Easter is the most important day of the year in the Greek Orthodox Church, although today is not Easter in the Greek Orthodox Church; that date shall be May 1 for them. But every Easter the Greek faithful gather, and the priest shouts out, “Christos Anesthe!” (Christ is risen!), to which the congregation responds in joyous acclamation, “Alethos Anesthe!”(He is risen indeed!) Today we join with Roman Catholics and Protestants around the world to proclaim once again that Christ is risen indeed. Let us worship the God who alone makes this and every Easter possible.
Pastoral Prayer
Once again, O God, we join together to hear the Easter hymns and to hear the Easter scriptures and to ponder once more the most amazing claim ever made, that a man who died on a cross was raised by Thee from the tomb which supposedly held him fast forever, as every tomb holds everyone in its terminal grip. We confess that every Easter we are confronted by the same questions and the same mysteries. We hope against hope that that which we want to be true is true. And we pray for the strengthening of our faith and our minds to trust in its truth. Make us Easter people, Lord God, rather than merely Good Friday people.
We pray for all those who have lost loved ones in this Holy Week or will lose family members in the Orthodox Holy Week. Keep them from developing bad feelings about Easter. May Easter become ever more real to them because people they loved died at this time of year and not despite their having died now. May we who live daily with death live our whole lifetime in the faith that Thou hast transcended death through the resurrection of Thy Son Jesus Christ, and may that conviction sustain us until at last we too shall die.
We ask Thy blessing to be with everyone in Brussels whose lives have been disrupted by yet another act of mass terrorism. Bless the innocent who survived the killing and the families of the guilty who planned the bombings. Bless the families of everyone lost in the mindless and heartless carnage. Loving God, sometimes it is hard for us even to know how we should react in a world which seems to teeter ever closer to the edge of madness. Grant us understanding, stamina, equanimity, and hope for what is past and for what surely lies ahead. We ask these things in the name of him whose resurrection transforms Thy world, even when circumstances make our realization of that truth very difficult. Now we pray together as Jesus taught his earliest disciples, saying, Our Father….