Third Sunday of Easter 4/18/21
Easter 3 4.21. DS1 with music PDF
THE THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER
APRIL 18, 2021
ST. PAUL’S LUTHERAN CHURCH, FALLS CHURCH, VA
✠ ✠ ✠
PRELUDE Christ Is Arisen Setting: Joseph Herl
WELCOME
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
ENTRANCE HYMN #459 Christ Is Arisen
(Melody available on PDF)
1 Christ is arisen
From the grave’s dark prison.
So let our joy rise full and free;
Christ our comfort true will be. Alleluia!
2 Were Christ not arisen,
Then death were still our prison.
Now, with Him to life restored,
We praise the Father of our Lord. Alleluia!
3 Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
Now let our joy rise full and free;
Christ our comfort true will be. Alleluia!
INVOCATION
In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
CONFESSION AND FORGIVENESS
Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we come into the Lord’s presence on this day, it is right for us to examine our lives in light of the will of God, to confess our sins, and to ask for God’s forgiveness. We do this in the sure and certain hope that God will keep His promise and give us the gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation for the sake of Jesus Christ. Let us then take time to recall the ways we have failed to uphold God’s Law this week and confess these sins to Him.
(We observe a moment of silence for self-reflection.)
Most merciful God,
We confess our inability to be faithful in our promises to you and to walk in the way of Christ. We have neglected to serve others and have sought our own well-being rather than good for all. Acknowledging our sin, we look to you for mercy and healing. Strengthen our faith, increase our hope, and guide us in the path of humble service. Amen.
In the mercy of almighty God, Jesus Christ was given to die for us, and for His sake God forgives us all our sins. To those who believe in Jesus Christ He gives the power to become the children of God and bestows on them the Holy Spirit. May the Lord, who has begun this good work in us, bring it to completion in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
KYRIE
In peace let us pray to the Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For the peace from above and for our salvation let us pray to the Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For the peace of the whole world, for the well-being of the church of God, and for the unity of all let us pray to the Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
For this holy house and for all who offer here their worship and praise let us pray to the Lord.
Lord, have mercy.
Help, save, comfort and defend us, gracious Lord.
Amen.
THIS IS THE FEAST
This is the feast of victory for our God.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Worthy is Christ, the Lamb who was slain, whose blood set us free to be people of God.
This is the feast of victory for our God.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Power, riches, wisdom and strength, and honor, blessing, and glory are His.
This is the feast of victory for our God.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Sing with all the people of God, and join in the hymn of all creation.
Blessing, honor, glory, and might be to God and the Lamb forever. Amen.
This is the feast of victory for our God.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
For the Lamb who was slain has begun His reign. Alleluia.
This is the feast of victory for our God.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
THE PRAYER OF THE DAY
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Let us pray. O God,
through the humiliation of Your Son You raised up the fallen world. Grant to Your faithful people, rescued from the peril of everlasting death, perpetual gladness and eternal joys; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
✠ ✠ ✠
THE LITURGY OF THE WORD
FIRST LESSON Acts 3:11-21
While [the lame man who was now healed] clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s, astounded. And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.
“And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.”
This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
PSALM 4
Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!
You have given me relief when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!
O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?
How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?
But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself;
the Lord hears when I call to him.
Be angry, and do not sin;
ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.
Offer right sacrifices,
and put your trust in the Lord.
There are many who say, “Who will show us some good?
Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!”
You have put more joy in my heart
than they have when their grain and wine abound.
In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen.
SECOND LESSON 1 John 3:1-7
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.
This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
ALLELUIA VERSE
Alleluia.
Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
Alleluia, alleluia.
GOSPEL Luke 24:36-49
The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the 24th chapter.
Glory to You, O Lord.
As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
This is the Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to You, O Christ.
SERMON
“Christ is risen, Alleluia! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!”
It is often difficult to fit the narrative of John’s Gospel into the time-line that is in the 3 Synoptic Gospels. Today’s Gospel is one of those happy exceptions. The Johannine Gospel we read last week about Jesus’ appearance to the 10 (when Thomas was absent) is the same we have here in Luke. In Luke this concludes Jesus’ appearance to Cleopas and his unnamed friend on the road to Emmaus. They had hurried back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples that they had seen Jesus alive. In the locked room where the disciples were hiding, Jesus appeared to the Ten and some others which included Cleopas. Jesus showed them His hands and His side. And though Cleopas had just seen Jesus alive, he seems shocked with all the rest because Luke says they all thought they were seeing a ghost.
I want you to really wrestle with resurrection today, focusing on the moment Luke captured in vs. 37: “They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.” They saw Him arrested and beaten; some were at His agonies on the cross, and the women witnessed Joseph putting His body in that new tomb. At the moment Luke is describing, the disciples know only the cold finality of death and their own fears. It was easier for Jesus to conquer death, easier to lay aside His grave cloths and walk out of His tomb than it was to convince His disciples that He was, as you confessed again today: “Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia.”
Their terror and the word Luke used for it is the same word the Septuagint used to describe Israel’s reaction to God’s appearance on Mt Sinai in Exodus 19. Terrified at all they saw and heard, they cowered in fear at the foot of the mountain. This ancient word describes the human reaction to a Theophany, to an appearance of God. So the word Luke used to describe the disciples’ fear is important. While they tremble with fear, it is the fear that comes when God is appearing to them. They called what they saw a ghost, but Luke was calling Him God. And then, ever so smoothly, Luke leads to the glorious word, “I AM!” “Touch me and handle me! Ghosts don’t have hands and feet. I AM MYSELF.” In Luke uses the name for God Himself, “I AM” as He reveals Himself truly and physically alive.
In this long text, Luke clearly shows the Apostles stumbling as they wrestled with resurrection. He uses the same word in vs 41 that he used to describe their rejection of the women’s report at early dawn (vs 11): “…they were marveling and disbelieving all at once.” Then Jesus asked for food. He had already eaten with Cleopas and his household at the end of the Emmaus appearance, but He asked for food to show them how real He was, to drag them from unfaith to faith. We freely sing, “For Christ the Lord has risen and our joy shall have no end,” but taking all of resurrection in takes struggle.
During that night appearance, as the disciples begin to grasp this incredible and new thing, Jesus taught them. He opened the Scriptures to show that this had always been God’s plan. He reminded them of His repeated announcement of His death and resurrection: “These are my words that I spoke to you before all these things, that it is necessary that all of the things proclaimed in Moses and the Prophets about Him – the Christ – had to be fulfilled.” “It has been written that the Christ suffer and rise out of the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness be preached in His Name in all the world.”
In the first lesson the Apostles began implementing that charge, preaching repentance and forgiveness. They did so after healing a man and linking his healing directly to the Risen Christ. To the people of Jerusalem they said, “You handed this Jesus over and rejected Him before Pilate….you killed the author of life, but God raised Him up. By faith in Him this man now walks.” Resurrection ties all of Scripture together, Jesus had said, and here the Apostles were saying it too, that resurrection held all of life together. We still say that in our Catechism: “In Baptism our old Adam should, by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die, and that daily a new man arise – resurrect – to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”
It is easier to repeat to each other, “Christ is risen, He is risen indeed,” than it is to rise up and live before God in righteousness and purity. Look at those sacred wounds from deep faith and confess the realness of Jesus’ harsh death – all for you – and then claw your way into that “new man daily rising up to live in righteousness!” Baptismal living is work. And by Baptism you “Were there when they crucified my Lord, you were there when they laid Him in the grave.” A Ghost is not good enough. Nor is the popular conclusion of our society which looks at the dead and imagines them “alive, looking down, and still guiding us.”
That’s not new. In Luke’s day the growing Gnostic movement proclaimed Jesus as a pure spirit, and ridiculed those who spoke of body and wounds and resurrection of the body. Folks dear to us, neighbors all around, are fixed on spiritual ideas that don’t need Jesus’ wounds, let alone His resurrection. And we are the generation to whom Jesus says, “forgiveness and repentance must be preached to everyone.” To hear how good the news of Easter is you have to squarely face the coldness of death, the endless headstones in our cemeteries, and your own mortality. The hymn writer rightly says, “Death doth pursue is all the way.”
While we wrestle with resurrection so that the size of this miracle fills us, while in our Baptism we join Jesus in His death and burial and are made to share in His resurrection, and while all of that wondrous good news will bring us to eternal life, we are the ones to whom Jesus has given the mission to bring forgiveness and this new life to our dying world. He brought us out of death to life, and now sends us to bring the lost ones nothing less. Tis so real a tiding that Jesus ate before them just to show them. What can you now do to the next one to show him or her the risen Christ. Those holy wounds in His hands which we still mark on our Paschal candle, transformed them and still transform us. Draw power from this Jesus to transform another. Jesus changed everything in all the world by rising up, taking off His grave cloths and walking out of the tomb alive. Then He began to change the world one disciple at a time.
Jesus does no less for us today. Go and show the world this Jesus, so others can share your joy.
“Christ is risen, Alleluia! He is risen indeed. Alleluia”
HYMN OF THE DAY #482 This Joyful Eastertide
(Melody available on PDF)
1 This joyful Eastertide
Away with sin and sorrow!
My love, the Crucified,
Has sprung to life this morrow: Refrain
Refrain
Had Christ, who once was slain,
Not burst His three-day prison,
Our faith had been in vain:
But now has Christ arisen,
arisen, arisen;
But now has Christ arisen!
2 Death’s flood has lost its chill
Since Jesus crossed the river;
Lover of souls, from ill
My passing soul deliver: Refrain
3 My flesh in hope shall rest
And for a season slumber
Till trump from east to west
Shall wake the dead in number: Refrain
APOSTLES’ CREED
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
OFFERING This Joyful Eastertide Setting: Bernard Wayne Sanders
PRAYERS OF THE CHURCH
Let us pray for the whole Church of God in Christ Jesus and for all people according to their needs.
Lord God, in Your presence we find fullness of joy and peace forevermore. As we endure this world’s sins and sorrows, renew in us a confidence of your presence among us and an eager anticipation of the resurrection to come, that we might live in joy and peace each day. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.
Heavenly Father, by the reconciliation accomplished through your Son’s offering on the cross You have made us Your children and gathered us into Your Holy Church. Bless and sustain your church through the preaching and living out of Your Word, that it might be a light to the nations and a refuge of peace in this world. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.
Lord God, through your Holy Word you teach, inspire, admonish and comfort us. Bless especially our catechumens in their learning of this Word, that they would grow in faith, hope and love, be filled with your Holy Spirit, resolve to live according to your commandments and confess the faith with joy and boldness. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Merciful Lord, give peace also to our homes and enliven them by Christ’s resurrected life. Let the forgiveness of sins reign among husband and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters. And assure those who live alone that they, too, are Your children, upheld by Your right hand and placed in the family of your church. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.
Almighty God, preserve our nation and its leaders, especially Joseph, our president, Ralph, our governor, and all our elected officials and representatives. Preserve order and decency through their hands and restrain the sins and deceptions of the lawless, that we may practice righteousness while awaiting the eternal peace promised in Christ’s wounds alone. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.
Gracious Father, as Your Son’s wounds brought gladness and peace to the troubled disciples, give Your presence and comfort to the hurting and troubled in our midst [especially _____________]. Comfort also those who mourn [especially _____________] with the blessed joy of Easter. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Your Son’s crucifixion the sins of your people have been blotted out. Remind us of this gift and refresh us in this faith as we receive the Sacrament of the Altar, making us fit partakers in repentance and filling us with joy in your presence. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.
All these things and whatever else You know that we need, grant us, Father, for the sake of Him who died and rose again and now lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God forever. Amen.
THE LORD’S PRAYER
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;
and 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.
BENEDICTION
The Lord bless us and keep us.
The Lord make His face shine on us
and be gracious to us.
The Lord look upon us with favor and ✠ give us peace.
SENDING HYMN #534 Lord, Enthroned in Heavenly Splendor
(Melody available on PDF)
1 Lord, enthroned in heav’nly splendor,
First-begotten from the dead,
You alone, our strong defender,
Lifting up Your people’s head.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
Jesus, true and living bread!
Jesus, true and living bread!
2 Though the lowliest form now veil You
As of old in Bethlehem,
Here as there Your angels hail You,
Branch and flow’r of Jesse’s stem.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
We in worship join with them;
We in worship join with them.
3 Paschal Lamb, Your off’ring, finished
Once for all when You were slain,
In its fullness undiminished
Shall forevermore remain,
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
Cleansing souls from ev’ry stain;
Cleansing souls from ev’ry stain.
4 Life-imparting heav’nly manna,
Stricken rock with streaming side,
Heav’n and earth with loud hosanna
Worship You, the Lamb who died,
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
Ris’n, ascended, glorified!
Ris’n, ascended, glorified!
ANNOUNCEMENTS
DISMISSAL
Go in peace. Serve the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
POSTLUDE Lord, Enthroned in Heavenly Splendor Setting: Donald Busarow
ALTAR FLOWERS: “All those in transition in work and life.” By Ian and Kristen C.
Acknowledgments
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Created by Lutheran Service Builder © 2021 Concordia Publishing House.
Christ Is Arisen Tune: Public domain Text: © 1969 Concordia Publishing House. Used by permission: LSB Hymn License no. 110005326
This Joyful Eastertide Text & Tune: Public domain
Lord, Enthroned in Heavenly Splendor Text and tune: Public domain
