An Easter Sunset Service

I had never heard of an Easter Sunset Service, but our Family of Hope House Church just created and observed one, on the evening of the Orthodox Easter.

After a 5 pm indoor picnic at EMU's Discipleship Center on the hill above the campus, we used the following litany of scripture and music (singing from the Hymnal, a Worship Book) and had an anointing service for Rachel Stoltzfus, the beloved senior member of our congregation.

I wish I had brought a camera to catch the wonderful sunset we witnessed as we closed the service at 8, not unlike the one shown above that is on my realtor friend Kai Degner's website, taken by a friend of his.


ORTHODOX EASTER SUNDAY APRIL 15, 2012
Family of Hope House Church

Praise God and celebrate great light!

Genesis 1:1-5

# 652 The day you gave us, Lord, is ended
# 654 Sun of my soul


Responsive reading
The day has passed, and I give You thanks, Lord;

make the evening and the night free of sin,
I ask You, Savior, and save me.

Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit;
The day has ended, and I give You glory, Master,

make the evening and the night free of offense,
I ask You, Savior, and save me.

Both now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

The day is over, and I give You praise, Holy One;

make the evening and the night free of evil designs,
I ask You, Savior, and save me.
Lord, have mercy...

Let my prayer come before You as incense,

the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice;
Lord hear me.

Orthodox Book of Prayers

Confess to God and experience full forgiveness! 

Gen. 3:8-9
# 658 All praise to thee, my God, this night

Prayer of Confession

If I have wounded any soul today,
If I have caused one foot to go astray,

If I have walked in my own willful way,
Dear Lord, forgive!

If I have uttered idle words or vain,
If I have turned aside from want or pain,

Lest I myself shall suffer through the strain,
Dear Lord, forgive!

If I have been perverse or hard, or cold,
If I have longed for shelter in Thy fold,

When Thou hast given me some fort to hold,
Dear Lord, forgive!

Forgive the sins I have confessed to Thee;
Forgive the secret sins I do not see;

O guide me, love me and my keeper be,
Dear Lord, Amen.                

C. Maud Battersby

Reflect on God and gain new wisdom!

# 819 Psalm 90        # 653 Abide with me

May God support us all the day long,

till the shadows lengthen
and the evening comes
and the busy world is hushed

and the fever of life is over

and our work is done—
then in his mercy—

may he give us a safe lodging

and a holy rest and peace at the last.  Amen.


Attributed to Cardinal John Henry Newman, Prayer in All Things

Fellowship with God and find renewed faith!

John 20:19-31
# 570 We walk by faith

Christ with me sleeping,
Christ with me waking,
Christ with me watching,

every day and night,
every day and night.                  

Celtic prayer from Carmina Gadelica

Trust in God and experience deep healing! 

Luke 4:40, James 5:13-16 

At even, ere the sun was set,
The sick,
O Lord, around Thee lay;

O, with how many pains they met!

O, with what joy they went away!

Once more ’tis eventide, and we,

Oppressed with various ills, draw near;

What if Thyself we cannot see?

We know that Thou art ever near.

O Savior Christ, our woes dispel;

For some are sick, and some are sad;

And some have never loved Thee well,

And some have lost the love they had.

And some are pressed with worldly care

And some are tried with sinful doubt;

And some such grievous passions tear,

That only Thou canst cast them out.

And some have found the world is vain,

Yet from the world they break not free;

And some have friends who give them pain,

Yet have not sought a friend in Thee.

And none, O Lord, have perfect rest,

For none are wholly free from sin;

And they who fain would serve Thee best

Are conscious most of wrong within.

O Savior Christ, Thou too art man;

Thou has been troubled, tempted, tried;
Thy kind but searching glance can scan

The very wounds that shame would hide.

Thy touch has still its ancient power.

No word from Thee can fruitless fall;

Hear, in this solemn evening hour,

And in Thy mercy heal us all.                                     

Henry Twells, 1868

Go with God and be a great blessing!  

#655 Now on land and sea descending

My Lord, What a Morning

On this Easter Sunday morning, those of us who attended our annual house church's sunrise service met as usual at the entrance of what was once known as Massanutten Caverns, right next to the home of one of our members. We gathered around the locked steel door of the cave at our usual 8 am time, and since this is under the west side of Massanutten Peak, the sun actually comes up over the ridge at about that time.

Indeed, this morning the sun made its appearance almost exactly as our speaker Elly Nelson spoke the words “He is risen!” as a part of her Easter homily, one in which she inspired us to reflect on what the resurrection story should mean to all of us--that light is replacing darkness, life is overcoming death. That’s what the story celebrates.

It seemed fitting that we had a woman bear this witness this morning, since it was Mary, the mother of Jesus, and other women, not our Lord’s male followers, who first arrived on the scene, according to the gospel texts. It was only the women who exercised their courage to bring spices to apply to the body of their recently buried loved one.

No one knows how they expected to enter a guarded cave with a large stone rolled in front of it, not unlike the barred steel door of our cave, marked with the words, “This Cave is Protected by Virginia Law.” Perhaps they simply trusted God to take care of that detail.

I join them on this day in affirmation of the kind of the faith expressed by the seventeenth-century poet George Herbert:

  RISE heart ;  thy Lord is risen.  Sing his praise
                                        Without delayes,
    Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
                                        With him mayst rise :
    That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
    His life may make thee gold, and much more just.

    Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
                                        With all thy art.
    The crosse taught all wood to resound his name
                                        Who bore the same.
    His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
    Is best to celebrate this most high day.

    Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
                                        Pleasant and long :
    Or since all music is but three parts vied,
                                        And multiplied ;
    O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
    And make up our defects with his sweet art.

            I got me flowers to straw thy way ;
            I got me boughs off many a tree :
            But thou wast up by break of day,
            And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

            The Sunne arising in the East,
            Though he give light, and th’ East perfume ;
            If they should offer to contest
            With thy arising, they presume.

            Can there be any day but this,
            Though many sunnes to shine endeavour ?
            We count three hundred, but we misse :
            There is but one, and that one ever.

A Burst of Easter Light

photos by Margie Vlasits

For many years now members of our house church congregation and other guests met at the entrance of Massanutten Caverns for an 8 am Easter Sunrise service. Our excuse for not meeting earlier is that at that particular spot (at the base of Massanutten Peak) is that the sun usually can't be seen until about that time.

The cave entrance has been securely sealed and locked tight for decades now, and while we have never encountered any Roman guards on duty, there is a no-nonsense sign that reads, “This Cave is Protected by Virginia Law.” In other words, Stay away. Do not disturb.

If we were able to enter this cave go deep inside and under this mountain, we would experience something very rare for most of us, an absolute, total pitch darkness. So dark that we could not see a hand in front of our face. So dark that if we were to stay in that condition long enough, we would lose our ability to see normally, would be blinded by the dark.

We can also be blinded by light. In the resurrection story in today’s reading from Matthew’s gospel, there is a description of a blaze of light that is like lightning, a megawatt burst of light powerful enough to strike us blind. Christians believe that something just that powerful happened on that morning, as life burst forth from tomb, as God struck a lightning blow against the powers of darkness and death.

I understand there is an entire branch of science devoted to the study of properties of light. I’m not well versed in optic physics, but I know light waves can be precisely measured as to amplitude, frequency and velocity. We are awed by the power and sheer speed of light, fast enough to circle the globe ten times in a mere second.

But there is nothing in the science of physics about the properties of darkness. It has no properties, but simply represents the absence of light, just as death is the absence of life.

Christians recognize the same God at work here in resurrection as in creation. In the opening chapter of the Bible the earth is described as being without form and void, as utterly empty and lifeless, with pitch darkness covering everything. Imagine everywhere being as desolate and dark as the interior of a cave, without light and void of life. Then imagine hearing God’s first recorded words in Scripture, “Let there be light!”

In the Easter story we hear another thunderous voice, this time saying, “Let there be life,” followed by an awesome burst of pure life and accompanied by a messenger from God whose "appearance is like lightning."

Many of us know darkness. We know what it's like to go through a dark night of the soul, when we feel cut off from all light and stripped of all hope.  Sometimes the darkness is of our own doing, as when we choose it because we’re blinded by light and prefer to hide from it. Sometimes we experience a darkness that oppresses us from outside ourselves, as in some terrible loss or a debilitating depression, as when with Isaiah we “wait for light, but experience bleakness, and for brightness, but grope in darkness.”

Easter is telling us that we can now all rise and shine, for "our light has come," and “the glory of the Lord has risen upon us.” It is saying that because of the power of divine light--at creation, on resurrection day, and in the age to come--our life needs never be the same. That we have come to see a kind of glory and light that is so a-blazing and so amazing that in the age to come we will have no need of the sun, because God will forever be the light. And "he shall reign forever and ever."

Yes!

New Life in Death Valley

"Dead man walking" is a slang term prison guards use, I’m told, when escorting a death row inmate to the execution chamber. It is also the name of a book (and later a movie) about the story of Sister Helen Prejean, and the close relationship she establishes with both Matthew Poncelet, a condemned murderer on death row in Louisiana, and with the families and loved ones of his two victims.

According to this Sunday’s lectionary texts (it was my turn to lead the study at our house church congregation today) we are all like dead men and women walking. Since our mortality rate is exactly 100%, we are each well on our way to becoming an obituary statistic. Death is inescapable. A pastor friend of mine recently reported that he’s had to conduct nine funerals so far this year alone in his aging congregation.

But there are other forms of death to which we are also subject, according to today’s scriptures. In the Ezekiel 37 reading the prophet is lamenting the death of his people as a nation. They have experienced a humiliating defeat and a forced “trail of tears” in which he and thousands of his people were forcibly escorted on an estimated 800-mile march to far off Babylon.

Likewise, Psalm 130 is about the death of hope (“Out of the depths I cry to you...”). The gospel reading in John 11 is about the mourned death (and resurrection) of a dearly loved friend and brother. The reading from Romans 8 is about deliverance from the devastation resulting from our addiction to sin, and follows the lament in the preceding chapter “Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

In each of these cases, there is nevertheless hope for new life, even in Ezekiel’s grim vision of a valley strewn with the dried up bones of his conquered people. It appears there were simply too few battle survivors to bury their dead. But in each scripture it is also clear that just as God is the original author and creator of all life, so God’s Spirit (the Hebrew “ruach” is translated as spirit, wind or breath in the Ezekiel story) can breathe new life into all that lies in our dark valleys of death.

I think about that especially at this time of the year as we are finally emerging from what we refer to as “the dead of winter.” A lot of plants literally die in the fall. If it weren’t for their seeds, they would become extinct. Other plants and trees go through a form of hibernation in which their leaves drop off and they go dormant.

But there is an amazing resurrection that occurs each spring. Buds and leaves reappear in lavish abundance, representing a whole new start. Life not only reappears, it does so in miraculous multiplication. As someone has observed, we may be able to count the number of seeds in a single apple, but only God knows how many potential apples there are in each seed and in each bud that appears on the fruit trees in our back yard. Countless!

Of course we are powerless to make this kind of miracle happen. We can prepare soil and carefully plant our seeds and plants in it, we can prune and pull weeds and water the soil, but only the original creator can actually produce life or restore life out of death.

So can dried up bones ever live again?

When the Spirit of God enters Death Valley, anything can happen.