel with Richard Worden officiating. For further information call Saamis at 528-2599 or see the letter posted on the bulletin board on the way to Memorial Hall. This service offers families an opportunity to remember their loved one: this is not a funeral service, but a celebration of life.
South Alberta Presbyterial Enrichment Day – May 6 at 9:30 a.m. @ Fifth Avenue Memorial.
Westminster Plant & Garage Sale – Saturday May 27th. Please select items to donate to the sale (no clothing or perishables. Plants welcome). Remember all income goes to Mission & Outreach programs. Let’s make this the biggest sale yet. Contact Linda Carney 527-7005.
We will need a Sunday School Coordinator for September (a job description is available). We also need teachers for the Fall, if you are interested in any of these positions, please contact Jane or Lesley Berg.
AJ’s Loan Cupboard is a private charitable society that loans out various types of medical equipment as well as additional items (free of charge, with no time limitations and no questions asked). To donate items (or financial donations), or to access items, call 580-5580. Brochures are on the ramp.
This past week, James conducted the funeral service for one of our church family, Ollie Cotten. Our condolences go out to her family. We also remember Martha Maser and family following the passing of her husband, Kayo.
We also celebrate the marriage of Cody Edwards and Amie Smith, which James conducted here yesterday.
Celebrations This Week
Birthdays: Kevin Carleton, Bert Hoogeveen
Anniversaries: Marlon & Janice Croissant (25th) (April 4)
Walter & Marilyn Link (50th) (April 10)
Flowers are placed in the Sanctuary this morning
by the Senior Choir
&
by the United Church Women
Next Week’s Readings from: Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31
Stewardship Thought For Today
Our gifts are signs
of mutual covenant and commitment.
God gives us every gift;
how we use them and offer them back
is our part of the pact.
The Message: “Living with the Gift”
By Rev. James Farrell
A man came home from work
and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the
mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard. The
door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and there
was no sign of the dog. Proceeding into the entry,
he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug
was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring on a
cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of
clothing. In the kitchen, dishes
filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was
open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the
table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door. He quickly headed
up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his
wife… He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened …
He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom
door. As he peered inside he found
wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet
paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and the
walls. As he rushed to the bedroom,
he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel.
She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her
bewildered and asked, "What happened here today?" She again smiled and
answered, "You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what
did I do today?" "Yes," was his incredulous
reply. She answered, "Well, today I didn't do it." Such is the life of
work-at-home spouses. Like that bewildered dad,
I’m sure we would all agree that when a special presence is missing, life just
isn’t the same… November we had to put our
little dog down…Bob… he had lived 13 years and was just done…of course we missed
him…he had been around a long time and our routines were pretty set after all
those years but we agreed that the freedom of not having a dog was
the way we would move into the next number of years of our lives. We were agreed about
that The house was different
without a dog around…it really “wasn’t” the same! The atmosphere had changed.
Where there had been an air of expectancy when we would come home…there was only
silence…where once our routines had been punctuated with the humor of a pet’s
unexpected behavior, now, our lives were, well, largely quiet and routine in a
different way. Easter is about
resurrection…about life out of death, hope from despair … that first Easter
followed the turmoil of Good Friday, the confusion of a group of followers who
had spent the weekend with no idea of what had just happened to them …and then
through unexplainable events began to have life breathed back into them. Today’s story starts with
the women at the tomb…expecting one thing…discovering something really quite
different. As folks began to share the story the picture began to develop and
with the developing picture came a lightening of the heart an excitement of the
spirit, a freedom unlike the gathered fear that had engulfed the group. Resurrection was happening
all around them; within them, through them. We are the direct
descendants of the resurrection experience that took flight on that first Easter
morning. The facts of that morning as we have them recorded in the Bible we so
cherish, were recounted over the next 60 years that followed that first Easter
morning. Those gospel accounts form the story your parents likely told you or
took you to church to hear and they form the story that your children have been
told and will continue to tell. Thank God for the power of story. Our Lenten study wrapped up
a bit more than a week ago and in evaluating our time spent one of the
participants talked about the importance of story in their life and the way that
story had shaped the history of thought. Some of the things we looked at in our
video series challenged some of our assumptions about the histories we inherited
and gave us cause to think anew about our assumptions. The question that followed
was something like, “what is the value of that?” I know the answer wasn’t as
clear as the question but the only real answer is that we need to be willing to
search for truth, the truth that gives life meaning even if it causes us to
challenge our assumptions about what we think the facts are. The gift of life that we
enjoy in Jesus of Nazareth is found in the truth that we share in our telling of
resurrection stories…in our determination to work together to affect change that
helps share life and love and hope. Today we can celebrate that
Jesus lives…the old hymn says, “you ask me how I know he lives, he lives within
my heart.” Alfred H. Ackley understood
truth…and he wrote about the truth he knew in his songs. The song I just quoted came
about when Ackley was asked, “Why should I worship a dead Jew?" This challenging question
was posed by a sincere young Jewish student who had been attending evangelistic
meetings conducted by Alfred Ackley. George “He lives! I tell you, He is
not dead, but lives here and now! Jesus Christ is more alive today than ever
before. I can prove it by my own experience, as well as the testimony of
countless thousands.” Alfred Ackley died in 1960,
7 years before Dr. Christian Barnard performed the first heart transplant. I
don’t think science could perform a heart transplant on Ackley or me or you and
say that they found a little Jesus in our hearts. But that doesn’t make Ackley’s
proclamation any less true. Bishop John Shelby Spong,
when he was here was asked to reconcile first century Christianity with the
reality of our contemporary experience. He said, “I simply try to combine two
things. First, my identity as a
Christian who finds Jesus a doorway into the transcendence and wonder of God and
second, my citizenship in the 21st century which means that I cannot think as a
1st century Christian, the time in which the Bible was written; a 4th
century Christian, the time in which the creeds were formed; a13th
century Christian, the time in which current liturgies took shape or a 16th
century Christian, the time in which the Reformation occurred. I must be a 21st
century Christian. That means I have to force
my Christian faith into the thought forms dictated by the 21st century. In the
process much of the traditional understanding of Christianity, shaped as it was
by the mindset of the 1st Century must inevitably be sacrificed as no longer
either relevant or possible. I draw a distinction between
the experience of God and the explanation of that experience. The experience of
God is, I believe, both real and timeless. The explanation of that experience,
however, is always time bound and time warped. Explanations, because they
are always wedded to their time will also and inevitably die. That should be
expected. I see nothing in history
that causes me to believe that anyone can start a new religion. I see much that
indicates that new religious forms always emerge out of old concepts.” The Christianity I profess
is radically inclusive. There are no barriers, no boundaries. It is a journey
into the mystery of God without a road map. If we want the life of Jesus to
inform our journey…we must be able to do two things, one, recognize that the
living Christ is constantly being resurrected within us, around us, through us
and others, and the other, is to be willing to confront our explanations as time
bound…truth is eternal…fact, in the final analysis is really subjective. Today, this Easter Sunday, I
know that Jesus lives, I see the evidence of his presence all around and that
evidence is powerful. My explanation may not be. My comfort and my joy and, I
hope yours too, is that we are all “Living with the Gift” that began before that
first Easter morning, but became very much alive and transformed on that first
Easter morning. Amen.