In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Easter is by far the most important Sunday in the year. On that day the priest always begins the service by saying, “The Lord is risen!” Then the people say in response, “He is risen indeed!” Three times the Easter proclamation is made, and three times the congregation responds, repeating the same glorious exclamation. Let us, with our sisters and brothers in the Orthodox Church, join into the joyous news:
Pastoral Prayer
Once again, O gracious God, Thou hast brought us to another Easter Sunday. Once again we are met with the glorious proclamation that Thou hast raised Jesus from the dead. Once again we are confronted by the same questions which confronted Jesus’ first followers: Is it true? Is it real? What does it mean? With them we bow in awe and exhilaration and bewilderment. With the disciple named Thomas we long for greater clarity, for deeper understanding, for a reasonable explanation to what seems utterly unreasonable.
We confess, O God, that we do not join together on this day of all days united in thought or unified in comprehension. For some of us Easter is the greatest news possible, and for others it is an enormous stumbling block. The scandal of the crucifixion issues in the scandal of the resurrection for some of us, and we wonder how Thou dost assess us in our ambivalence and skepticism. As always we pray for forgiveness for all the wrong deeds we have done, but on this day especially we ask forgiveness for improper conclusions, if indeed it is necessary to be forgiven for them. Keep us from ignoring Easter, or for averting it, and help us instead to seek for a more complete and fulfilling grasp of what happened so long ago in Jerusalem on a very early spring morning.
We pray for all Christians who, because of particular circumstances surrounding their lives, are unable fully to exult in astonishingly good news proclaimed from a graveyard: for the people of Ukraine, who face an unpredictable adversary and a very cloudy future; for people in Syria and Iraq and Nigeria and elsewhere who are the victims of terrorists masquerading as religious warriors; for patients in hospitals and other medical facilities who are so sick in body or mind that they are incapable of focusing on the meaning of this day; and for people who once believed in Easter and who now have no faith in their own resurrection, let alone that of Jesus Christ, and who doubt that faith has anything to offer to them or anyone else. We choose to give Thee praise, O God, that we are able to gather together in joyful recognition of the claim that Jesus Christ is risen today. Now we join together in prayer as Jesus taught his first followers, saying, Our Father….