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How lovely is your dwellord mighty for my soul? and even for you for my heart is satisfied within your presence. I see beneath the shadow of your wings.
There is one day in your courts. There is one day in your house. There is one day in your courts.
Thousandswhere in your courts. Better is one day in your house. Better is one day in your courts.
Welcome to worship on this second Sunday of Easter. And that's a deliberate use of the pronoun and a quiet reminder that the pascal candle is now lit. And we are in the 40 days after our Lord's resurrection when he was physically visibly present with his disciples.
And in the wonderful season of Easter, the Holy Scriptures will be fairly tightly knit together in terms of chronology. We're not into thousands of years apart. We're into weeks apart, months apart, and then the second reading comes about 50 years after Jesus resurrection, but into the life of the church.
The first reading through the season of Easter is going to be from the book of Acts. And the book of Acts is the history of what happened after Easter with the creation of Jesus church. So we are in a wonderful season of Easter.
Welcome to worship. I invite you to stand as you're able and join me as we give thanks for our baptism. Allelujah.
Christ is risen. >> Christ is risen indeed. Hallelujah.
>> Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the lamb. >> Amen. >> Let us give thanks for the gift of baptism.
Merciful God, you are the one who was, who is, and who is to come. You lead us beside still waters. We thank you for the waters of creation, morning dew, gentle rain, roaring waves.
We thank you for the waters that nourish us. Blessed are you, >> Jesus Christ. You are the faithful witness who accompanies us on our journeys.
We give you thanks for your lifegiving death and resurrection. We praise you for joining us in joy and sorrow. Blessed are you.
>> Holy Spirit. You anoint our head with oil and our cup overflows. Break down barriers that divide us.
Fill us with a breath of peace. Blessed are you. >> Holy one.
We thank you for the gifts and grace of baptism and for making us a new creation. We join with saints and angels giving you honor and praise now and forever. Open the eyes of my heart, Lord.
Open the eyes of my heart. I want to see you. I want to see you.
Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart. I want to see you.
I want to see you. To see you. Shining in the light of your glory.
Pour out your power and love as we sing. Holy, holy, holy. Open the eyes of my heart, Lord.
Open the eyes of my heart. I want to see you. I want to see you.
Open the eyes of my heart, open the eyes of my heart. I want to see you. I want to see you.
Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy. I want to see you. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
>> Glory to you for yours is the earth. Yours is the promise, the blessing, the birth. the rejoicing for giving praise.
The thanksgiving to your holy name must be the telling of deeds. Yours be the glory of God. Yours alone.
Glory to you God for yours is the earth. Your soul hosana as the dying rebirth. Hearts are rejoicing for nature.
Hearts of thanksgiving to your holy name. Mars be the day. Yours be the glory of all yours alone.
Glory to you God for yours is the earth. Yours the anointing the radiant word. Hearts are rejoicing for spirits of pain.
The thanksgiving to your holy name. Be the tell of me the glor. >> The Lord be with you.
>> Let us pray together. Almighty and eternal God, the strength of those who believe and the hope of those who doubt. May we who have not seen have faith in you and receive the fullness of Christ's blessing who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
>> Amen. >> Please be seated. I invite children to visit with me for a few minutes.
I'm glad you're here. Are you glad you're here? Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
and you know where the words came from that came out of my mouth, but it's a special message to you directly from God. Um, in a wonderful way, it wasn't all that long after Easter that people began to think about what what does this mean? What what in the world is what is it going to be for us?
And years later, a wonderful disciple who was in the middle of all that confusion and couldn't figure it out, had really come to understand. And he wrote a wrote a letter. You're going to hear it in a minute to a church sort of like this, but not nearly as big.
And in the letter he begins by writing saying, "Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By his great mercy, he has given us a new birth into a living hope." Think about that. By his great mercy, he has given us a new birth into a living hope.
What in the world do you think that means? You've been given. You've been given.
I've been given. Every one of us has been given a new birth into a living hope. Have any idea what he's talking about?
It's right there in a font like that. Except at the time for for hundreds of years that baptismal font was much bigger. And in fact, you know, this is this is called a Lutheran church.
And back when Martin Luther, the guy whose name we sort of um we follow, the church he was baptized in, he was born in November, long before there was heat in the church. And there was this huge baptism. And the day after he was born, his mother carried him across the street into this big huge stone church without heat.
And they They washed him in that big baptismal font. Can you imagine being a tiny baby? And what they did was they put their hands over your face so you wouldn't choke.
And they put you all the way under the water. All the way under the water. He's given us a new birth.
I don't know that I would even remember that if I were a tiny baby like that. But that was the way they began to think. Well, you know, sometimes that didn't work out too well.
Sometimes they you might you could get sick. You could do those kinds of things. So today, we didn't I doubt that somebody picked you up as a baby and put you all the way in that water.
We just we can use a little bit of water to remind us that we've been given we've been able to be born all over again into a new way of life in holy baptism. Before you were even remember it, you were born all over again. You were born the first time a mother a daughter of your mother and father and you were born a son of your mother and father and the new birth through holy baptism you were born a new into the family of God a child of God and that living hope means that you and I and all of us live differently from folks in the world we see things differently.
We feel things differently. We are different. Let's pray.
Dear God, >> God, >> holy are you. >> Wonderful are you. >> Merciful are you >> merciful are you?
>> You called us. called us >> and made us >> made us >> your children >> your children >> in a new birth >> in a new birth. >> Help us >> help us >> to live the life >> that you gave us >> Amen.
>> Thank you so much. A reading from the book of Acts of the Apostles. Peter standing with the 11 raised his voice and addressed the crowd.
Fellow Israelites, listen to what I have to say. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know. This man handed over to you according to the definite plan and fornowledge of God.
you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having released him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power. For David says concerning him, I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand, so that I will not be shaken.
Therefore, my heart was glad and my tongue rejoice. Moreover, my flesh will live in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades.
For let your holy one experience corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence.
Fellow Israelites, I may say to you comfortably of our ancestor David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with a note to him that he would put one of his descendants on the throne. For seeing this, David spoke to the resurrection of the Messiah, Satan.
He was not abandoned to nor did his flesh experience corruption. This Jesus God raised up and all and that of all of us are witnesses. The word of the Lord.
>> Thanks be to God. >> We continue with the song. presence there is fullness of joy.
In your presence there is fullness of joy. Protect me, oh God, for I take refuge in you. I have said to the Lord, you are my Lord, my above all.
Oh, my delight is in the godly that are in the land upon those among the people. But those who run afteralluchy Oh Lord, you are my portion and my cup. It is you uphold my boundaries.
I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel. My heart teaches me night after the Lord is at my right. I shall not be shaken there of joy.
My heart is glad and my body will show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy and in your right hand are the pleasures forever. In your presence there is fullness of joy.
A reading from first Peter. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By his great mercy, he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuiness of your faith being more precious than gold that perishable is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Although you have not seen him, you love him.
And even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy. For you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your soul. The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God. >> Hallelujah. Hallelu shall we go with eternal life.
Halleluah. Halleluah. Hallelu.
>> The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the 20th chapter. >> Glory to you, Lord.
>> When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After He had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you." As the Father has sent me, so I send you.
When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.
But Thomas, who was called the twin, one of the twel, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." A week later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands.
Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt, but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God." Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Lest are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book.
But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. The Gospel of the Lord. >> Praise to you, Christ.
>> Please be seated. Have you seen Jesus, my Lord? He's here in plain view.
It's a refrain from a song that was popular in my campus ministry days at Newberry College back in the 1980s. And it's the testimony of holy scripture in the Sundays of Easter. It's about what you see and don't see.
It was true for disciple Peter 50 days after Easter when onlookers scoffed at what they saw, assuming that believers of Jesus were simply public drunks. It was true that first Easter evening when Jesus appeared before frightened and confused disciples hiding behind locked doors. All day long they had struggled to comprehend the shocking message that the women brought back from Jesus tomb.
The women saw the tomb. They saw that it was empty. There was no body there.
only the burial shrouds that had wrapped Jesus dead body. Peter and John saw what the women saw. Jesus empty tomb, the body gone.
The women had seen angels. Mary Magdalene had seen the risen Lord Jesus. She claimed none of the others had seen what these women claimed to have seen.
To this group of confused and bewildered followers, the risen Jesus came. His first words to them were powerful. Peace be with you.
What an incredible blessing. and those first words because the guilt they bore from that Thursday night in the garden of Gethsemane when Judas brought the arrest soldiers to arrest Jesus had been insurmountable. They saw what was happening and they all fled.
Every single one of them. When the time came to love and serve Jesus before the world, they all failed. Peace.
It's a word they recognized and a voice that's even more recognizable. It's a voice that speaks a word to calm their deepest fears and address their deepest guilt. A voice that calls them back to mission and ministry in this world.
As the Father has sent me, he told them, so I send you. St. John remembered he breathed on them that night.
The same lifegiving spirit that God had breathed into creation in Genesis and gave them the authority that's reserved for God Almighty alone to speak God's word of forgiveness to all who repent. wonderful almost unbelievable things they saw and heard that night except Thomas. He wasn't there.
He didn't see what they saw. He didn't hear what they heard. Neither were we.
Neither did we. Nor were the women of the friendly women's circle of Harmony friends meeting house. a memory that's created for us in the mind of Quaker minister and author Philip Gully.
The circle, he tells us, was established in 1898 to uplift and preserve all that is magnificent. But magnificence being in short supply in harmony, Galilee wrote, they moved on to other things. Their main goal these days, he said, is to raise money for brother Norman's shoe ministry to the Chalkaw Indians.
Their aim is to never see a shoeless chalk, which they have accomplished. The friendly women circle main fundraiser since 1964 has been the chicken noodle dinner which is held every September during harmony's corn and sausage days. But in 1974, Fern Hampton, then the president of the circle, decided the women needed to diversify their business interests.
And it was the pastor Sam Gardener's own grandmother to whom the inspiration came. Maybe she said we could make a quilt, take three months off in the winter and use that time to stitch a quilt that we could then raffle off at the chicken noodle dinner. So that's what they have done every year since 1974.
They meet every Tuesday morning at 9:00, every January, February, and March. My first year as their pastor, Sam Gardner reported, was the 25th anniversary of the Friendly Women's Circle Quilt sale. And it was also Fern's time to be the president again.
It being an anniversary year, Fern and the ladies were especially concerned about magnificence. We want this one, she said, to shimmer. Fern and the ladies were especially divided to the whole effort.
15 years from now, she said, we want people to look back on this quilt and quiver. Let's aim for the heavens. They spent three months drawing sketches.
They set aside a morning to pray over the quilting frame. They laid hands on it and began to pray. Fern started to shake.
It's a sign, she told the others. God has great things in store for this quilt. I can feel it.
They began stitching in January. On the last week of March, they came to the church basement every day but Sunday. They finished the last week of March and it was magnificent.
They carried it up from the basement and they hung it from the wall at the front of the meeting room in back of the pulpit. People walked into worship talking about sciatica and rheumatism and gas mileage. Then they saw the quilt and fell quiet, aruck.
I could hardly bring myself to preach, Sam reported. I cut it short. They weren't paying attention to me anyway.
We settled into silence, waiting for the Lord to speak. Five minutes passed. Then 10 minutes passed.
Then Fern's voice rose from the sixth row in the back. I see him. She said, "Look, he's right there.
Look at the quilt. He's in the quilt." All across the meeting room, people raised their eyes. I heard more gasp.
And then I saw him dead center in the quilt. At least it looked like Jesus. Then just that quick, he was gone.
We were so startled, Sam recalled, that we forgot to take up the offering. Instead, they called an emergency meeting of the elders. A hurried phone call to the local paper alerted the Associated Press.
And before long, little harmony was overflowing with religious pilgrims seeking to see what they saw. A week after Easter, there he was again, Jesus, the risen Lord. Suddenly there in the gathered community of disciples.
And this time, St. John recalls Thomas was with them. It was the same word of blessing that Jesus had pronounced on them.
Peace be with you. They can't hear this word of Jesus too much. They are guilty.
They all failed. And suddenly there he was risen from the dead. A living reminder of their failure and their shame.
and their guilt. Peace be with you. And then in a very special word for Thomas, put your finger here, he said.
Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Don't doubt, but believe. Thomas saw what we can't see.
Thomas touched what we can't touch. What a blessing. Then almost as if Jesus was thinking about people like you and me today and everyone who has come to faith in the risen Lord Jesus between that first Easter and this very day.
Jesus conferred a blessing on people like us. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. More than 50 years later, this first letter of Peter, a portion of which is our second reading today, comes to a community of believers that consisted entirely of people who had never seen or heard Jesus in the flesh.
But their faith had created in them a disruption of the ordinary so that the writer could speak of it only in terms of a new birth. By his great mercy, Peter wrote, "He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you." That faith community is not fictional harmony. This is the late 1st century AD.
These are ancient ancestors of Palestinian Christians today who are caught in the cofires, the violence and destruction in Gaza and the Holy Land. To them, Peter wrote, "In this you rejoice, even if for now a little while you've had to suffer various trials." We don't know and we can't know what it was like for them to suffer persecution because they were followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. But Peter's words reach across the millennia to us.
Although you have not seen him, you love him. And even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy. It's the blessing the risen Lord Jesus pronounced that night seven days after his resurrection.
It's the power of the Easter faith so strong that Christians under persecution have a peace and joy that violence can't destroy. Easter faith today is rooted and grounded in what you hear in the testimony of believers whose lives are visible testimony to the resurrection faith. I took to working at the meeting house early in the morning before the crowds arrived.
Sam Gardner recalled, "I came to my office early one morning to find Miriam Hodgej waiting for me." She said, "This has gotten out of hand." I said, "I know, but I don't think we should stop it. It might be from the Lord. We have to be careful." Miriam said, "Sam, I have something to tell you." I came back one evening when we were finishing up the quilt.
I wanted to finish the section. I was by myself. I was drinking my coffee and I spilled it all over the quilt.
I took it home and I cleaned it up as best I could and I brought it back the next morning. Sam, that's not the Lord we're seeing. That's Maxwell House.
Fern and the others, Sam said, took it better than expected at very wall. It really was a magnificent quilt. The Monday after Easter, Sam recalled, "I woke up early and I went and I sat back in the fifth row and I looked up at that quilt.
A small part of me wished it had been him. I found a certain joy in watching people step quietly into the meeting house, their hands clasped, seeking out the divine. Witnessing such raw hope, such pure belief was a quiet thrill for me.
But in my more thoughtful moments, he said, I'm glad it wasn't Jesus. It troubled me that people would drive 300 miles to see Christ in a quilt, but they wouldn't walk next door to see Christ in their neighbor. I think we ought to look for Christ in the poor, in the common, in the lady that rings up our groceries, in the man that mops the grocery floor, and the kid who delivers our pizza.
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. Our Lord confers on us this for faith forming Easter blessing. The experience of the first century church testifies to the faithfulness of Jesus promise in the lives of all those who come to faith in Jesus Christ through the testimony of other believers.
Have you seen Jesus, my Lord? He's here in plain view. It was that first Easter evening.
It was a week later. It was for the late first century church to which Peter's letters came. He is for faithful Christians in war torn Palestine, the Holy Land, and other places where persecution and violence seek to destroy the Easter testimony.
He is for believers who in the final stages of a terminal illness look beyond death to see Jesus. The risen Christ is as he promised. Present every time, every place a believer lives his or her faith openly and faithfully before the world.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah.
Heals the hurting that breaks the bearing burdens. My hands and feet of Jesus from the grave. My hands and feet of Jesus.
That's what I say. Visit in the homeless warm shelves and Jesus from the grave. hands and feet of Jesus.
I died to love and serve without each act of kindness, hope and are increased. See my hands and feet Jesus from the grave. My hands and feet of Jesus live to save children that share good tidings.
Christ still. See my hands and feetus from the grave. My hands and feet.
with the whole church. Let us confess our faith using the words of the apostles creed. >> I believe >> I believe in God the father almighty creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontious Pilot, was crucified, died, and was buried. >> He descended to the dead. >> On the third day, he rose again.
>> He ascended into he >> is seated at the right hand of the father. And he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of s, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
>> Amen. >> Trusting in the power of Christ's resurrection to heal and redeem our broken world, let us pray for the needs of all creation. Almighty God, you give life to the dead and call into existence things that are that do not exist.
Breathe your spirit upon us that our faith may be renewed day by day. Merciful God, >> receive our pray. >> Maker of heaven and earth, your mercies are new every morning.
Open us to the wonders of creation. From the beauty of flowers to the complexity of subatomic particles. Merciful God, our pray.
>> God of peace, in every place where conflict rages, so seeds of calm and openness to reconciliation. Strengthen the resolve of leaders and citizens to work for peace in their nations. A merciful God, >> receive our pray.
Healing God, come alongside all who are doubting, fearful, or suffering in any way, especially those we now, whether silently or aloud. Reveal to them your presence and assure them of the inheritance you have prepared for them. Merciful God, >> receive our pray.
>> Giver of joy, let this assembly be a place of genuine love and mutual affection. Deepen our care for one another and help us to embody your forgiving and sacrificial love. Merciful God, our pray.
>> Eternal one, we give thanks for saints who were faithful unto death and have joined the church triumphant. Inspire us by their witness and bring us with them into your glorious presence. Mercul God, >> receive our pray.
>> God of resurrection power, use us and these prayers to proclaim the good news of life and new life to all the world through Jesus Christ our risen savior. >> Amen. >> The peace of the Lord be with you always.
>> And also with you. >> As you're comfortable, share a sign of God's peace. Can you There's a new song of freedom.
Every race and every nation sing it out. Sing a new hallelu. Let us sing love to the nations.
Bringing hope of the grace that has freed us. Make it known and make it. Sing it out.
Sing a new hallelu. Let the church reach to the other side. Come on.
Let the strise the world sings a new song with a new hallelu every single Hallelujah. Let the church reach to the other side. Let the church reach to the other side.
Come alive. Let us all seek a new hallelu. Everyone sing a new hallelu.
Let the fruit of blessing from the seeds that were sown that we may be fed with the bread of life and the dreams of all them with the prayers we offer. Raise our table with your presence and give us a taste of the feast to let us pray together. Merciful God, accept the fruits of our labor gathered to give you glory.
You have set a table before us, a glimpse of that great day when we will hunger and thirst no more. Nourish us with the body and blood of Jesus that goodness and mercy may follow us and bless the world you love in the name of Jesus. Amen.
>> The Lord be with you. >> And also with you. >> Lift up your hearts.
>> We lift them to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. >> It is right to give our thanks and praise.
>> It is indeed right, our duty and our joy that we should at all times and in all places give thanks and praise to you, almighty and merciful God. Through our savior Jesus Christ, you call your people to cleanse their hearts and prepare with joy for the fascal feast that renewed in the gift of baptism, we may come to the fullness of your grace. And so with all the choirs of angels, with the church on earth and the host of heaven, we praise your name and join their unending hymn.
Holy Lord God of power and God of heaven and earth are full of your gloryana in the highest. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lordana in the highest. in the highest.
Blessed are you, oh God of the universe. Your mercy is everlasting and your faithfulness endures to all in ages. Praise to you for creating the heavens and the earth.
Praise to you for saving the earth from the waters of the flood. Praise to you for bringing the Israelites safely through the sea. Praise to you for leading your people through the wilderness to the land of milk and honey.
Praise to you for the words and deeds of Jesus, your anointed one. Praise to you for the death and resurrection of Jesus. Praise to you for your spirit poured out on all nations.
In the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat. This is my body given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me." Again, after supper, he took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it for all to drink, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for you and for all people, for the forgiveness of sin.
Do this for the remembrance of me. With this bread and cup, we remember our Lord's Passover. from death to life as we proclaim the mystery of faith.
>> Christ has died. Christ will come again. >> Oh God of resurrection and new life.
Pour out your holy spirit on us and on these gifts of bread and wine. Bless this feast. Grace our table with your presence.
Reveal yourself to us in the breaking of the bread. Raise us up as the body of Christ for the world. Breathe new life into us.
Send us forth burning with justice, peace, and love. Holy Spirit, >> with your holy ones of all times and places, with the earth and all its creatures, with sun and moon and stars, we praise you, oh God, blessed and holy Trinity, now and forever. >> Lord, remember us in your kingdom and teach us to pray.
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. 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 forever and ever. >> Amen. >> Come to the table of new life.
Receive the risen Lord. Thank God. Lamb of God, you take the s of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take the s of the world, have mercy on us. Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, grant us peace. Grant us Love your dwelling.
Oh Lord Almighty, for my soul longs and even for you within your presence. I sing the shadow of your wings. There is one day in your courts.
There is one day in your house. There is one day in your courts. better in your courts in your house.
is one day in your courts and thousandswhere. One thing I ask and I would see to see your beauty to find you in the place your glory dwell and I would To see your beauty, to find you in the place your glory dwells in your courts in your house in your courts and thous elsewhere. There is one day in your courts.
There is one day in your house. There is one day in your courts. My heart and cry out for you the living God.
Your spirit's water for my soul. I've tasted, I see. Come on to me.
I will draw near you. I will draw near to you. To you.
In your house. Better is one day in your courts. Thousandswhere.
Better is one day in your courts. Better is one day in your house. Better is one day in your courts.
Thousandswhere. Thousandswhere. Thousandswhere.
House. Pray together. Jesus.
Amen. >> It's a holy and privilege we have this day to extend the table of God's love with home communions. If you're delivering those on our behalf, would you come forward?
Thank you. Thank you. Let's pray.
Gracious God, loving all your family with a mother's tender care, as you sent the angel to feed Elijah with heavenly bread, assist us in this ministry on which we set forth. In your love and care, nourish and strengthen those to whom we bring this sacrament, that through the body and blood of your son, we all may know the comfort of your abiding presence. Amen.
>> Amen. >> Thank you. Receive the blessing.
God Almighty, who in the beginning and the end, Jesus Christ, the firstborn of the dead, and the spirit, our advocate and peace, bless you now and forever. Amen. >> Amen.
Hallelujah. We sing your praises. All our hearts are filled with gladness.
Hallelujah. We sing your praises. All your hearts are filled with gladness.
Hallelujah. We sing your praises. All our hearts are filled with gladness.
Hallelujah. We sing your praises. All our hearts are glad to.
I am wine. I am bread. I am wine.
I am bread. Christ, I am wine. I am bread.
I am I am bread. Hallelujah we sing your praises. All our hearts are filled with gladness.
Hallelujah we sing your praises. All our hearts are filled with gladness. Hallelujah.
We sing your praises. All our hearts are filled with gladness. Hallelujah.
We sing your praises. All our hearts are filled with gladness. Now in faith of doubt in faith of doubt the world the joyful now he sends us all out in faith of doubt in faith of doubt all the joyful goel we sing your praises all the hearts are filled with gladness Hallelujah.
We sing your praises. All our hearts are filled with gladness. Hallelujah.
We sing your praises. All the hearts are filled with gladness. Hallelujah.
We sing your praises. All the hearts are filled with gladness. >> We have just a few announcements.
We thank everyone who planned, orchestrated, assisted, and participated in Easter Sunday's worship and brunch. Together we celebrated Christ's glorious resurrection with faithfulness, thanksgiving, and joy. Uh today, young youth will meet at 3:30, followed by the youth group at 4:30.
If you haven't already done so, please remember to fill out your tear and share form located in the back of your worship bulletin this Sunday and every Sunday and place it in the offering plate or give it to one of the ushers when you leave. This is important for our attendance records and an opportunity to indicate you have for prayer requests. Um any additional announcements, opportunities to serve our community, and other important information can be found in the grace notes emailed weekly on Tuesday.
If you are not currently receiving this enemy statement together, we share God's grace by welcoming all people, growing together in faith, and joining God's work in our community. Hallelujah. >> Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Transcript shared for reflection. Words belong to Grace Lutheran Church - Rock Hill, SC.