Opening
Open our hearts Resurrected One to all the places within us and around us longing for life.
Reflection
These last two years we have known so much grief.
We have been isolated from loved ones. Families bore the toll of being home and school and work. People experienced job loss. In this pandemic loss and death have been ever present.
Jesus entered that deep place of grief and death for us,
to breathe life and healing
into all the grieving and broken places within us.
He emerges from the tomb to offer life and hope
and Divine Companionship in ways we couldn’t imagine.
Hear the Good News.
Invitation
Scripture: Luke 24:1-12
“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.”
Prayer of Response
Dear Resurrected One,
Thank You for the light that shatters the darkness
and permeates every corner where death and loss are found.
Thank you for the gift of life that is a resurrected one
and not a resuscitated one,
a life that is new and moves us beyond everything we have known.
For although this world still knows dark and broken places,
the life we know in you is like the sun’s beams
breaking through the clouds and shining its light as a healing balm within.
You shed your loving, healing, light into every space and place.
Thank you for your love that did not and does not stop.
Your love and light reach to us covering us
in a beautiful display that will not let us go.
May we be healed by it.
Grant us strength and hope through this unfathomable gift.
And shine that healing and permeating light
through us into the world around us.
Glory. Hallelujah, Amen.
Rev. Eva Sullivan-Knoff,
Founder and Executive Director