A Christian Church at Easter
The Bass River Pastoral Charge
The Presbyterian Church in Canada
St. Mark’s, Bass River; St. James, Beersville; St. Andrew’s, Clairville & Zion, West Branch
Organists: Heather Morton, Marly Sutherland, Rodney Girvan, Dolly MacDonald, Shanece Wilson
Minister: Rev. Alexander [Sandy] D. Sutherland; B.A., B.Th. M.Div
Manse #: 506-785-4383 Cell #: 506-521-0705 Email: thebrpc@gmail.com Twitter: thebrpc
Bulletin Announcements: Cathy Little @ Fillmore Trucking #785-1083
ORDER OF SERVICE
Easter Sunday
April 24th 2011
Welcome & Announcements
Our church Web page [www.pccweb.ca/brpc] is up and running, and ready for contributions
*Tuesday Morning Bible Study –This Tuesday the bible study will be taking a break but everything will be up and running the next Tuesday May 3rd at 10am at the Manse [3279 Route 465]. All are welcome.
Tuesday Bible School 6:30-7:30pm in Clairville at 1220 Rte 465 [Marie Fillmore’s]. All children are welcome.
*Wednesday Evening Bible Study –Starting May 4th 2011 at 7pm at the home of Jessie Kelly [1972 Route 495]. The theme is Prayer and Praise.
*Easter Holy Week Celebrations: Thank you everyone who helped out over the Easter Events and services.
Synod Prayer Support Initiative – prayers for the congregations of the Tatamagouche Pastoral Charge served by Rev. Mary-Anne Grant.
Richiboucto Food Bank NEW LOCATION
8 Centennial Street Rexton [by Presto-Stitch]
Drop-off days are Wednesdays and Thursdays.
*30 Hour Famine – the youth and young adults of the congregation have begun planning this special fund raising campaign to support children in need world wide. Please encourage them, and support them, especially in prayer.
*The condolences of the congregation are exzend to the family and friends of Hattie Childs who passed away last week, her funeral was on Tuesday at Thompson’s funeral home.
- A week ago our friend and sister Marion Robinson was called unto the eternal fellowship. This has been a shock for many, a struggle for her family, and powerful loss in many ways to the life and work of our church and churches in the area. Rev. Galen Smith and I shared in the leadership of her funeral this week, with musical leadership provided by Bev and Heather. Flowers in the sanctuary today are placed in memory of Marion.
- {Clairville}The liles on the table are placed in memory of
The BRPC EMAILING LIST –email thebrpc@gmail.com to be added
Call to Worship He is Lord
Prayer of Approach & Confession & The Lord’s Prayer (NBoP 831; BoP 605)
Opening Praise: BoP 197 Now let the vault of heaven resound
Special
Responsive Reading – Psalm 22 [BoP 623]
Children’s story –
Children’s Hymn: NBoP/overhead 250 Lord of the dance
Scripture Readings: C _________ Tracy Ryan [Abby?] BR___________ Jean Chilcott
OT – Isaiah 25:6-9
6 On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare
a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine—
the best of meats and the finest of wines.
7 On this mountain he will destroy
the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
8 he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears
from all faces;
he will remove the disgrace of his people
from all the earth.
The LORD has spoken.
9In that day they will say,
“Surely this is our God;
we trusted in him, and he saved us.
This is the LORD, we trusted in him;
let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”
Epistle – Colossians 3:1-11
1Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Hymn of Illumination: BoP 216 Rejoice the Lord is King
Scripture Readings: C___________ BR_____________
Gospel – Matthew 28:1-10
1After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
2There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
5The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”
8So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
Sermon: Raised with Christ
Whether it is a diet, or kicking a bad habit, or simply trying to settle into a new job or a new neighbourhood, teaching ourselves to focus on the present and future can be difficult. Even when we are making a deep concerted effort to set ourselves on a new path in life can feel so difficult.
In a garden by a tomb in a cave those who had been looking back and only seeing the past were awaken to a wondrous and endless future.
That is where the Christian message really begins its transformation. Up until that point all of Christ Jesus teaching could have been reasonably reached through the philosophies coming from the writings of Moses and the prophets. Even the idea of resurrection is not outside accepted doctrine of the Jewish faith.
But the event of resurrection is something altogether, especially a resurrection that takes place in the midst of time and not as the conclusion of time.
But Christ’s resurrection is the beginning of a new era in human history, and of the understanding of what it means to be human. Even the religions that do not claim the same truths as the Christian faith, all the world religions have been touched and have become answerable to the teaching of a resurrected Christ of God. There is more power within the Christian faith than we often give it credit for.
We often see Christianity as this archaic, ancient, institution that had its best years somewhere in our parent’s or our grandparents lifetimes. For many of our children, the idea of being a part of the church is about as attractive as they find a good feed of brussel-sprouts and liver; appealing to none but a few.
We should seek for the living examples that we have been given about living as those given new life. Resurrection in Christ means more than simply a second chance. It is a goal in our faith that we both sense and are drawn towards fulfillment. And we call this fulfillment love. This is the first promise of the resurrection, it is the revelation of God. We ARE meant to see and recognize God, and know what God is doing, and rejoice that God has not hidden himself from us, but is very real, very apparent throughout our lives, and compelling his people to see how much we are loved, and to love each other in the same measure.
And for the most part we will only see our children and grandchildren as a regular part of this fellowship if the full invitation is offered to them. I believe that is part of our problem, that the roles and rules of being a part of the church are so set in stone that someone new to the church can have a hard time settling in. So & so looks after this part of the life and church, and so & so ‘always’ makes sure that these other things are looked after, and we become so focused on who does things, and who has always done things, that we take very little time to attend to who is going to look after things, and blindly hoping that someone will be there.
Well, what does all this have to do with the resurrection message?
Simply this, that the whole reason Jesus died was to take away the sins that separate us from each other, and especially ‘put to death’ all those things that separate us from God. The apostle Paul wrote: “5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry”
See, what is happening in many church and what has its hooks here in our fellowship, is an ongoing struggle between the worship of God and the worship of something else. The last on the list that was in our reading from the letter to the Colossians is a problem that has creeped into our churches over many centuries until some of these churches have stopped worshiping Christ. There are many churches today that have stopped worshipping Christ and worship instead the walls of the building, the glass in the windows, the foundation stones, or even the stones in the graveyard. There are congregations within our denominations who would rather be certain that the graveyard gets tended to, or the church building stays standing, than to gather anyone else into the fellowship.
Wouldn’t it be better to not simply have someone come in and sit and see how we do our faith, but that we welcome them to be a part of what we believe. Jesus invitation was not simply to come in and sit down, but to go out and serve. When we do gather it is a better use of our time to recognize each other and seek to discover each other’s purpose in Christ.
There are gifts and abilities for the work of Christ in this fellowship that you do not know anything about. There are people coming into our church wanting to know how to use and apply what they have and what they know to some purpose, and we are missing it if all we do is invite someone to come in and sit down and see how worship is done.
We really need to invite each other to see above the same-ol’ building with the same-ol’ people, and really glorious fellowship that is supposed to be going on in this place and coming out of this place to change our world, even if that change is only happening in our little communities. The second promise found in the resurrection is the promise of ‘welcome’.
It begins with the resurrection; recognizing that that Jesus’ resurrection is not something limited to the past, but an event that is open and available to all the ages, even ours, even our children’s. That open door of faith, that beginning of feeling the resurrection is not going to come from some terrific sermon, or some insightful children’s story, or from the best sung favourite hymn, a person’s new faith is in the first words of the resurrected Christ. “Greetings”
And we all need to be welcoming like Christ. We need to welcome people into Christian life as more than observers, but as participants. Have you shared your work and mission in Christ with the children in your life, with the rest of your family, with your friends and neighbours?
And so, the hardest part of this message is getting over our fears enough to be able to do it. And this brings us to the last great promise fulfilled in the resurrection. That there is nothing that God cannot recover from. If you try to mission for Christ and you fall flat on your face, and if you stumble, and if you get confused or embarrassed, do you really doubt that God can put everything back together? Do you doubt that God cannot make it work for good?
“Do not be afraid”, says Jesus, “go and tell the others of our fellowship to go on, and where they go they will see me.”
Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession
God’s Tithes and our gifts
Doxology (NBoP 830; BoP 603)
Offertory Prayer
The Lord’s Supper (Communion) handout
Commissioning Hymn: BoP 201 Thine be the glory
Benediction
Dismissal: Alleluia, Alleluia give thanks to the risen Lord [NBoP 260]
Today’s bulletin covers are provided by the family of Ruby (Warren) Clark in her memory
We are glad to be a welcoming fellowship, and we hope you find a wonderful fullness of spirit in today’s worship. If you are visiting, or are new to the community we hope you will get to know us, as we are very glad to have you be a part of this loving community.