Easter 2022
Links to the scriptures and hymns used during this service are provided below. Click on the hymn title to be taken to a page with sheet music.
Order of Service
Leader: He is risen! Response: He is risen indeed!
Call to Worship: Responsive Reading Romans 8:31-39
What then shall we say . . .?
If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all,
How will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?
It is God who justifies.
Who is to condemn?
Christ Jesus is the one who died—
More than that, who was raised—
Who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine,
Or nakedness, or danger, or sword? . . .
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am sure that neither death nor life,
Nor angels nor rulers,
Nor things present nor things to come,
Nor powers, nor height nor depth,
Nor anything else in all creation,
Will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen!
Invocation
Hymns:
#277 Christ the Lord Is Risen Today
Prayer of Confession and Assurance of Forgiveness: adapted from The Valley of Vision
Lord Jesus, give us to die with you that we may rise to new life, for we wish to be dead and buried to sin, selfishness, and the world. O Lord, there is much ill about us - crucify it, much of the flesh within us - mortify it. Let us reckon our old lives dead because of the crucifixion. Never let us wander from the path of obedience to your will. Help us to be holy. Grant us more and more of the resurrection life: may it rule us, may we walk in its power, and be strengthened through its influence. Now, as we quiet ourselves to confess our faults, visit us by your Spirit that we might be free from every wrong desire.
Hymn: Come behold the Wondrous Mystery
Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 25:6-9
Gospel Reading: Matthew 28
Affirmation of Faith: The Apostles' Creed
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.
And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit; born of the virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate: was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended to the dead; the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; whence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy catholic* church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.
*Small-c catholic refers to the church universal—God’s people in all times and places—not the capital-C Roman Catholic church.
Pastoral Prayer
Hymn: #275 The Strife is O'er, the Battle Done
Sermon: 1 Corinthians 15:12-34
Closing Hymn: #281 I Know That My Redeemer Lives -- Glory, Hallelujah!