Easter Worship

Easter comes to us every year. As the years mount up, we find ourselves paying more attention to the details.  It would seem that as many times as we have heard the story and celebrated its message, it would be like reading a book for the tenth time.  The truth is that the worship is soul stirring no matter how many times we have heard the story.  I remember some old timers who were the caretakers of the family stories.  When we gathered we knew they were going to tell the stories again and we eagerly awaited the moment when the story was told and everyone remembered, laughed, and celebrated as if it was the first time the story had ever been told.    

What caused the response was the knowledge that it was our story.  It was the story of our family.  It was the story to which we belonged.  Somehow the story created a precious bond of unity and family.  So it is with the story of Resurrection Sunday.  We know when we leave Good Friday how the story is going to end and we cannot wait to hear it, to let it wash over us again, and to claim once more that it is our story.  We celebrate it because of what God has done for us and because we know it is the story of our family.  We belong to it and it belongs to us.  It enables us to know who we are.  It lets us know to Whom we belong.  It is a story that is full of life and one that gives us confidence born out of hope and faith that we are eternally a part of the family of God.   

Perhaps, part of the reason we pay more attention is because of what we bring to the moment of hearing the old story again.  As we are blessed with passing years, we know more and more people who have completed the journey Home.  Our awareness of God's grace and mercy grows with the passing of each day.  As I heard the resurrection message read and was overwhelmed by the glorious music of Handel filling the worship space, something stirred deep within it that could be understood to be Spirit telling me again that I, too, am a child of God and will one day know the joy of being Home with the Creator who breathed life into me.