My Top 10 Easter Candies of 2008

Candy Addict recently posted the Top 10 Candies We Want In Our Easter Basket.

In the spirit of Resurrection, I will share my top 10 Easter Candies for this year:

10.  The Chocolate Bunny (but not the Russell Stovers kind–that’s gross.  The Reese’s kind.  Are you catching a trend?)

9. Snickers Eggs

8.  Robin Eggs

7.  Jellybelly Jelly Beans

6.  Marshmallow Peeps

5.  Reese’s Pieces Pastel Eggs

4.  Cadbury Royal Dark Mini Eggs

3.  Cadbury Mini Eggs

2.  Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs

1.  Butterfinger Cream Eggs

Please Pray for Ryan

I don’t know Ryan. He commented on one of my Easter reflections from last year. He sounds dire:

Lord God,

Please let me end my sufferings, and let my loved ones live happily forever.

I emailed Ryan and he hasn’t responded.  I hope that you will pray for him as things sound rough for him right now.

Asbury Lent/Easter Reader

 

The Asbury 2008 Lent/Easter Reader, Abide, is available online.  If you are looking to share in a “community” of reading, please experience this daily reader with the Asbury Seminary Community.  Whether or not you are a member of the ATS community or not, we are all a member of the same community, the same Kingdom.

Beware, however, if you are looking for another devotional:

THIS IS NOT ANOTHER DEVOTIONAL GUIDE FOR THE COFFEE TABLE.  IT IS PART AND PARCEL OF OUR CONSTITUTION AS A COMMUNITY.  THE WORD OF GOD IS THE SUBSTANCE OF OUR LIFE TOGETHER. –

This is a way for the branches of the vine of Christ to experience the vine together.

Join us this lenten season.  You can find the reader aggregated on my sidebar.

Sundays of Easter

The UMC General Board of Discipleship has some great ideas for preaching the Sundays in Easter.

Interestingly, the article says:

“ Many congregations are not accustomed to sustained celebration. Many pastors who plan worship and preaching make use of the lectionary during the Advent/Christmas cycle and the Lent/Holy Week/Easter cycle, but are ready to follow a different approach when Easter Sunday has come and gone.

We say this as an acknowledgement of the many ways that pastors approach worship and preaching. In no way do we seek to discourage pastors and churches from staying with full use of the lectionary readings each week during Easter. We will continue to post lectionary-based music, preaching, and worship planning helps throughout the Easter season.”

The GBOD offers some suggestions for creating an “extended celebration” of Easter:

1. Forget about Easter and work with themes or sermon series, perhaps preaching through a book of the Bible or some portion of it.
2. Keep Easter in view but use your own ingenuity in choosing texts around which to plan worship and preaching.
3. Plan for worship and preaching a series making use of some of the “natural” connections and progressions in the Revised Common Lectionary. (Click here for the full list of RCL Easter readings, Year C.)

Using the lectionary, you could

1. track the Acts readings for a snapshot of the early church (though how you handle Pentacost later will need to come up)
2. follow the Revelation readings to “peer into the future.”
3. follow the John readings for an “empty tomb postscript”
4. or a few other ways including “our history” from the old testament readings

How is your church celebrating the time after Easter?

Beautiful Easter Reflections

Check out the Methoblog for an array of beautiful Easter reflections!

Father Frank from King of Peace Episcopal offers another Easter reflection: the Easter homily by John Chrysostom.

He Is Risen!

He Is Risen Indeed!

Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Give to your Church, O God, a bold vision and a daring charity, a refreshed wisdom and a courteous understanding, that the eternal message of your Son may be proclaimed as the good news of the age; through him who makes all things new, even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

More from today’s morning prayer. 

as we leave the desert.

At Easter we find a resurrected Christ. After a contemplative observance of Lent, it seems fair to pray for a sort of resurrection of our own lives–a deliverance from the desert, if you will.

A Prayer by Thomas Merton
from Thoughts in Solitude

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

“I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.”
Amen.

John Wesley

As we leave the desert, Lord, let us rise with Christ having died to the flesh and alive in Him. Forge in us the discipline of discipleship. Create in us the will, desire, and strength to sacrifice for you and seek your face each day. Remind us always of the desert, of Good Friday, and of a Saturday spent in a tomb. We give you glory for a Sunday morning, a stone rolled away, and victory. Amen

A Prayer for Late Holy Saturday Night

The Lord Almighty grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end. Amen.

Our help is in the Name of the Lord;
The maker of heaven and earth.

O God, make speed to save us.
O Lord, make haste to help us.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen. Alleluia.

Look down, O Lord, from your heavenly throne, and illumine this night with your celestial brightness; that by night as by day your people may glorify your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O God, your unfailing providence sustains the world we live in and the life we live: Watch over those, both night and day, who work while others sleep, and grant that we may never forget that our common life depends upon each other’s toil; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Texts for Holy Saturday

From the daily office lectionary, here is a sample of the texts for today, Holy Saturday:

“The Lord is my light and my salvation–whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life–of whom shall I be afraid?  When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall.  Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.”  Psalm 27:1-3

And where, O Lord, does this confidence come from?  Where is your stronghold?  With my enemies rallied against me, how shall I prevail?

Die to self, to live in grace, to resonate Christ.   Do not fight in a battle that is already won.  Clothe yourself in humilty and enter the stronghold of the Lord

“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.  And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes–I, and not another.”  Job 19:25-27a

When God gets under your skin, you must die to yourself in order to see God.  When God challenges your pride, shed your mortal self and gaze upon the redeemer.  Therein lies the beauty–to see Christ within your own self, with your own eyes, rather than rely solely on the testimony of another.

“Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.”  Hebrews 4:1

While the battle rages on, enter his rest–the stronghold of Christ.  To fall short of this promise is to die in battle.  However, to die to yourself and enter the rest is to rise again.