This is Sunday’s service [a rough draft, anyway]. In the centre of the worship space we’ll lay out black fabric / card and on the top of that place an image – maybe one like this – blown up to A2 size. The Christ candle, when lit, will be placed on the image. The worship opens with the playing of Jubilate from Libera, and the words to the call to worship begin half way through the song [the ‘and’ at the beginning of the ctw is deliberate – it’s finishing a thought started by the song…it really only makes sense with the music…!]

Call to worship
And so love is unstoppable
even by death,
life is not destroyed
by having been through hell,
and light does not stay smothered
by the darkest of nights.

We are not people of fear anymore.
We know now how this story ends.

Jesus is risen
He is risen indeed

Welcome to worship.

hymn

Bible reading:
[probably Mark’s version of the resurrection, though that’s not confirmed…]

Reflection on the story

Prayer
We don’t know what really happened
or if we have the faith to believe whatever did
but the resurrection doesn’t depend on our faith

so come anyway.

We are too cynical for this:
We have trusted, and then lost, too often,
and we may need to sit this one out

but come anyway.

And, heaven knows,
we are probably waiting for it in the wrong place entirely
because life hasn’t come in the ways we thought it would before
and you have never done what we expected.

Come anyway,
right to where we are.

Prove us wrong
we pray

today.

amen.

Prayers for the world
We’ll invite the women to pray for the places in the world that are waiting for resurrection – to light tealights and place them onto the image on the floor.
– play Leonard Cohen’s ‘Anthem’

[I’m not sure we’ll use the following prayer – if so we’ll rework the above slightly to include it]

It’s easier to believe in a miracle that happened 2000 years ago
than to believe another could happen today
but your resurrection gives us the courage
to pray for the impossible,

so we do:

from systems of oppression, resurrect freedom
in acts of racism, resurrect love
where there is violence against women, resurrect justice
in places of destruction, resurrect a future

from the war in Iraq, resurrect peace
from the corruption in Zimbabwe, resurrect hope
from the bushfires and earthquakes, resurrect healing
out of financial collapse, resurrect liberation

out of our despair, resurrect promise
out of our fear, resurrect courage
out of our loneliness, resurrect compassion
out of our grief, resurrect life

we pray to believe the impossible can happen
we pray to live as though it will be so.

amen.

hymn

blessing:
Send us into the world, God
ready to encounter resurrection:
to point to love’s presence
to light another’s darkness
to speak your peace into the world’s pain.

and may we go as people who know there is another end to the story
and who will not live with fear anymore.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ…