Emmaus City Liturgy | Holy Easter Saturday, March 26, 2016 – Practicing Resurrection in the Midst of Doubt

2016 Holy Easter Saturday | How Do We Practice Resurrection in the Midst of Doubt?

It was a privilege to worship publicly this year on Good Friday, featuring the Seven Last Words from the Cross and accompanying hymns and songs, and Holy Saturday, featuring the liturgy below. Some of us also worshiped with another new church in Worcester on Resurrection Sunday, too, so it was a rich, full weekend.

For those who are curious, this post will feature our liturgy for Holy Saturday, including links, songs, quotes, notes, prayers and creeds that were part of the service. I hope these words encourage you as you continue considering the resurrection during Easter Week and into Pentecost in the weeks ahead.

Welcome and Reflection on "Wales Window"

Christ the Lord is Risen Today by Charles Wesley

1708 A.D.

Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!
Earth and heaven in chorus say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply, Alleluia!

Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia! 

Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids Him rise, Alleluia!
Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia!

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia! 

Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once He died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where's thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia! 

Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

He is not here, for He has risen, as He said. + Matthew 28:6 

The Anthem by Planetshakers

2013 A.D.

Hallelujah, You have won the victory!

Hallelujah, You have won it all for me!

Death could not hold You down!

You are the risen King

Seated in majesty,

You are the risen King!

By His stripes we are healed,

By His nail-pierced hands we're free.
By His blood, we're washed clean,
Now we have the victory.

The power of sin is broken,

Jesus overcame it all.
He has won our freedom,
Jesus has won it all.

“Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. + 1 Corinthians 15:54-55, 57

Crown Him with Many Crowns! by Matthew Bridges and Godfrey Thring

1851 A.D.

Crown Him with many crowns, 

The Lamb upon His throne,
Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns
All music but its own!
Awake, my soul, and sing
Of Him who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless King
Through all eternity!

Crown Him the Lord of life, 

Who triumphed o'er the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife
For those He came to save!
His glories now we sing,
Who died, and rose on high,
Who died, eternal life to bring,
And lives that death may die!

Crown Him the Lord of peace, 

Whose power a scepter sways
From pole to pole, that wars may cease,
And all be prayer and praise!
His reign shall know no end,
And round His pierced feet
Fair flowers of paradise extend
Their fragrance ever sweet!

Crown Him the Lord of love; 

Behold His hands and side,
Those wounds, yet visible above,
In beauty glorified!
All hail, Redeemer, hail!
For Thou hast died for me;
Thy praise and glory shall not fail
Throughout eternity!

We do see Jesus ... now crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what Jesus suffered. Both the One who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. + Hebrews 2:9-11

Practicing Resurrection in the Midst of Doubt | Listen, Linger, Let the Resurrector Meet You His Way

John 14:5-6; John 20:24-28

14:5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

20:24 Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe.” 26 Eight days later, His disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said,“Peace be with you.” 27 Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see My hands; and put out your hand, and place it in My side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered Him, “My Lord and my God!”

The resurrection of Jesus establishes the conditions in which we live and mature. A lively sense of Jesus' resurrection, which took place without any help or comment from us, keeps us from attempting to take charge … "Practice resurrection," a phrase I got from Wendell Berry, strikes just the right note. We live our lives in the practice of what we do not originate and cannot anticipate. When we practice resurrection, we continuously enter in to what is more than we are. When we practice resurrection, we keep company with Jesus, alive and present, who knows where we are going better than we do. + Eugene Peterson, Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ

(1) Listen to Those Who Tell You Jesus is Resurrected

20:24 Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” 

"It was the worst news I could get as an atheist: my agnostic wife had decided to become a Christian. Two words shot through my mind. The first was an expletive; the second was 'divorce.' I thought she was going to turn into a self-righteous holy roller. But over the following months, I was intrigued by the positive changes in her character and values. Finally, I decided to take my journalism and legal training (I was legal editor of the Chicago Tribune) and systematically investigate whether there was any credibility to Christianity. I quickly determined that the alleged resurrection of Jesus was the key. Anyone can claim to be divine, but if Jesus backed up his claim by returning from the dead … For nearly two years, I explored the minutia of the historical data on whether Easter was myth or reality. … Could these encounters have been hallucinations? No way, experts told me. Hallucinations occur in individual brains, like dreams, yet, according to the Bible, Jesus appeared to groups of people on three different occasions – including 500 at once! Was this some other sort of vision, perhaps prompted by the apostles’ grief over their leader’s execution? This wouldn’t explain the dramatic conversion of Saul, an opponent of Christians, or James, the once-skeptical half-brother of Jesus. + Lee Strobel, "How Easter Killed My Faith in Atheism," Wall Street Journal

(2) Linger with Those Who Believe Jesus is Resurrected

25 ... So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe.” 26 Eight days later, His disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

"It is has become commonplace to regard Ivan Karamazov’s 'Legend of the Grand Inquisitor' as a prescient parable glorifying human freedom and defending it against the kind of totalitarian threats it would face in the twentieth century. Fyodor Dostoevsky’s angry atheist delivers an uncanny prophecy of the omnicompetent, freedom-denying state that would arise in his own native Russia. But concerning the liberty that is the only cure for state-sponsored oppression, Ivan is terribly wrong. The Christ of the Grand Inquisitor advocates an idea of freedom that Dostoevsky considered an abomination. … Western readers of The Brothers Karamazov have remained virtually blind to Dostoevsky’s critique of the Grand Inquisitor. The reason, I believe, is that Ivan’s vision of human freedom is so very near to our own secular notion of liberty, and thus to our increasing relegation of the Christian gospel to the private sphere of mere preference. Though he was a student of Western Christianity and culture, Dostoevsky remained fundamentally Russian in his conception of God and the world, of good and evil, of the sacred and the secular. We cannot properly understand his treatment of these matters, therefore, until we grasp his Orthodox reading of them. Thus must we examine his parable of the Grand Inquisitor vis-à-vis the Orthodox doctrine of human freedom as being founded not on autonomous choice but on communal dependence on God. + Ralph Wood, Baylor University Professor of Theology and Literature

(3) Let the Resurrector Meet You His Way

27 Then (Jesus) said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see My hands; and put out your hand, and place it in My side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered Him, “My Lord and my God!”

"Renowned theologian Lewis Smedes described waiting like this: 'As creatures who cannot by themselves bring about what they hope for, we wait in the darkness for a flame we cannot light. We wait in fear for a happy ending that we cannot write. We wait for a ‘not yet’ that feels like a ‘not ever.’' We don’t typically talk a lot about Saturday. Friday is the day redemption happened through the shedding of Christ’s blood. Easter Sunday is the day Jesus conquered death so we can have life. But what about Saturday? It seems like a day when nothing is happening. In reality, it’s a day full of questioning, doubting, wondering and definitely waiting. It’s a day when we wonder if God is asleep at the wheel or simply powerless to do anything about our current problems. While we don’t spend a lot of time talking about Saturday, so much of our life here on this earth is lived out feeling trapped in “Saturday.” You may currently be in the midst of a horrible, out-of-control situation. You might feel as if God is not there, that nothing can be done. But here is the message of the Gospel for you while you’re stuck in your helpless Saturday-life: God does His best work in hopeless situations. We worship a God who specializes in resurrections. At Easter, we celebrate that He conquered death—the ultimate hopeless situation—so you could have life. + Pete Wilson, "Stuck in Saturday"

Even as we attempt to listen, linger, and let Jesus meet us in His most powerful and gracious way, sometimes we will want to run. We won't want to listen anymore. We'll escape instead of linger. We'll believe we're better saviors. We can't listen, linger, or let God reign in our own strength.

But if we look to Jesus, we'll see that:

+ He listened to the Father and finished His work on the cross.
+ He lingered with His disciples even when in their faith, they still doubted, disobeyed, or denied Him.
+ He was led by the Spirit and fulfilled the law of God in every way.

Without Him we can do nothing. But with Him and His resurrection power, anything is possible.

Prayers of Preparation and Eucharist

This We Believe (The Creed) by Hillsong 

(Based on Apostles' Creed)
390 A.D.

Our Father everlasting,
The all creating One,
God Almighty.
Through Your Holy Spirit
Conceiving Christ the Son,
Jesus our Savior.

Chorus 1

I believe in God our Father,
I believe in Christ the Son,
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
Our God is three in one!
I believe in the resurrection,
That we will rise again,
For I believe in the name of Jesus!

Our Judge and our Defender,

Suffered and crucified,
Forgiveness is in You.
Descended into darkness,
You rose in glorious life,
Forever seated high!

Chorus 2
We believe in God our Father,
We believe in Christ the Son,
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
Our God is three in one!
We believe in the resurrection,
That we will rise again,
For we believe in the name of Jesus!

We believe in life eternal,

We believe in the virgin birth,
We believe in the saint's communion
And in Your holy Church!
We believe in the resurrection
When Jesus comes again
For we believe in the name of Jesus!

(Repeat Chorus 2)

Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” + Acts 16:30-31

Christ Is Risen by Matt Maher

2009 A.D.

Let no one caught in sin remain
Inside the lie of inward shame,
But fix our eyes upon the cross
And run to Him who showed great love
And bled for us.
Freely, You've bled for us.

Christ is risen from the dead,

Trampling over death by death!
Come awake, come awake,
Come and rise up from the grave!
Christ is risen from the dead,
We are one with Him again!
Come awake, come awake,
Come and rise up from the grave!

Beneath the weight of all our sin,

You bowed to none but heaven's will.
No scheme of hell, no scoffer's crown,
No burden great can hold You down.
In strength You reign,
Forever let Your Church proclaim!

(Chorus Repeat)

O death, where is your sting?

O hell, where is your victory?
O Church, come stand in the light,
The glory of God has defeated the night!

O death, where is your sting?
O hell, where is your victory?
O Church, come stand in the light,
Our God is not dead!
He's alive! He's alive!

(Chorus Repeat)

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” + John 11:25-26

Land of the Rising Son by Ike Ndolo

2012 A.D.

The dark is groaning,
The tomb is reaching out.
Oh, but they can't have me!
Oh, but they can't have me!

The crows are circling,

The jackal waits in the dark.
Oh, but they can't have me!
Oh, but they can't have me!

I belong to the 

Land of the rising Son
Where the grave is no more,
The war has been won!
I belong to the 
Land of the rising Son,
I belong to You, I belong!

The world is in my bones,

It makes me wrestle with You.
Oh, but You have claimed me!
Oh, but You have claimed me!

No matter how far I've gone,
Even to the devil's table.
Oh, my God, You've claimed me!
Oh, my God, You've claimed me!

(Chorus Repeat)

Through my wandering,

And my failing,
And my doubting, I belong!
Through the fire,
And the darkness,
Through the sadness, I belong!
I'm just a rebel,
Who's tired of fighting,
So I'm laying down these arms.
The sun is rising, the sun is rising,
The sun is rising!

(Chorus Repeat)

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. + Romans 8:22-25

The Word Made Flesh: Christology Statement
Based on Nicene Creed, Definition of Chalcedon
325 A.D., 451 A.D.

We confess the mystery and wonder
of God made flesh
and rejoice in our great salvation
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
With the Father and the Holy Spirit,
the Son created all things,
sustains all things,
and makes all things new.

Truly God,
He became truly man,
two natures in one person.
He was born of the Virgin Mary
and lived among us.
crucified, dead, and buried,
He rose on the third day,
ascended to heaven,
and will come again
in glory and judgement.

For us,

He kept the Law, atoned for sin,
and satisfied God’s wrath.
He took our filthy rags
and gave us
His righteous robe.
He is our Prophet, Priest, and King,
building His Church,
interceding for us,
and reigning over all things.
Jesus Christ is Lord;
we praise His holy Name forever.
Amen.

Benediction

And behold, I am with you always, to the end. + Matthew 28:20

– Sully

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