Easter Sunday Gathering - April 17
Trinity United Church
April 17, 2022
Easter Sunday
Worship
Worship Leader: Rev David Cathcart
Music Leader: David Rogers
Scripture Reader: Harvey Loucks
Zoom Host/Slides: Josee Wheatley
Balcony Zoom Host: Brian Wheatley
Sound Room: Ross Shearer
Usher: Jim & Ann Pollock
Welcome:
May the Peace of Christ be with you. And also with you.
Welcome to Trinity United Church in Port Coquitlam. We are grateful you have joined us for worship this morning.
Trinity United Church in Port Coquitlam resides on the unceded traditional territory of the Coast Salish People the Kwikwetlem First Nations. Our acknowledgement of unceded traditional territory is a first step in reconciliation between settler cultures and indigenous peoples and the decolonization of western systems that continue to oppress and exploit indigenous peoples and land.
If you are joining us on YouTube, please check out our website at ucpoco.ca. We would also appreciate it if you would subscribe to our channel and like and share our services, those buttons are just below the video. It does help our reach when you do so.
I invite you to take a deep breath, and let it go. I invite you to take another breath, and let it go. And one more time, take a deep breath and let it go. Let us prepare our hearts and minds for worship.
Prelude: David Rogers
[light the Christ Candle]
Sung Introit: “Christ Is Risen from the Dead” VU 167
Call to Worship and Opening Prayer:
Christ is Risen!
Risen indeed!
Christ is Risen!
Risen indeed!
Christ is Risen!
Risen indeed!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
O God of Resurrection Glory,
though there is weeping,
dark shadows and sorrow,
we trust in you,
for Joy comes with the new day.
As the sun rises on the empty tomb,
so does light
break into the darkness of our lives.
In this time of worship,
may we know your risen presence
among us here and now.
May your presence so transform our hearts
that we may proclaim you risen
throughout the world!
In the name of the one
who danced on the tomb,
we pray. Amen.
Hymn: “Christ Is Alive” VU 158
A New Creed: CLICK HERE
We are not alone,
we live in God’s world.
We believe in God:
who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus,
the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,
who works in us and others
by the Spirit.
We trust in God.
We are called to be the Church:
to celebrate God’s presence,
to live with respect in Creation,
to love and serve others,
to seek justice and resist evil,
to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
our judge and our hope.
In life, in death, in life beyond death,
God is with us.
We are not alone.
Thanks be to God.
Reading: Isaiah 65:17-25
17 For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice for ever
in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.
19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
20 No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
21 They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23 They shall not labour in vain,
or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD—
and their descendants as well.
24 Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
says the LORD
Please join us in reciting Psalm 118. The choir will sing the response twice, then we invite you to join in the responses.
Psalm 118 VU 837 (parts 1, 2 & 3)
Reading: John 20:1-18 WorshipCollective
Hymn: “Hey Now, Singing Alleluia!” MV 121 CLICK HERE
Message: Rev David Cathcart
Holy One,
we come to the tomb
with our expectations;
our expectations of finding
what is familiar:
death, grief, violence,
injustice, pain and suffering.
But on that Easter morning,
you disrupted our expectations
with astonishment, wonder and joy.
Stir in our hearts now,
that we might once again
recognize the Living Christ among us.
Amen.
Isaiah proclaims, "For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth!"
And we respond, "We don't want it! That isn't what we ordered."
We don't want new heavens and a new earth. We want things to go back to the way they used to be. We want the comfortable and the familiar. We want to forget all that techy computer stuff we had to learn for zoom worship. We want to return to self-serve potluck buffets. We want to forget about the one or two people who aren't vaccinated and stop wearing those personally inconvenient masks.
Most of all, we don't want to learn anything new. We've learned lots of new stuff over the last two years. We've had enough. We want to go back to the way things were.
God sends us new heavens and a new earth and we take out a sharpie real quick and write on the package, "Return to Sender!"
And God responds, "But be glad and rejoice for ever in what I am creating."
New heavens and a new earth aren't returnable. Whether we ordered them or not, we cannot return to sender. We can choose to be miserable in the new, or we can embrace it and rejoice.
Yesterday was the time for grieving. Today we celebrate resurrection. And the Resurrection Life is not the old life. Thanks be to God.
On Easter morning, we hear from Third Isaiah. I spoke last week about the three parts of Isaiah. First Isaiah wrote before the Exile to Babylon. Second Isaiah called the Israelites to return to Judah after 50 years of exile. And Third Isaiah addresses the Israelites after they return to the Promised Land and are utterly disappointed in what they find.
The Israelites, when the return to Jerusalem find that it isn't at all how they remembered it.
Much of the land has gone fallow. Strangers now occupy the old homesteads. The city has no walls because they were torn down when the city was conquered. The city itself is 50 years of rubble and ruin. And the Temple was razed to the ground. And there are powerful enemies on all sides of them. Nothing like the glory of the United Kingdom of Israel under King David and Solomon the Wise.
They are going to have to work very hard to rebuild the Holy City.
It is to these people that the Prophet Isaiah spoke, "For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth."
Not only will the city be rebuilt, but the whole of creation will be made new and re-ordered. The world, Jerusalem and the people will be re-created. So that God, the people, and creation can be one in their shared rejoicing.
In the old creation, far too many children were born for calamity; too few people enjoyed the fruit of their own labour; too many were under housed and under fed; the rich preyed on the weak.
God offers us the opportunity to participate in new heavens and a new earth.
But we can't have both.
Yesterday, Holy Saturday, was for grieving. Today is for celebrating the resurrection.
As Christians, we celebrate Easter because it continues to be a part of our reality here and now.
We know resurrection. We know new heavens and a New Earth. We have each gone to the tomb expecting to find nothing but death, and instead, have found abundant life:
We've experienced our most profound grief transformed into penetrating joy;
we've known the hardness of our hearts to be melted into compassion;
Our stubbornness has been caught up into wonder and awe;
Our doubt in things unseen has been changed into an abiding trust in things beyond our understanding;
We've watched the impossible manifest before our very eyes;
We've looked in the mirror and discovered a stranger;
We've looked at strangers and discovered our true selves.
We are a resurrection people, a people of new heavens and a new earth; a people of high aspiration, a people of longing for how things should be and a restlessness for the way things are.
For this and so much more, we give thanks.
We know that we are not alone; every day, we experience evidence that God is with us, through a loving touch, a meaningful connection, a kind word, a subtle revelation;
For this and so much more, we give thanks.
We know that our story does not end in scarcity, persecution, suffering, death, and grief. Our journey in faith takes us through these things, but brings us to abundance, affirmation, celebration, new life and joy, new heavens and a New Earth;
For this and so much more, we give thanks.
May our awareness of resurrection
in our lives here and now
continue through the next 50 days of Easter
and throughout the year. Amen.
Anthem: “Awake! Arise! Go Forth!” Besig and Price, the Trinity Choir
Offering:
We are grateful for the many ways people choose to serve and give at Trinity United Church. Our ministry is only possible thanks to your gifts of money, time and service. If you would like to make a financial contribution, please send a check to the church office, or click on the “Donate Now” button on our website.
Let us pray:
Loving God, Creator, and Sustainer, may these gifts, given gratefully, be brought to life through the power of your creative spirit. Multiply and use them to bring the word and the touch of Jesus to your people in this place and throughout the world. Amen.*
*found in Gathering L/E 2022 (Year C), p49
Written by Robert Murdock.
Used with permission
Communion Hymn: “Come Children Join to Sing VU 345 with extra verse: CLICK HERE
*Bring Forth the gift of Wheat, Hallelujah!
Share, too, the grape so sweet, Hallelujah!
The feast that was Christ’s choice,
So that we may rejoice,
Lift up our hearts and voice, Hallelujah!
Great Thanksgiving:
Blessed stranger, we gather here today hoping in some way to
touch you, to see for ourselves the truth of your
resurrection.
You meet us as a stranger on the road and our hearts are
warmed as we remember the Holy Scriptures.
You told us,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim
release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.
Indeed, you brought healing and good news, comfort and
freedom.
We followed and proclaimed with the crowds on the way into
Jerusalem:
Sanctus: “Holy, Holy, Holy” VU 932
We followed eagerly in the joy and promise of your proclamation.
But the world was not ready for the coming of your kingdom.
And you warned us:
The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be
rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed,
and on the third day be raised.
But we did not understand.
You were rejected, you were killed and buried in the tomb.
As you fulfilled the roll to which you were called:
We betrayed.
We ran.
We denied.
We abandoned.
We hid.
But on the third day, everything changed.
Two friends were on the road to Emmaus…
And so with great rejoicing we proclaim the mystery of our faith:
Memorial Acclamation: VU 933
Blessed stranger, as we share these gifts, may our eyes be opened to your presence.
May we, too, become prophets of your resurrection glory.
Forever and ever. Amen.
Christ is Risen!
Risen indeed!
Christ is Risen!
Risen indeed!
Christ is Risen!
Risen indeed!
Amen. VU 832
And now we turn to you as a child turns to her mother seeking affirmation and comfort praying the words you son taught us:
The Disciples’ Prayer (spoken)
The Bread of New Life.
The Cup of Blessing.
Prayer after Communion:
God of new and eternal life,
we thank you that in this meal
we have witnessed and received the living Christ.
Nourish us with this food
that we may see the face of Christ more clearly
in our friends and neighbours,
have the courage and faith to proclaim our faith,
and be the children of light you call us to be.
May our eyes bear your glory,
our lips speak your word
and our hands work your justice.
In the name of the blessed stranger
who accompanies us on the journey,
we pray. Amen.,
Hymn: “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” VU 155 CLICK HERE
Blessing:
Hold your hands out in a sign of blessing:
Imagine the love of God entering through the top of your head, mingling with your heart, going out through your fingers into your device and out to all the people out there:
May the God beyond us,
the Christ beside us,
the spirit within us,
the three all around us
be with you now and always. Amen.
Postlude: David Rogers
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Trinity United Church