Easter Day

The Lord is Risen
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
 
Happy Easter. We welcome everyone to our united communion service at Morebattle (9am) and united all-age service at Yetholm (11am) on Easter Sunday
·       The podcast can be accessed by click HERE
·       The Craft Group is on holiday this Monday.
·       Coffee & Chat at Yetholm Kirk on Tuesdays from 10.30 – 12 noon. All welcome.
·       Prayer Service is on Tuesdays at 12 noon in Yetholm Kirk. All welcome.
·       The Guild have their AGM on Tuesday 2nd April at 2pm.
·       Kirk Session meets on Thursday 4th April at 7pm at Yetholm.
·       The Retreat is on 20th April. Please see posters.
·       Next Sunday Rev Una Stewart will lead our services at Yetholm (10am) and Linton (11.15am).
 
Call to Worship
This is the Good News – the light shines in the darkness & the darkness will never overcome it.
Hallelujah! Christ is risen.
This is the Good News: once we were no people; now we are God’s people.
Hallelujah! Christ is risen.
This is the Good News – the grave is empty & Christ is risen.
Hallelujah! Christ is risen indeed!
 
Hymn 404 - I danced in the morning
Prayer of Adoration and Confession
Risen Lord,
we are the Easter people, and Alleluia is our song. We are the Easter people come to worship, released from tombs of pain and doubt and fear and death into the freedom of this new day, and its promise of hope fulfilled.
We are the Easter people,
Emerging into the brightness of faith,
Blinking, questioning, wondering, hoping.
Come to us, into the garden of our lives,
and touch all that is barren, and wasted and dried with Your healing hand.
Forgive our half-lived lives, our broken promises, and our failed kindness. Call to us by our name, that we might turn from all that limits and burdens us, and lift us up into forgiveness and freedom.
Open the gateways of our hearts and minds,
and call us out into Your world to be
embraced by Your unfailing and renewing mercy.
Today, in silence, prayer and song,
may we encounter Jesus and His grace.
For we are the Easter people, and Alleluia is our song.
Lord’s Prayer
 
Talk 1 - Eggs
 
Hymn SGP 7 – Alleluia, alleluia
 
Readings – Acts 10: 34-43 (Pg 1104)
                        John 20: 1-18 (Pg 1089)
 
Talk 2 - Gardeners
 
Hymn 417 – Now the green blade riseth
 
Weekly Prayer
Christ is Risen, and the power of His resurrection fills the world today with new life, hope and expectation. We pray that we may reflect your love in our families, our church and our community; so that the world can witness that we are followers of the Risen Christ and draw others into his loving care. Amen
 
Talk 3
A friend has just been to Germany and visited a mediaeval church. He commented how beautiful it was, but he noticed the windows, and it was as if some were broken. It turned out the church had been damaged during the last war, and the stained glass shattered. Afterwards when they restored the building, they decided to restore the glass, but have the artist include panels which look to be broken as a reminder. It wasn’t the same as before but was transformed.
 
That sparked a memory of a church in Belfast whose stained glass window was shattered by a bomb during the Troubles. The congregation gathered up the pieces of the window but commissioned an artist to make a new window using the old pieces; they called it the resurrection window. Again, not quite the same but transformed.
 
Easter is a time of transformation. Around us are signs of new life – lambs are born, the trees are budding, the flowers awaken, some so early this year. New life abounds. But also, our bible reading speaks of new life and transformation. John’s telling of the Easter story is so powerful.  We start with Mary in her grief just wanting to be near Jesus’ tomb, desperate to be close by, as anyone who has lost someone dear knows so well. Instead, she is horrified to find the tomb empty. She alerts the disciples, and Peter and John race to the tomb, assuming like Mary that the body of their friend had been stolen. ‘They have taken him away, and I don’t know where they have laid him’, she would later tell the angels.
For Peter and John go away, puzzled, but she remains.
 
But Mary’s life is transformed in a single word from the one she assumed was the gardener: ‘Mary’. A voice she has heard so often saying her name. She can hardly believe it, but her grief and misery are turned to joy; her emptiness to abundance. And she wants to embrace him, cling to him, never let him go again. Charles Dickens wrote the book, A Tale of Two Cities, set in the French Revolution. Right at the start a lawyer receives a message, Recalled to life. A prisoner in the bastille, shut away for many years, has been released. He has been recalled to life. Here by Jesus’s word, Mary is recalled to life, as the disciples will later be.
 
But as Mary rushes to embrace him, Jesus says, ‘Don’t touch me’. It is odd, for touch was so important to Jesus. He touched the leper clean; he allowed the woman with the haemorrhage to touch him. He washed the feet of the disciples, such an intimate touch. But here he is telling Mary not to touch. What was he saying? He was saying not to cling on to the old way. There was no turning the clock back, so things couldn’t be the same as they were- as if the crucifixion hadn’t happened. They couldn’t resume wandering round Galilee as if nothing had happened.  Jesus still bore the marks of the nails and the spear, just as these windows bore the marks of their shattered past.
 
 But there was now a new way of life for Mary and the disciples to embrace; there were new possibilities offered. Mary is commissioned by Jesus to take the news to the disciples. Whereas she had initially run to them to tell of an absence, an empty tomb; now she was telling them of a presence. Jesus was alive. That news and Christ appearing to them recalled them to life and gave them the testimony to turn the world upside down. In raising Jesus from the dead, God had said Yes to good and love, and as followers of the risen Christ we continue the work of the disciples by living out our lives as an Easter people.
 
As Desmond Tutu put it:
Goodness is stronger than evil;
Love is stronger than hate;
Light is stronger than darkness;
Life is stronger than death;
Victory is ours through Him who loves us.
 
Hymn 430 – Christ has risen
 
Prayers of Dedication & Intercession
God of Resurrecting Grace, we offer our gifts with grateful hearts, recognizing how much you have given us in Christ, and what that gift has cost. Empower these gifts to spread the hope and joy we feel today in the world you love, in the name of your greatest gift, Jesus Christ. Amen.
 
God of new possibilities,
break into our relationships with resurrecting power. Where they are vibrant and life-giving, nurture and sustain them.
Where there are memories of hurt or current misunderstanding, refresh them with forgiveness and reconciliation.
Where they are neglected or taken for granted, open our eyes to the great gift we offer each other.
Resurrect, renew and revive your people, O God.
Hear our prayer.
 
God of new opportunity,
break into the governance of your world with resurrecting power.
Stir the minds and hearts of leaders
to work for justice and the equitable sharing of resources. Where violence and conflict threaten the innocent and the earth itself,
raise up advocates for peace and negotiators  to call combatants to account.
Bring wisdom, compassion and cooperation to all in authority. 
Resurrect, renew and revive your people, O God.
Hear our prayer.
 
God of new life,
break into situations of illness, pain, grief, and loss with resurrecting power.
Where there is sickness of body, mind, or spirit, bring healing and hope.
Where people mourn the loss of someone dear or their dreams of a better tomorrow,
bring comfort and courage to go on.
Resurrect, renew and revive your people, O God.
Hear our prayer.
 
God of New Creation,
break into the circumstances, places, and lives that we name in the silence of our hearts…   silence
Resurrect, renew and revive your people.
Hear our prayer.
 
God of Easter Day,
break into our moments of celebration and joy. Give us gratitude, the impulse to share,
and a spirit of grace and understanding.
Resurrect, renew, and revive our spirits.
Hear our prayer
Amen
 
Hymn 419 – Thine be the glory
 
Benediction
Risen Christ, no tomb could hold you and no door could shut you out. Bless us with your presence and fill us with your peace. Send us out into the world as an Easter people to live and love with you. And may the blessing of God Almighty, the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer, be with you and with those whom you love, wherever they may be, now and always. Amen