Easter Sunday, April 24, 2011
Offered by Calum I. MacLeod, Executive Associate Pastor

What wondrous love is this that we encounter this Easter morning, Lord?
What wondrous love is it that can bring us to an empty tomb, where once a body lay;
to the rumor of life where death had already claimed victory;
to a light-filled spacious place where once the darkness had reigned?
What wondrous love is this, O Lord, that tears up the old script,
the narrative of destruction and violence and hopelessness,
the world’s ways of wielding muscle and influence for the purposes of greed and selfishness,
and replaces it with a new script—
the fresh story in which the love of power is subsumed  to the power of love;
in which suffering is transformed, sacrifice brings forth new life?

As those first disciples knew
the joy of your risen presence,
today we celebrate the blessings
of your loving presence in our lives.
We give thanks for home and hearth,
for strength and health,
for work and rest and laughter and peace,
for the children who challenge us to provide a future;
for the older folks who challenge us to remember the past.
And we give thanks for those hidden moments
when your grace confounds our earthbound concerns
by providing a glimpse of heaven.
A glimpse of heaven
in the hungry one fed,
the alienated one welcomed,
the diseased one healed,
the sad one laughing.

As you came to your friends then,
you come to your friends now.
“Why are you troubled?” you ask.
“Because our world is hurting,” we say.
So we pray for peace, Lord,
and we pray for justice.
For peace in places where nations rage,
for peace in industries where corporations antagonize,
for peace in communities where gangs divide,
for peace in lives where disease brings fear.

And we pray for justice,
where the powerful intimidate the weak,
where the wealthy exploit the poor,
where the hungry are not given food
and the merciful are not shown mercy.

As you came to your friends then,
you come to your friends now.
“I send you,” you say.
So we pray for ourselves
that you would make us an Easter people
so we might bring hope to the hopeless,
comfort to those who mourn,
wholeness to the broken,
and in doing so find the being of Christ within us
and in the world.

Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church