good morning and a happy Easter to you all on this Easter Monday We've Come Away From New York now to Upstate New York just a little way from paing the town p a w l i n g and we're looking out onto a very different scene than the buildings of New York and Manhattan we're looking out onto lovely green fields and at the moment leafless Woodland um out onto the uh Hudson River Beyond and the Catskill Mountains and we're just having two or three days of relaxed time to celebrate Easter but what we wanted to do as we thought about the joy of Easter all the services that we have shared through well through lent and through Holy Week and then the joy of Easter day to say thank you to all of you Garden congregation members who have been so encouraging as we went through this journey from Ash weden day all the way through to Easter day and on this day the day after Easter we thought we would broadcast a morning prayer so that we had a feeling of being all together in the garden congregation but our Prime task is to say thank you for your encouragement and we have really been helped by that as we've gone along through our own pilgrimage through Lenton and Easter so here is morning prayer for the Easter season and a reflection on this first day of Easter tide after Easter Sunday oh Lord open our lips and our mouths shall Proclaim your praise in your Resurrection o Christ let Heaven and Earth Rejoice Allelujah blessed are you Lord God of our Salvation to you be pra praise and glory forever as once you ransomed your people from Egypt and led them to freedom in the promised land so now you have delivered us from the Dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of your risen son may we the first fruits of your new creation rejoice in this new day you have made and praise you for your Mighty acts Blessed Be god father Son and Holy Spirit blessed be God forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and [Music] mind and as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence oh God set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our Psalm is Psalm 118 for those of you who are following in daily prayer it's on page 826 oh give thanks to the Lord for he is good his Mercy endures forever let Israel now Proclaim his Mercy endures forever let the house of Aaron now Proclaim his Mercy endures forever let those who fear the lord Proclaim his Mercy endures [Music] forever in my constraint I called to the Lord the Lord answered and set me free the Lord is at my side I will not fear what can flesh do to me with the Lord at my side as my savior I shall see the downfall of my [Music] enemies it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put any confidence in flesh it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put any confidence in princes all the nations Encompass me but by the name of the Lord I drove them back they hemmed me in they hemmed me in on every side but by the name of the Lord I drove them back they swarmed about me like bees they blazed like fire among Thorns but by the name of the Lord I drove them back surely I was thrust to the brink but the Lord came to my help the Lord is my strength and my song and he has become my salvation joyful shouts of Salvation sound from the tents of the right the right hand of the Lord does mighty Deeds the right hand of the Lord raises up the right hand of the Lord does mighty Deeds I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord the Lord has punished me sorely but he has not given me over to death open to me the gates of righteousness the that I may enter and give thanks to the Lord this is the Gate of the Lord the righteous shall enter through it I will give thanks to you for you have answered me and have become my salvation the stone which the builders rejected has become the Chief Cornerstone this is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes this is the day that the Lord has made we will rejoice and be glad in it come oh Lord and save us we pray come Lord send us now Prosperity blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord we bless you from the house of the Lord the Lord is God he has given us light link the pilgrims with cords right to the horns of the Altar for you are my God and I will thank you you are my God and I will exalt you oh give thanks to the Lord for he is good his Mercy endures forever glory to the father and to the son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be World Without End Amen men a lesson from the 24th chapter of the Gospel of St Luke and beginning at the 13th verse this story takes place in the evening of Easter Day the day of Resurrection that very day two of them were going to a village named EMAs about 7even miles from Jerusalem and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened while they were talking and discussing together Jesus himself Drew near and went with them but their eyes were kept from recognizing him and he said to them what is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk and they stood still looking sad then one of them named cleopas answered him are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days and he said to them what things and they said to him concerning Jesus of Nazareth a man who was a prophet Mighty indeed word before God and all the people and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him but we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel yes and besides all this it is now the third day since these things happened moreover some women of our company amazed us they were at the tomb early in the morning and when they did not find his body they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said but him they did not see and Jesus said to them oh foolish ones and so of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory then beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself so they drew near to the Village to which they were going he acted as if he were going farther but they urged him strongly saying stay with us for it is toward evening and the day is now far [Music] spent so he went in to stay with them and when he was at table with them he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them and their eyes were opened and they recognized him and he vanished from their sight they said to each other did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road while he opened to us the scriptures and they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem and they found the 11 and those who were with them gathered together saying the Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to [Music] Simon then they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread is the most wonderful story and it complement all those stories that we were hearing read yesterday at the various Services stories about the women coming to the empty tomb and going back and reporting to the disciples about Peter and John running to the tomb and finding it just as the women said the Beloved disciple entered the tomb first and we told he saw and believed and then those disciples Peter and John went back home again but Mary you remember remained Weeping at the tomb and it is there that Jesus appears to her and makes himself known when she thinks that he is the gardener makes himself known by simply saying her name it's an act of kindness and it's a gentle one it's an act of love and she responds according in L with great wonder and is given her commission as the first Apostle of the Resurrection I have seen the Lord she says to the others it's a marvelous message but this one takes it further for here on shall we call it a Pilgrim Road out to the Village of AAS by these two Disciples of Jesus one we know is called cleath the other is unknown to us and those two disciples are joined by a third person whom we know is Jesus himself who first questions them about what has happened and then says to them was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer all these things and he makes known to them prophecies which have been fulfilled this is what he' said I have not come to destroy the law and the prophets I have come to fulfill them and he gives them a lesson in the scriptures as they walk along how marvelous to have been there at that time to hear Jesus himself expounding the scriptures and then at that time too they reach the door of the place that they're going to and evening is falling abide with us the traditional way abide with us for it is toward evening and the day is far spent and he goes in and sits at table with them and the Very sight of his hands breaking the bread and giving them this bread opens their eyes and they know it's Jesus energy returns Jesus is no longer there but his presence is within them and all around them and the energy returns from their slow steps to emus suddenly running back to Jerusalem we have seen the Lord the same message that Mary Magdalene had brought in the morning and the response now is the Lord has risen and has appeared to [Music] Simon I wanted to think a little bit about another Pilgrim many years later where in the year 381 ad and and someone set out on a pilgrimage probably from galissa or from the very south of France this Pilgrim was a well-to-do lady called agaria and she was no doubt accompanied because her wealth allowed her to be so by servants and those who would protect her on her journey she determined she would visit the holy places and so off she sat on this wonderful pilgrimage which we know about because on her way to all the holy places she visited she kept notebooks just scribbled down something each day and when she came back she set that out in an ordered account that sounds like the beginning of the Gospel of St Luke which we just read from I've set this out for you in an orderly account says Luke so that you too May understand garia does the same she is setting off for Jerusalem but she visits many other wonderful holy sites at that time the Roman Empire by then was ostensibly a Christian Empire Constantine had converted and his mother Helena had been around herself to the holy sights but here was aaria doing the same thing and she sent messages back to her sisters as she calls them which could either mean that she belonged to probably an informal religious community or she's just talking to fellow Christian sisters that she knows back at home whatever the reason we still have that account from all those years ago now I say this because many of you in watching the various services that flet and I have been attending and I've been preaching at throughout lent and particularly in the last few days of Holy Week and Easter itself those who don't come from an Episcopal or Catholic position have found certain confusions about what's going on and uh the sense of why on Easter Eve there is one service which seems to say that Easter has come and all the Allelujah begin and we're still not even approaching Nightfall well let's just look at that a little bit because this comes from longstanding Christian tradition and possibly we can go to aia's Diaries to show us why she came to Jerusalem and she spent three whole years there so she must have celebrated that service or those Services of Holy Week and Easter three times between the years 381 and 384 ad and in her notes of travel she says exactly how Christians in those days in that area which was totally Christian at that time how Christians in those days celebrated the feast and they did so by going to the holy places so on the eve of what we now call Palm Sunday which would have been the first day of the Jewish week a Sunday they all came together in Bethany because in the fourth gospel St John's gospel it says six days before the Passover they came to Bethany and you remember a feast is given for Jesus with Lazarus sitting beside him and Martha serving and Mary taking the precious ointment and bathing his feet said that the aroma of that filled the house and Jesus rebukes the disciple who causes criticism to be made of her for what he says is wasting this precious ointment Jesus says let her alone she has done a beautiful thing for me you have the poor with you always you will not always have me Christians met there and proclaimed the beginning with their Bishop proclaimed the beginning of Holy Week each day after that they would go to places which were associated with what was going on in the scriptures and they went in their hundreds on Palm Sunday they took all the children with branches cut from the trees and they reenacted the entry into Jerusalem Monday Tuesday Wes Wednesday on Thursday they met in the traditional place for the supper of the Lord and then they all went to Gethsemane and there and many of you will have been to the Garden of Gethsemane there in that Garden they celebrated the next part of the Liturgy taking it step by step and reenacting that just as St Francis reenacted the crib scene for the Italian people much much later but here are Christians living through Holy Week and in their hearts and Minds as they hear the gospels read and the stories told in their hearts and minds they themselves are being Christian pilgrims and Jesus is walking with them along a path of suffering and sorrow at that time the arrest in Gethsemane the Torches between the trees all of those things and then and on Good Friday they rehearse once more the conversations with pilate at the place where it was traditionally thought pilate sat to hear and speak with Jesus all of those things we did and at the same time when we came to the end of things on Good Friday then all things went into a solemn Darkness the next day agaria says on Holy Saturday itself but late in the evening torches were lit and all baptisms took place it was a time when the church saved up baptisms for that occasion and you remember it's in Thomases we saw baptisms happening at that service and this baptism was a a clothing of new pilgrims many of them were adults already and the clothing of them in white clothes to show that they were newly baptized Christians all of that happening with great semity and much torch light and that went on through until at midnight there was the Cry of Christ is risen he has risen indeed now that that instance is one truth about what's happening let's come back to that in a moment the next day they met again at the break of day to remember the story which we read of the women coming to the tomb and finding through the gray light that the tomb was empty the stone rolled away the young man sitting there closed in a white long white robe and you remember the young man says to them don't be afraid you're seeking Jesus of Nazareth he's not here he's risen remember he said to his disciples after I am risen I will go before you into Galilee there you will find him we read that part of the Gospel of St Mark at that ceremony and then the next day we came back again on Easter Day to Remember with great joy and orchestral instruments and the choir singing in a very loud way indeed of Gloria in exelis Deo all of that on Easter day and there Christians made their communion many of them had done so at the earlier service I believe that there are two truths attached to these two different ceremonies it seems strange nowadays and in big cities this is done so that people can come and safely go home in the the the hours of the evening but in truth it's still Easter Eve at that point and not Easter day yet uh originally it would have been held so that the service crossed over into midnight and then the cry would go up Christ is risen but now a particular truth is being given to us at that time and that truth is that something of Heaven's activity is happening without human Witness for what happened within the tomb is something that was a secret of Heaven itself though a secret of Grace a gift given to us as death was turned to New Life the human Witnesses only appear when the stone is already rolled away and the tomb is empty and the unnecessary grave clothes are rolled up and set aside at that point from that moment onwards the only cry that can be given by human Witnesses is Christ is risen The ageold Cry of Easter to the response the Lord is risen indeed Allelujah it's a different truth vested in the massive Heavenly truth of the first event unwitnessed sometime in the night of Easter Eve and before the Morning Light appeared of the sun rising think of Christmas we have very much the same thing happening then it was traditional for the church to have three celebrations and the gospels for each were different on Christmas night the story of no room at the inn and the child being laid in the manger as the stable was given to Mary and Joseph that's the first truth with the First Gospel the second truth in the middle of the night were Angelic choirs singing to Shepherds on the hillsides making them the first Witnesses of God's activity at Christmas Christ is born and then the third which gives you the gospel for Easter Day itself is a much wider Gospel of the word capital W made flesh the the word made flesh in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God the same was in the beginning with God all things were made by him these large truths not speaking about the Christmas story but being the christmal Christmas gospel for Christmas day three different truths and Easter the two truths Heaven's activity within the tomb unwitnessed but known by the fact that when mortal eyes come back to the tomb the stone is rolled away the grave clothes are necessary and the tomb is empty and the second truth Jesus standing before Mary Magdalene and saying Mary Quite gently and kindly and encouragingly we made a great deal of of those Christian virtues on Easter Day itself how to be encouraging to one another and how to be kind to one another those immensely creative virtues which all of us have the chance to exercise day in day out in the most unexpected ways and we know when someone has encouraged us I said thank you to you at the beginning of this this uh little um film we're making for you on this this Easter Monday thank you for your encouragement during these weeks for there's nothing better than encouragement when one is down and kindness when one needs it and you find it in the most unexpected places given by the most unexpected people the two truths of Easter Heaven's activity and Earth's response and the response as Mary reaches for Jesus Jesus gives her a commission touch me not but go to my brothers and tell them what you have seen that I am returning to my father and your father my God and your God so she ran back as Easter's first messenger these are really important though in terms of clear thinking logical thinking unfathomable truths and yet that truth is truth from our heart not just from our head one knows the truth by receiving that joy into our hearts we receive it in a a world which has never been more in need of encouragement than it now is in places where there is Great War in places where people attempt to flee their country and find themselves very often in more dangerous places unless they find helpers and neighbors and encourage and kindly people to see them through in places where climactic conditions are causing life to be much more difficult than it used to be and when expected Seasons seem to turn themselves upside down all those things are part of the world to which Easter brought Joy this year lent was a time for Preparation Holy Week a time for for the most solemn thinking of all in the searching of the scriptures as Jesus did with those two on the way to EMAs but Easter Monday now today that's the beginning of our time to go out into the world with that message not necessarily in the words Christ is risen he is risen indeed Allelujah but with words of ordinary encouragement ordinary kindness such as you have shown US during the weeks leading up to Easter so God bless you as you continue your Christian Journey sense Jesus walking beside you on the way sometimes the unknown stranger but that kindness and encouragement recognized by the hands which break bread for you are kindly turned towards you help you in your hour of need but something always then prompts you to think now I must show kindness in return such ordinary things used to be said in local worker day Proverbs like one good turn deserves another there's deep truths in that reciprocation of kindness and encouragement and on this day as we say to you continue to have a happy Easter and take the good news in your lives and in your expressions and in your words out into a world begging for encouragement asking only for a little kindness God bless you as you do so let's say the collect for Easter Day Lord of all life and power who through the mighty resurrection of your son overcame the old order of sin and death to make All Things New in him grant that we being dead to sin and alive to you in Jesus Christ May reign with him in glory to whom with you and the Holy Spirit be praise and honor glory and might now and in all eternity amen so we say the prayer Our Lord taught us 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 the power and the glory forever and ever amen well it's been wonderful to do this with you today we're very sorry that tiger can't be with us putting his pow in the milk or Leo be here running to my cassic here we'll be back with them next week in England and they're being well looked after meanwhile but uh we're having a a a a last uh few days in in the United States and we'll be in St Luke's Daren on Sunday and then we'll return to where Chris and Martin are looking after the cats and we have a story to tell of the whole of Lent and how we've been supported by you throughout that time so God bless you and fill your life with blessing at this time blessings which can be reciprocated and passed on to others at the same time May Christ risen from the dead and active and alive in our own lives fill you with blessing and joy at this Easter season and the blessing of God Almighty the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit be among you and remain with you always amen