Below is the worship text for Easter Sunday/Resurrection of Our Lord, April 20, 2025.
You will find the YouTube of the worship at: inklingsermons.com
Our worship service is Sunday at 10 am. Following worship please join us for coffee and conversation. All are welcome!
Remember to wear your Easter bonnets and hats and fascinators.
Thanks, and thanks again for your generous offerings to our ministry and for supporting DayStar Life Center with food and money.
You may reach out to me at: 727-642-3300.
Regards & blessings,
Pastor Chip
Sunday, April 20, 2025
Resurrection of Our Lord: Easter Day
Thanksgiving for Baptism
Alleluia! Christ is risen.
Christ is risen, indeed. Alleluia!
In the name of ☩ the One
who was, who is, and who is to come.
Amen.
Baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, and called to live the baptized life, let us give thanks for the gifts of baptism.
Water may be poured before or during the thanksgiving.
Holy God, we give you thanks for the waters of baptism, waters that make a people your own, that restore to wholeness, and empower us to be witnesses in your name.
Baptized into you, O Living One,
make us one as you are one.
We give you thanks for the waters of baptism, waters that strengthen believers
and give new life to beloved servants of your church.
Waters that extend your boundless love
and cross barriers of our own making.
Baptized into you, O Living One,
make us one as you are one.
We give you thanks for the waters of baptism, waters that open the hearts of believers and give a voice in the night to those in captivity.
Waters that set your people on a new path, rejoicing in the Spirit’s power.
Baptized into you, O Living One,
make us one as you are one.
Grant us grace, love, and life, O Living One, that our every day is shaped by these waters that give us our very lives in you.
We ask this in the name of Jesus, the Crucified and Risen One.
Amen.
Gathering Song:
Now the Green Blade Rises
Prayer of the Day
O God, you gave your only Son to suffer death on the cross for our redemption, and by his glorious resurrection you delivered us from the power of death. Make us die every day to sin, that we may live with him forever in the joy of the resurrection, through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.
First Reading: Acts 10:34-43
34 Peter began to speak to the people: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. 37 That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39 We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40 but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41 not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Word of God. Word of Life.
Thanks be to God.
Psalm: 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Give thanks to the LORD, for the LORD is good;
God’s mercy endures forever.
2 Let Israel now declare,
“God’s mercy endures forever.”
14 The LORD is my strength and my song,
and has become my salvation.
15 Shouts of rejoicing and salvation echo in the tents of the righteous:
“The right hand of the LORD acts valiantly!
16 The right hand of the LORD is exalted!
The right hand of the LORD acts valiantly!”
17 I shall not die, but live,
and declare the works of the LORD.
18 The LORD indeed punished me sorely,
but did not hand me over to death.
19 Open for me the gates of righteousness;
I will enter them and give thanks to the LORD.
20 “This is the gate of the LORD;
here the righteous may enter.”
21 I give thanks to you, for you have answered me
and you have become my salvation.
22 The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.
23 By the LORD has this been done;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:19-26
19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. 21 For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; 22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Word of God. Word of Life.
Thanks be to God.
Gospel Acclamation
Alleluia. Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us keep the feast. Alleluia. (1 Cor. 5:7, 8)
The Holy Gospel according to John
Glory to you O Lord
Gospel: John 20:1-18
1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.
11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
The Gospel of the Lord
Praise to you O Christ
On that first Easter…early in the morning…all the disciples had already returned to their homes…
• But not Mary Magdalene.
• Mary showed up.
• She came and saw the emptiness of the tomb and was afraid.
• And then she saw Jesus standing there.
• And…well…she thought it was a gardener.
I have this notion…that Mary never lived it down.
• For the rest of her life…sitting around a table in a pub…her friends would look at her and say:
• Hey Mary…remember when you mistook Jesus for the gardner?
• That was hilarious!
The Lord be with you
Anyhow…I always wonder what people think when they read the story of Jesus rising from the dead.
• The actual gospel story is not fancy.
• It is really a story about flesh and dirt and bodies and confusion.
• And it’s about the way God never seems to adhere to our expectations.
When Mary Magdalene stood at the tomb…
• She did not encounter some perfected radiant glowing Jesus that morning.
• I mean…no offense to gardeners…but Jesus could not have been looking all that tidy and impressive…
• If she mistook him for a gardener.
• And I like to think that Mary Magdalene mistook the resurrected Christ for a gardener…
• Because Jesus still had the dirt from his own tomb under his nails.
Of course…the depictions of the risen Christ never show dirt under his nails.
• Artists make him look more like a wingless angel than a gardener.
• But then…what we end up with is an unnatural idea of what the resurrection looks like.
• So…I would like to just start over…
• And tell the whole story over.
Once upon a time in the beginning of things…
• The God of the Universe was at an end with being on the receiving end of all our human projections.
• God was tired of being nothing more to us than what we thought He should be:
• Angry…boastful…defensive…
• Insecure…
• In short…the vengeance-seeking tyrant we would be if we thought we were God.
So…at that time…over 2,000 years ago…
• God’s loving desire to be known overflowed the heavens…
• And was made manifest in the rapidly dividing cells…
• Within the womb of an insignificant peasant girl named Mary.
And when the time came for her to give birth to God…there was no room in our expectations.
• There was no room in any impressive or spiffy or safe place.
• So…God was born in straw and dirt.
He grew up…this Jesus of Nazareth…left his home…
• And found some…let’s be honest…rather unimpressive characters to follow him.
• Fishermen…Tax collectors…homeless ones…people from bad neighborhoods.
• I’m not kidding.
• These people were …at least…a little questionable.
• So…with his little band of disciples…
• Jesus went about the countryside turning water to wine…
• Eating meals with all the wrong people…
• Casting out demons…
• Angering the religious establishment…
• And insisting that…in him…the kingdom of God had come near.
• That…through him…the world…according to God…was coming right to us.
He touched the unclean and used spit and dirt to heal the blind…
• And said crazy destabilizing things…
• Like the first shall be last and the last shall be first…
• And sell all you have and give it to the poor.
And the thing that really got to people’s hearts and minds was not the question:
• Is Jesus like God?
• It was: What if God is like Jesus?
• What if God is not who we thought?
• What if the most reliable way to know God is not through a belief system…
• But through a person.
• What if the most reliable way to know God is to look at how God chose to reveal God’s self in Jesus?
Because that changes everything.
• If what we see in Jesus is God’s own self revealed…
• Then what we are dealing with is a God who is bad at choosing friends.
• A God who would rather die than be in the sin accounting business.
• A God who would not lift a finger to condemn those who crucified him…
• But…went to the depths of Hell…rather than be separated…even from his betrayers.
• A God unafraid to get his hands dirty for the ones he loves.
• This…this is the God who rises to new life…with dirt still under his nails…
• And chooses a woman with a past to tell everyone else about it.
Jesus said to her…Mary!
• She turned and said to him…Teacher.
• Go to my brothers and say to them:
• I am ascending to my Father and your Father…to my God and your God.
• And Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples:
• I have seen the Lord…
• And she told them that he had said these things to her.
Christ is Risen. He is Risen Indeed. Alleluia!
Song of the day:
Dat of Arising
Prayers of Intercession
God of resurrection and new life, we come before you in prayer for the church, the world, and all who are in need.
A brief silence.
Kindle new life in your church. Encourage all who seek creative ways to share the good news of Christ’s resurrection. Bless mission developers and new ministries, that their work plant seeds that flourish. God of grace,
hear our prayer.
Nourish new life in all of creation. Shower forests and grasslands, deserts, and mountains with life-giving rains. Grant us delight in your glory that shows forth in all that grows this season. God of grace,
hear our prayer.
Empower new life among the nations. As you raised Jesus from the dead, bring new hope for peace and reconciliation in places of war and strife. Raise up leaders who are steadfast in their commitment to justice and transformation. God of grace,
hear our prayer.
Bring new hope among all who are in need, especially neighbors without homes or food, and those whose housing or food supply is at risk. Bring healing to all who are fearful, ill, or grieving especially. God of grace,
hear our prayer.
Awaken new life in this place. Open our hearts to ways you are calling us to be at work in the world and our community. We pray for neighboring congregations and ministry sites especially: Church of God – SDA – Bay Point Christian – St. Barts – Blessed Trinity…St. Matthew…DayStar Life Center…Canguros Day School. Give us courage to boldly share your love for all people beyond our walls. God of grace,
hear our prayer.
Trusting in the promises of the resurrection, we remember with thanksgiving our beloved dead. Sustain us with a living hope until we are reunited with them and all the saints at the heavenly banquet. God of grace,
hear our prayer.
We commend these and all our prayers to you, O God, trusting that you are always with us, in the name of Jesus Christ, our risen Savior.
Amen.
Pray with me:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
Blessing
The triune God, who was, who is, and who is to come, Sovereign, ☩ Savior, and Spirit, light our way with resurrection dawn, now and always.
Amen.
Sending Song:
That Easter Day with Joy Was Bright
Dismissal
Alleluia! Christ is risen.
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Go in peace. In Christ you are made new. Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thanks be to God. Alleluia! Alleluia!