Easter Sunday – Praise and Prayer
Welcome to our Simple Interactive Worship and Teaching for Easter Sunday
Although we cannot meet together we hope you can follow along, using this as a simple form of worship and teaching, praise and prayer.
To participate, interact in order with the items below, either on your own or with your household. If you can do this at 10am we will have a sense of doing this together (especially if you are alone) but of course this is available for you to use throughout the day if you would like.
Finally, the prayers are meant to be prayed by yourself and/or with your family together.
Please begin by pausing to pray that the Holy Spirit will speak to you and bless you during this act of worship.
Alleluia Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Bible Reading
John 20 v.1-18
Set of three Worship Songs
(These should run continuously in the playlist, providing you have autoplay on YouTube, but you need to stop it after the 3rd song! Ian)
Click Here to Play the Set of Three Worship Songs in YouTube
Confession Prayer and Collect for Easter Day
Like Mary at the empty tomb,
we fail to grasp the wonder of your presence.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Like the disciples behind locked doors,
we are afraid to be seen as your followers.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Like Thomas in the upper room,
we are slow to believe.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
God of glory,
by the raising of your Son
you have broken the chains of death and hell:
fill your Church with faith and hope;
for a new day has dawned
and the way to life stands open
in our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen
Easter Sunday Message
The Three Gifts of Easter to Our Covid-19 World
Prayers of Intercession: Psalm 27 v.13-14
Prayers written by Helen Hamilton
Our Lord and Father, on this Easter morning, the church building may be locked
but our hearts are open to your presence.
May our church community be an Easter garden planted with your flowers;
and let the heavy stone be rolled away.
Even in the prolonged ‘Holy Saturday’ of emptiness in which we find ourselves, there is always hope.
Your nature God is always to have mercy, so you sent your Son,
who experienced the fullness of our own human suffering and makes all things new.
Easter joy this year is not straight forward.
We stand in the light of the Risen Christ and who we are, and we feel totally exposed.
Help us to understand that nothing should compromise our celebration
of what Jesus accomplished on the cross and the love He offers us.
It is a painful and humbling process, but it is eventually healing.
May it bring about in our hearts, a lifetime of Easter mornings.
We wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage.
We wait for the Lord.
Living Lord, conqueror of death, we remember with gladness how on the day of your resurrection,
you appeared to your disciples in your risen power and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’
Speak those words to our hearts today O Lord.
Lift us above our fears, help us to rest upon your victory,
that we may all experience your peace deep within.
We wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage.
We wait for the Lord.
Help us to be a community, an Island that shares each other’s burdens more than ever before.
May we be constantly challenged to do what we can, wherever we can.
We pray for everyone on the Island who has contracted the virus, we ask for your healing power.
Give comfort to the families of those who have died and those whose loved ones are ill.
We bring before you the dedicated doctors, nurses, and health care workers
who are on the front line, literally risking their lives to care for us.
We pray for the brave people who are keeping this Island functioning and supplied with food,
the shop assistants, the delivery drivers, other essential employees who have to be in contact with the public
and thereby put themselves at risk. Keep them safe, we pray.
We bring before you our Chief Minister, Health Minister and all members of the government
as they work night and day to keep this Island safe.
We wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage.
We wait for the Lord.
Father in Heaven, listen to our hearts’ longings for the healing of our world, not only against the ravages of the virus,
but against all the injustices, wars and deprivations that have not gone away.
After the virus has gone, may we not go back to the old normal, may this world be a better place.
We wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage.
We wait for the Lord.
We end our prayers this morning with a hymn of praise to you, our Heavenly Father.
The psalms are the language of praise, even though they were mostly written in the wilderness years.
So we join with the Psalmist in saying:
‘I will praise you O Lord as long as I live and in your name, I will lift up my hands.’
To sing praise through this crisis is to feed the soul; to feed faith over fear.
Help us to remember that faith is not dependent on how strong we feel,
but on how strong is the One in whom we trust.
May we hold firm to the words of another psalm, Psalm 27:
‘We believe we shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.’
Praise be to God.
Amen
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen
Closing Song
Click Here to Play: “Thine Be The Glory” on the BBC website
Video Blessing
In my blessing above, I mention a deeply moving song that I know is helping not only myself, but also huge numbers of followers of Christ and also many that are not based upon The Aaronic Blessing from Numbers 6 v.24-26.
It is a remarkable anthem for this time across our world and hugely significant to see its impact considering it was only written and recorded in early March.
I leave it with you as an Easter Blessing, for you to soak in and enjoy, if you wish. Happy Easter!
Here is the link to The Blessing with Kari Jobe & Cody Carnes on YouTube (to see it in a larger format)
