Evergreen Presbyterian Church

Sunrise Liturgy

Evergreen Presbyterian Church

Beaverton, Oregon

March 23, 2008

7:30 a.m.

 

Resurrexi et adhuc tecum sum

“I arose, and am still with you”

(one of the earliest opening lines of Resurrection Day liturgy in Western Church history)

 

There is glory

within each sunrise, Lord

a warm effusion of praise

reaching upwards and out

connecting earth

with heaven

creator

with created

Shafts of sunlight

arms outstretched in worship

encourage participation

from those who watch

and wonder

at the beauty of it all

(Celtic Prayer)

 

People: For the Son of righteousness has risen in our hearts!

Leader: He has risen from the dead, body and soul!

People: His new life has assured our entrance into glory!

 

I arise today,

Through the strength of heaven:

Light of the sun, radiance of the moon.

Splendor of fire, speed of lightning,

Swiftness of wind, depth of sea,

Stability of earth and firmness of rock.

I arise today,

Through God’s strength to pilot me:

God’s might to uphold me, God’s wisdom to guide me,

God’s eye to look before me, God’s ear to hear me,

God’s word to speak for me, God’s hand to guard me,

God’s way to lie before me, God’s shield to protect me.

From the snares of devils, from temptation of vices,

From everyone who shall wish me ill,

Afar and near, alone and in a multitude

(St. Patrick)

 

People: Arise, O Lord, and greet us this happy morn!

Leader: The Risen Lord is present with us forever and ever, Amen!

People: The Spirit of the Risen Lord is upon us!

Leader: He has filled us with every good gift and unites us to Christ!

People: Fairer than the earth and sea is our Risen Lord!

Leader: Fairer than the sun and moon and the starry skies!

People: Fairer than any morn is the first day of the week!

Leader: This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!

People: This is the dawn of the eternal Sabbath!

Leader: God dwells in our midst, enthroned upon the praises of his people. Congregation of the Risen Lord, you are most blessed this day. From this Resurrection morn until the coming of the Son of Man riding the clouds of judgment, we shall commemorate the first day of the week, remembering the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, his burial, his empty tomb and his ascension into heaven.

 

Leader: People of God lift up your voices in prayers of praise and thanksgiving on this blessed morn.

The People assembled offer prayers in the name of Jesus.

Leader closes in prayer

 

Hints to the resurrection

Job 19 “The Word of the Lord”

“Thanks be to God!”

Psalm 16 “The Word of the Lord”

“Thanks be to God!”

Psalm 49 “The Word of the Lord”

“Thanks be to God!”

Psalm 73 “The Word of the Lord”

“Thanks be to God!”

Isaiah 26: 16-19 “The Word of the Lord”

“Thanks be to God!”

Ezekiel 37: 1-14 “The Word of the Lord”

“Thanks be to God!”

Daniel 12: 1-3 “The Word of the Lord!”

“Thanks be to God!”

 

Leader: God of the Old Covenant, we thank you for your covenantal faithfulness announcing in advance to Abraham and to all people of faith the redemption of Jesus Christ. You restored our first parents, Adam and Eve to eternal life beyond the grave. You planted this hope of the resurrection in the mind of the sorely afflicted, like Job. You placed this gospel upon the lips of the Psalmists and the Prophets. All praise, honor, glory and dominion belongs to you, Faithful Lord of the Covenant, Keeper of the Promise. Your strong arm has raised the Son from the dead! Amen.

 

The Resurrection Narrative

Matthew 27: 57  - 28: 1-20 “The Gospel of the Risen Lord Jesus!”

“Praise be to Christ!”

John 20  “The Gospel of the Risen Lord Jesus!”

“Praise be to Christ!”

 

Song

#277 Christ the Lord is Risen Today

 

The Relevance of the Resurrection

Romans 6: 1-14 “The Word of the Lord!”

“Thanks be to God!”

Philippians 3: 1-12 “The Word of the Lord!”

“Thanks be to God!”

Colossians 2: 6 – 3:17 “The Word of the Lord!”

“Thanks be to God!”

 

Leader: The Lord is in his holy temple! Let all the earth keep silence!

People observe two minutes of meditative silence.

 

Song

#276 Up from the Grave He Arose

 

Historic Comments on the Resurrection

 “Better is it that ye be burned fro a little space by our words, than for ever in that flame. That this will indeed be so, is plain, and I have ofttimes given you reasons, which cannot be gainsaid. We ought truly to be persuaded from the Scriptures, but forasmuch as some are contentious, we have also brought forward many arguments from reason. Nothing hinders that I now mention them, and what were they? God is just. We all acknowledge this, both Greeks and Jews, and Heretics and Christians. But many sinners have had their departure without punishment, many righteous men have had their departure after suffering ten thousand grievous things. If then God be just, where will He reward their good to the one, and their punishment to the other, if there be no hell, if there be no resurrection? This reason then do ye constantly repeat to them and to ourselves and it will not suffer you to disbelieve the resurrection, and whoso disbelieves not the resurrection will take care to live with all heed so as to obtain eternal happiness, of which may we all be counted worthy, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  St. Chrysostom

 

 

“When Christ rose from the grave he rose as one whose human nature had been transformed into harmony with heavenly conditions. This was true not merely of his body, but of all his faculties and powers of his humanity hitherto exercised in humiliation and now set free and made fit for their perfect use in heavenly glory. In this respect the resurrection of Christ is prophetic of that of all believers. As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man. In the resurrection, therefore, we have the assurance that we ourselves also shall be made fit in our entire nature for our habitation in heaven. It is only by understanding this that we can understand the true significance of the resurrection of the body. Not that the resurrection of our bodies is the great hope of the Christian , but that they shall be restored to us in such a state as to resemble the resurrection-body of Christ; that through them our spirits may dwell in perfect accord with their heavenly surroundings and may lead in its consummate for the life that knows no end.” Geerhardus Vos

 

“Some nineteen hundred years ago, in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire, there lived one who, to a casual observer might have seemed to be a remarkable man. Up to the age of about thirty years. He lived an obscure life in the midst of a humble family. Then He began a remarkable course of ethical and religious teaching, accompanied by a ministry of healing. At first He was very popular. Great crowds followed Him gladly, and the intellectual men of His people were interested in what He had to say. But His teaching presented revolutionary features, and He did not satisfy the political expectations of the populace. And so, before long, after some three years, He fell a victim to the jealousy of the leaders of His people and the cowardice of the Roman governor. He died the death of the criminals of those days, on the cross. At His death, the disciples whom He had gathered about Him were utterly discouraged. In Him had centered all their loftiest hopes. And now that He was taken from them by a shameful death, their hopes were shattered. They fled from Him in cowardly fear in the hour of His need, and an observer would have said that never was a movement more hopelessly dead. These followers of Jesus had evidently been far inferior to Him in spiritual discernment and in courage. They had not been able, even when He was with them, to understand the lofty teachings of their leader. How, then, could they understand Him when He was gone? The movement depended, one might have said, too much on one extraordinary man, and when He was taken away, then surely the movement was dead.

But then the astonishing thing happened. The plain fact, which no one doubts, is that those same weak, discouraged men who had just fled in the hour of their Master’s need, and who were altogether hopeless on account of His death, suddenly began in Jerusalem, a very few days or weeks after their Master’s death, what is certainly the most remarkable spiritual movement that the world has ever seen. At first, the movement thus begun remained within the limits of the Jewish people. But soon it broke the bands of Judaism, and began to be planted in all the great cities of the Roman world. Within three hundred years, the Empire itself had been conquered by the Christian faith.

But this movement was begun in those few decisive days after the death of Jesus. What was it which caused the striking change in those weak, discouraged disciples, which made them the spiritual conquerors of the world?

Historians of today are perfectly agreed that something must have happened, something decisive, after the death of Jesus, in order to begin this new movement. It was not just an ordinary continuation of the influence of Jesus’ teaching. The modern historians are at least agreed that some striking change took place after the death of Jesus, and before the beginning of the Christian missionary movement. They are agreed, moreover, to some extent even about the question what the change was; they are agreed in holding that this new Christian movement was begun by the belief of the disciples in the resurrection of Jesus; they are agreed in holding that in the minds and hearts of the disciples there was formed the conviction that Jesus had risen from the dead. Of course, that was not formerly admitted by every one. It used to be maintained, in the early days of modern skepticism, that the disciples of Jesus only pretended that He had risen from the dead. Such hypotheses have long ago been placed in the limbo of discarded theories. The disciples of Jesus, the intimate friends of Jesus, it is now admitted, in a short time after His death came to be believe honestly that He had risen from the dead. The only difference of opinion comes when we ask what in turn produced this belief.

The New Testament answer to this question is perfectly plain. According to the New Testament, the disciples believed in the resurrection of Jesus because Jesus really, after His death, came out of the tomb, appeared to them, and held extended intercourse with them, so that their belief in the resurrection was simply based on fact.” J. Gresham Machen

 

Song

#281 I Know that My Redeemer Lives

 

Leader: He is risen!

People: He is risen indeed!

 

Song

Majesty

Majesty,

Worship His majesty,

Unto Jesus be all glory, honor, and praise!

Majesty,

Kingdom authority,

Flow from his throne, unto his own,

His anthem raise!

 

So exalt, lift up on high the name of Jesus!

Magnify, come glorify Christ Jesus the King!

 

Majesty,

Worship his majesty,

Jesus who died, now glorified,

King of all Kings!