Tag: Easter 2024

This is the weekly bulletin insert from Sermons That Work.

During the Easter season, Sermons That Work is pleased to present reflections from some of the newest bishops of The Episcopal Church on the resurrection of our Lord. Check back each week for a brief exploration of how Jesus Christ’s rising from the grave changes everything.

To listen to this reflection, scan the QR code on this page and subscribe to the Sermons That Work podcast.

Reflections on the Resurrection: Week 4

Rather than minimize grief, Jesus experiences it and comforts others in it. But mourning is not the final word. Resurrection is. He gives a word of comfort to those in distress. The knowledge of his resurrection is our hope and a major way of dealing with sorrow: “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:1-3).

The Bible teaches that our suffering is a place to experience God’s sustaining grace in our weakness (2 Cor. 1:8-9). It is clearly taught that grief is a natural response when one experiences loss, but it can be tempered by the knowledge of Christ and the resurrection.

The loss that causes grief is very real, but it is temporary. The knowledge that softens the blow of grief is not an abstract platitude but the real resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor. 15). Our grief now is in the context of a future hope (1 Thess. 4:13-18). The hope of the new creation frames, but does not erase our present mourning: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:3-4).

Jesus Christ calls himself “the light of the world” and entered into the darkness of this world to bring light and eternal life to sinners who are dwelling in the darkness of their rebellion and sin: “The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned” (Matt. 4:16).

Where darkness, death, and decay had reigned, Jesus breaks in with light, liberation, and love. A picture of this comes from Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island, who lived in Scotland in the nineteenth century. As a boy, his family lived on a hillside overlooking a small town. Robert was intrigued by the work of the old lamplighters who went about with a ladder and a torch, lighting the streetlights for the night. One evening, as Robert stood watching with fascination, his nurse asked him, “Robert, what in the world are you looking at out there?” With great excitement he exclaimed: “Look at that man! He’s punching holes in the darkness!”

The light of the world has entered into the world’s darkness in order to punch holes in it and bring those who dwell in darkness into the dawn of his grace and truth. None of this would be possible apart from Christ’s incarnation, life, death, and resurrection.

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Justin S. Holcomb is the bishop of the Diocese of Central Florida, a seminary professor, and an author or editor of more than twenty books on theology, abuse, and biblical studies.

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Published by the Office of Formation of The Episcopal Church, 815 Second Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017

© 2024 The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

Weekly bulletin inserts

This weekly bulletin insert provides information about the history, music, liturgy, mission, and ministry of The Episcopal Church. For more information, please contact us at stw@episcopalchurch.org.

Sermons That Work

For more than 20 years, Sermons That Work, a ministry of The Episcopal Church’s Office of Communication, has provided free sermons, Bible studies, bulletin inserts, and other resources that speak to congregations across the Church. Our writers and readers come from numerous and varied backgrounds, and the resources we provide are used in small house churches, sprawling cathedrals, and everything between.

Church of the Redeemer

Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.

Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.

The Episcopal Church welcomes you.

This is the weekly bulletin insert from Sermons That Work.

During the Easter season, Sermons That Work is pleased to present reflections from some of the newest bishops of The Episcopal Church on the resurrection of our Lord. Check back each week for a brief exploration of how Jesus Christ’s rising from the grave changes everything.

To listen to this reflection, scan the QR code on this page and subscribe to the Sermons That Work podcast.

Reflections on the Resurrection: Week 3

When I was a child, our family often went on summer trips across the country. On one of those trips, we signed up for a guided tour of a deep cavern in Arkansas. There were about a dozen in our group. We followed lit pathways to the deepest place in this large cave, and the guide had us all sit down on benches. Then, she turned out all the lights. We sat in utter and complete darkness, several hundred feet underground, for maybe one minute. Then, she lit a single match, and every eye was instantly focused on the glow of that flame.

The first service of Easter – The Great Vigil – begins with the rubric: In the darkness, fire is kindled. At some moment between sundown on Saturday and sunrise on Sunday, God raised the lifeless body of Jesus from death to life in the tomb. On Saturday night or early Sunday morning, churches around the world annually symbolize and celebrate this joyful moment of Jesus’ resurrection by lighting a fire in the dark. The fire is blessed, the Paschal Candle is lit, and then the joyful light is shared as candles held by every person in the congregation are lit from it.

It is truly a joyful light that is shared. The resurrection of Jesus means that God’s love for us cannot be contained – even by death or a dark tomb. Sin and death do not have the last word over humanity. God does. And, as the Prayer of Humble Access reminds us, God’s property is always to have mercy. With the resurrection of Jesus, death is conquered. Jesus is raised and we who follow him are raised to new and eternal life with him.

This eternal life that is offered to us does not begin when our mortal bodies die. It begins now. The power of Christ’s resurrection is available to you and to me now. We no longer must live with old fears, old shames, old mistakes, old brokenness, and old patterns that made us less than God intends for us. Our old lives can give way to God’s way of love. In our baptisms, we were buried with Christ in his death and raised to new life with him. We are new creations. Our old shames, old mistakes, old sins, are forgiven, buried, and healed. A new way of life, following our resurrected Lord, is ours right now.

When a match was lit in that dark cavern, every eye turned, every head turned, and almost everyone reoriented their bodies to face that new light. May we so live in the power of Christ’s resurrection that our hearts, minds, and bodies are reoriented to God’s way of love. May we join our resurrected Lord in the work of making all things new.

The Rt. Rev. Dr. David G. Read serves as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas, the sixteenth bishop to serve in West Texas (the eleventh diocesan). He has jurisdiction over 87 congregations within the diocese, including parishes, missions, and church plants ranging in size from 40 members to 2,000 members.

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Published by the Office of Formation of The Episcopal Church, 815 Second Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017

© 2024 The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

Weekly bulletin inserts

This weekly bulletin insert provides information about the history, music, liturgy, mission, and ministry of The Episcopal Church. For more information, please contact us at stw@episcopalchurch.org.

Sermons That Work

For more than 20 years, Sermons That Work, a ministry of The Episcopal Church’s Office of Communication, has provided free sermons, Bible studies, bulletin inserts, and other resources that speak to congregations across the Church. Our writers and readers come from numerous and varied backgrounds, and the resources we provide are used in small house churches, sprawling cathedrals, and everything between.

Church of the Redeemer

Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.

Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.

The Episcopal Church welcomes you.

This is the weekly bulletin insert from Sermons That Work.

During the Easter season, Sermons That Work is pleased to present reflections from some of the newest bishops of The Episcopal Church on the resurrection of our Lord. Check back each week for a brief exploration of how Jesus Christ’s rising from the grave changes everything.

To listen to this reflection, scan the QR code on this page and subscribe to the Sermons That Work podcast.

Reflections on the Resurrection: Week 2

Spring has always been my favorite season of the year. Winters were long in the small New England town where I lived. Spring signaled new life and growth as melting snow gave way to crocuses pushing their way upward and recess back on the playground. As a young girl, spring also brought preparations for Easter, which included Lenten fasting and spring cleaning. Each year, the house would be turned upside down as curtains, linens, walls, baseboards, windows, and cupboards were scrubbed clean until all sparkled and appeared new once again.

For me and my four sisters, it also signified throwing off the drab outerwear of winter and donning new spring coats (all in different pastel colors of course), hats, patent leather shoes, and matching dresses. A feeling of newness and possibility filled the air. As I got older, I began to understand that Easter was more than new clothes and patent leather shoes, more than straw filled baskets brimming with cream-filled chocolate eggs and lollipops shaped like bunnies. Those feelings of newness and possibility were and remain part of God’s story, the story my parents shared and lived each day.

My parents were resurrection people. They lived as best they could the life that Jesus embodied. They made sacrifices to ensure my sisters and I had what we needed to grow and thrive, and then some. They placed their trust in the Resurrection, secure in the knowledge that God was doing something new in their lives and in the lives of their children. The sacrifices they made were not always apparent;

When I was much older, I discovered my mother had gone without a new coat for years so that my sisters and I could have new clothes each Easter.

When my grandmother died, my parents invited my grandfather to live with us, so that he would not be alone in his retirement, giving up the bedroom they had just built for themselves.

My parents’ generosity and service, more powerful than words, demonstrated to our family and community the difference between what counts and what doesn’t. My parents placed their faith and trust in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and lived the promises made at baptism throughout their lives.

For them and for me, Jesus’ resurrection reveals true life and faith are found in those places where people, often unnoticed by others, are placing their own bodies in the shape of Jesus’ life. I have the privilege of seeing this lived out in the work of our federal ministry chaplains who counsel and walk alongside our military, veterans, and the incarcerated.

They support, encourage, and offer Easter hope to:

• The young sailor who is up all night with a sick child
• The veteran who tenderly cares for his wife with advanced dementia
• The soldier who prays for her alcoholic brother
• The prisoner who speaks out against injustice in our legal system
• The airman who seeks treatment for depression
• The Guardian who is questioning their sexuality and place in the military
• The Marine suffering from moral injury, who, through reconciliation, is able to forgive herself and others

It takes courage to be Easter people. It takes faith to be resurrection people. It requires us to put aside the promise of security, to embrace uncertainty, and to trust no other truth than what we have seen and heard in Jesus, and to find our hope in living lives of embodied faithfulness. Easter reminds us that we can experience the risen Christ in God’s word, sacrament, and most profoundly in the intimate and personal ways we live out our baptismal promises.

Jesus, through his life, suffering, death, and resurrection, proved what resurrection people know to be true: Nothing, not even death, can separate us from God’s love.

The Rt. Rev. Ann Ritonia is the VIII Bishop Suffragan to the Presiding Bishop for Armed Forces and Federal Ministries. She has served in the United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps Reserve, the V.A., and as a priest and rector to parishes of all sizes. She is a resurrection person.

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Published by the Office of Formation of The Episcopal Church, 815 Second Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017

© 2024 The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

Weekly bulletin inserts

This weekly bulletin insert provides information about the history, music, liturgy, mission, and ministry of The Episcopal Church. For more information, please contact us at stw@episcopalchurch.org.

Sermons That Work

For more than 20 years, Sermons That Work, a ministry of The Episcopal Church’s Office of Communication, has provided free sermons, Bible studies, bulletin inserts, and other resources that speak to congregations across the Church. Our writers and readers come from numerous and varied backgrounds, and the resources we provide are used in small house churches, sprawling cathedrals, and everything between.

Church of the Redeemer

Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.

Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.

The Episcopal Church welcomes you.