32

Year ABC
Resurrection Evening
Sunday 8 April 2012

Eucharistic Preface

Let us lift up our hearts.
........We lift them to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
........It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is indeed right to give you our thanks and praise, O God,
for you have raised Jesus Christ to life
and destroyed the shroud of death that covered all people.

You made the earth, and it trembles in your presence;
you rescued your people from slavery,
leading them through the deep waters
from death to life.

You sent your Son, Jesus, to us,
a prophet mighty in word and deed
who taught us to celebrate your salvation
in sincerity and truth.
Though he was condemned to death
and crucified by the religious,
you raised him from the dead
and wiped the tears from our faces.
Risen indeed, he is with us always,
breathing his peace over our fears
and spreading a rich banquet before us
so that in the breaking of bread
and your word proclaimed,
our eyes might be opened
and our hearts set on fire with love.

Therefore with .....

©2003 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

Short Preface
(for insertion into Eucharistic prayers with fixed prefaces)

We give thanks for your Risen Son, Jesus Christ,
who breathes his peace over our fears
and spreads a rich banquet before us
so that in the breaking of bread
and your word proclaimed,
our eyes might be opened
and our hearts set on fire with love.

©2003 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

General Prayer of Thanksgiving
(Preface reformatted for use apart from communion)

We give you all thanks and praise, O God,
for you have raised Jesus Christ to life
and destroyed the shroud of death that covered all people.

You made the earth, and it trembles in your presence;
you rescued your people from slavery,
leading them through the deep waters
from death to life.

You sent your Son, Jesus, to us,
a prophet mighty in word and deed
who taught us to celebrate your salvation
in sincerity and truth.
Though he was condemned to death
and crucified by the religious,
you raised him from the dead
and wiped the tears from our faces.
Risen indeed, he is with us always,
breathing his peace over our fears
and spreading a rich banquet before us
so that in the breaking of bread
and your word proclaimed,
our eyes might be opened
and our hearts set on fire with love.

Therefore, with our hearts lifted high,
we offer you thanks and praise at all times
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.

©2003 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

Declaration of Grace / Absolution

As the scriptures said,
the Messiah suffered and rose from the dead on the third day,
so that repentance and forgiveness of sins
might be proclaimed in his name to all nations.

Sisters and Brothers,
........your sins are forgiven;
................be at peace.

©2003 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

Commission & Benediction

Go now as witnesses of God’s victory over evil and death.
The risen Christ has made himself known to you
in the breaking of bread,
so clean out the old yeast of malice and evil
and live as the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

And may God wipe every tear from your faces;
May Christ Jesus make himself known to you in all things;
And may the Holy Spirit open your eyes
........and set your hearts on fire with love.

We go in peace to love and serve the Lord,
........In the name of Christ. Amen.

©2003 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

Paraphrases of the Scripture Lections
for Resurrection Evening - Year ABC - Sunday 8 April 2012
Lections from The Revised Common Lectionary.
Copyright 1992 by the Consultation on Common Texts (CCT)
P. O. Box 340003, Room 381, Nashville, TN 37203-0003, USA. Used with Permission.

* Isaiah 25: 6-9

Every people on earth will be invited to the sacred mountain
for the huge party thrown by the LORD who rules over everything.
........It will be the feast to end all feasts,
........with the very finest of foods and wines:
................choice meats, wines aged to perfection,
................gourmet delicacies to make every mouth water!

And right here on this sacred mountain
........the LORD will tear off the pall of death
........and release the nations from the coffin that held them.
................The LORD will swallow up death once and for all.

With that, the Lord GOD will wipe the tears from every eye,
........and God’s people will no longer be humiliated and despised;
........The LORD says so and that settles it.

When that happens people will say,
........Wow! This is our God!
........We hoped, we waited, we trusted God to save us.
................And our waiting has not been in vain.
........The LORD has not let us down.
................Celebrate! Sing and dance,
................for God has come to our rescue and set us free.

©2002 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

* Psalm 114

When we were led out of the land of slavery
........- the people of Israel, coming out from under the foreign thumb -
the land of Judah became a sacred place,
........the land of Israel came under sovereign rule.

The wild sea took one look, and turned tail and ran,
........the Jordan river backed off and headed the other way.
The mountains skipped like a rock wallaby;
........the hills were as jumpy as a kelpie pup.

What was it that made the wild sea turn tail?
........What was it that made the Jordan back off?
What made the mountains quiver and jump?
........What made the hills shudder and shake?

It was awe of you, LORD, God of our ancestors.
........The whole earth trembles in your presence.
For you are the one who melts rocks into pools of water;
........the one who brings springs bubbling up from hard baked ground.

©2002 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

* 1 Corinthians 5: 6b-8

You do realise, don’t you, that it only takes a little bit of yeast to leaven a whole batch of bread dough? A little bit of corruption can similarly affect a whole congregation, so get rid of it. Just as we have traditionally cleaned out every trace of yeast from our homes in preparation for the Passover festival when we use only unleavened bread, so you should clean the corruption from your midst. You are to be the new batch of unleavened bread. In Christ, our Paschal lamb has been sacrificed. Now is the time for us to celebrate the festival, and just as we can’t celebrate it with yeast-leavened bread, neither can we celebrate it with the old yeast of inhumanity and evil. We celebrate this festival with the unleavened bread of truth and integrity.

©2003 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

* Luke 24: 13-49

........In the afternoon of the day his tomb had been found empty, a couple who had been followers of Jesus were heading back home to the small town called Emmaus. As they walked the ten kilometres or so from Jerusalem, they were talking over everything that had happened in the past few days. Along the way, Jesus himself joined them, but to their eyes he was just another stranger on the road. He asked them, “What’s all this you are discussing so intently as you travel?”
........They pulled up in their tracks and looked at him with long faces. One of them, a man named Cleopas, said to him, “You must be the only stranger in and around Jerusalem who has not caught up with what’s been going on in the last few days.”
........“What has been going on?” Jesus asked.
........They replied, “It is all to do with Jesus of Nazareth. He was a prophet whose words and actions electrified the people in the presence of God. The religious and civil authorities had him arrested and then pushed for the death penalty. They got their way and he was executed. We’d had our hopes pinned on him as the one who would set Israel back in its rightful place. It’s all been over for three days now. A strange twist has rocked us all today, though. Some women from our group apparently went to the tomb first thing this morning and couldn’t find his body. They came back and told the rest of us that they had seen a vision of angels who said that Jesus was alive. We sent a group down to check out their story, and they found things just the way the women had said, but there was no sign of Jesus anywhere.”
........When they had finished filling him in, Jesus said to them, “What a pair of dills you are! Why are you so slow to get your heads and your hearts around everything the prophets spelled out?! Hasn’t it always been the case that the Messiah would have to cop all this suffering before getting in on the glory that was in store for him?”
........Jesus spent the rest of their journey explaining the scriptures to them passage by passage, and showing them what Moses and the prophets had said about him.
........When they reached the turn-off to the town they were heading for, Jesus appeared set to push on up the highway, but they put the hard word on him to stop at their place overnight since the sun was going down and the day was almost over. So he accepted their offer of hospitality and went home with them. When he sat down to the evening meal with them, he picked up a loaf of bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to them. Suddenly their eyes were opened and they realised who he was; and just as suddenly he disappeared from sight. They looked at one another and said, “No wonder there was such a fire burning in our guts when he was explaining the scriptures to us on the road!”
........So, without a moment’s delay, they were on their feet and hurrying back to Jerusalem to tell the news to the eleven and the rest of the crew. When they found them, they were all together and abuzz with news: “The Lord really has risen! He has appeared to Simon Peter!”
........The couple from Emmaus filled them all in on what had happened on the road, and how they had become conscious of who he was when the bread had been broken.
........While they were talking about all this, Jesus himself suddenly appeared, standing among them. “Greetings!” he said, “Peace be with you.”
........Taken by surprise, they thought he was a ghost, and were scared spitless. Jesus said to them, “What have you got to be afraid of? Why are you letting your doubts get the better of you? Here, take a look at my hands and feet. See for yourselves that it is really me. Reach out and touch me and you will know that I am made of flesh and bone. No ghost can claim that!”
........As he spoke, he showed them his hands and feet. It all seemed too good to be true; so wonderful they couldn’t believe their eyes. Their heads were bursting with joy and disbelief! Jesus asked them, “Have you got anything here I can eat?”
........They gave him a piece of grilled fish and he took it and ate it in front of them. Then he said to them, “The things I have said while I was with you amount to this: everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms is to be fulfilled.”
........As he spoke they began to see how to read the scriptures with open minds so as to understand what God was saying in them. Jesus said to them:

“What was written will now be clear to you: that the Messiah is to suffer and then rise from the dead on the third day. It was also written that the people of every nation must be told of the Messiah’s call to turn their lives around and receive forgiveness for sin. You can get started here in Jerusalem. You have witnessed these things first hand, so you can tell everyone what you have seen and heard. And don’t miss this: I myself am sending you the gift my Father promised; so wait here in the city until you have been fitted out with God’s power.”