Upper Clyde Parish Church: Easter Sunday Celebrations, 2017

Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

A very happy Easter from UCPC.

Here's a wee taste of our Easter celebrations today...

with the sermon from our main service at 10.30 further below.

8.00am in Crawford:
At our early bird service, we rolled rocks, and ate rolls - bacon, to be precise - as we welcomed in Easter morning. We even attempted an unaccompanied singing of an 'Alleluia'.
Due to the weather, we opted for an indoor service!

10.30am in the parish church at Abington:

It's been our practice for the last several years to 'bury' our Alleluias on the first Sunday of Lent...
A little like putting away a favourite toy, we try not to have any hymns with the word 'Alleluia' in our Lenten Sundays, or use it in worship at all. At times, a couple escape here and there, for joy just can't seem to be contained. Over the years, our Alleluias seem to mysteriously escape and somehow transform.

The first Sunday of Lent 2017 saw each member of the congregation present, given a dolly peg, on which we wrote 'Alleluia'. We then thought of one thing we could praise God for, and then gathered the Alleluias in our special purple Lent box, and placed them
at the foot of our Cross....

This morning, we found that the buried Alleluias had resurrected from dolly pegs to butterflies, floating cheerfully above the chancel step. Handily, the Minister was just the right height to fit below the lower bar of the butterfly frame...!

And Easter Sunday at UCPC, isn't complete without decorating our wooden Cross with daffodils. Helpers came forward during our first hymn and were just about finished by the time the music had ended. Other helpers had fashioned stones used in a meditation in week 5 of Lent into a heart last week, and this week, into 'Easter'.

these stones would cry aloud...
of God's love

these stones would shout...
of Easter and new life

This morning, as we thought of resurrection, we heard the following readings...and then, below, today's sermon. Post-worship morning tea pics, thereafter...

Our Lenten prayer tree:
leaves were used to write prayers
over the course of Lent - these
concerns were prayed for at our
Lent 'prayer and breakfast' meetings
on Saturday mornings.
On Easter Sunday,
green leaves had blossomed..

READINGS/ Ezekiel 37:1-14; Colossians 1:9-29;
Luke 24:1-32

SERMON
Let’s pray: may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

Dry bones, sitting,
within an ancient prophet’s vision.
Dry bones,
long past remembering life.
Dry bones, changing,
moving and rattling and drawing together –
thigh bones connecting to hip bones
hearing the word of the Lord,
feeling the breath of the Spirit:
click
click
click.

Dry bones, standing
in the middle of a valley,
Dry bones...
no longer,
Dry bones now sinewed, renewed,
re-membered, piece by piece.
Alive,
with hope restored,
and God’s Spirit within...
God saying
‘this isn’t the end, but the beginning.’

Women, walking.
Early in the morning.
Women,
remembering Jesus, even at this last.
Women, walking,
and carrying spices to tend his body –
spices prepared and mixed
with a combination
of love and sorrow.
Over the week,
a growing shadow:
darkness, like a long, clawing arm,
ready to snatch away joy,
extinguish the light.
The air hung heavy
with plot and betrayal
and impending ...ending.

Women, walking.
Heading to the garden.
Women,
surely remembering
how hearts had hardened,
remembering shouts of
‘Crucify!
Crucify!
Crucify!’
Women, who had watched
who had waited
even when the sky had darkened
and shadow truly fell across the land.
Women who’d witnessed his body -
being taken down,
seen it wrapped with care,
in linen,
who had walked to the burial place
following those carrying the body
to the tomb.
And then,
... Sabbath-wait
until they walked again to that place
in the gloom:
but the light was not sinking,
not leaving,
the light was growing,
rising,
finding its strength,
pushing back the darkness;
like
breathing life into dry bones –
and was there an echo:
God saying
‘this isn’t the end, but the beginning’?

Women, running.
Faces alight with fright, and dawning hope.
Women,
reminded of Jesus’ words
by the strangest of messengers.
Women, running
to tell the story
of where they’d been -
of what they’d seen:
a stone, rolled,
an empty tomb,
...no body to tend.
Of being near-blinded
and blind-sided
by strangers appearing
bright, like lightening,
saying
‘remember,
remember,
...remember...’
Women, remembering -
words from the Word
for the Word was with God,
and the Word was God:
Jesus, the Word,
who had been,
right at the very beginning –
even, before the beginning.

Two men, walking.
Leaving the city.
Two men,
walking the road to Emmaus,
talking and pondering.
Men,
wondering about women –
it was ever thus –
thinking about what they’d said
as they’d burst into the tomb
of that upper room
where all the friends sat, ...hiding.
Two men, joined by another,
walking alongside,
listening, teaching,
reminding them of the words
of their teacher.
From conversation,
an invitation:
an open door,
a welcome table
and words of blessing
that bring memory
into present reality –
replacing fear and sorrow
with hearts, burning,
fiercely with joy
at the words of the Lord:
‘do this, remember...’
In the ending, is the beginning.

Men, women, children, still walking.
Going to that garden
Men, women, children,
still walking along a path trod
by countless generations,
all sharing a memory,
all holding ...hope,
all carrying the light
in a world that feels filled
with shadow reaching out;
of darkness, like a long, clawing arm,
collecting fearful hearts
and clutching hate tight
and wanting only... ending.
But that
is the old dispensation:
before the resurrection.

Men, women, children,
walking, running,
sharing the greatest story ever told:
of death defeated,
and fear’s power broken.
Men, women, children - us:
called to remember him,
and to re-member him
every time we share in bread and wine
and one by one...
become one in him,
his body,
and, in that becoming,
finding our own new beginning:
for we are the Easter people –
rescued from darkness,
to be his own,
to be joyful
joy-filled,
‘and to live in thankfulness,
not in fear.’
We are the Easter people,
who know the story of resurrection;
who live not in the shadow of death,
but in the brightness of life
in all is fulness.
We
are the Easter people
and we will walk
as he walked,
calling out injustice,
speaking truth to power,
cherishing the least and the lost,
celebrating each person’s uniqueness
and sharing those things held in common;
seeing in all
the hand of the Creator,
who brought us into being,
who walks with us in our endings
who guides us into the promise
of his glory,
and into a new beginning.

This day, of all days,
is a reminder:
of God’s love,
of God’s blessing,
of the Good News of the gospel,
which is, that:
‘this isn’t the end, but the beginning.’

Let’s pray:
Lord, can we over-do the alleluia’s? Can we mend all the broken ones from Friday?
Can we hear them unfold in the sunrise?
Lord, might we have ears to do so and live in the echo
of this promise of the renewal of life always.
Might we dare to believe beyond tombs, beyond crosses, beyond graves...
and towards new life, towards transformation,
towards resurrection where we now live in the renewal of life
and in the spirit of Jesus Christ alive among us.
May we play in the morning dew of the garden and search for footprints.
May we join the dawn chorus with alleluias.
May we break bread and see light explode among us and in its shadow, see Jesus here.
May we live as a community of resurrection
always living into the promise of transformation,
believing into and living in the spirit of Jesus Christ.
This is our prayer, this is our celebration, this, is our now, and evermore...Amen.
*prayer from Spill the Beans