good evening as the sun sets behind me we thought we'd make a short Easter evening prayer that might be used by all of us throughout this Easter week as a sign of our celebration but at the closing of the day I'm sitting here in the um Garden uh outside the the house where we are staying at the moment with friends and behind me as you look deep in the woods behind is the mighty River Hudson and beyond that the cat skill mountains if we look this way we are looking at the town of pipy and if we go this way then we have the towns of paing and old Quaker it's very much an area of dairy cattle and of uh stud farms and until just recently the birds were singing their good night song and there were plentiful redwing black birds some of them you can still hear one of Fletcher's favorite birds with the call that they make and at the same time jack rabbits were running around on the meadow here you'll here because there are farms on each side of us the noise fractur and chainsaws and things like that being put to bed gradually as the evening settles in and the sky grows darker so here's our prayer evening prayer for the Easter season oh God make speed to save us oh Lord make haste to help us in your Resurrection o Christ let Heaven and Earth Rejoice Allelujah blessed are you Sovereign Lord the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ to you be glory and praise forever from the deep Waters of death you brought your people to New Birth by raising your son to life in Triumph through him Dark Death has been destroyed and Radiant Life is everywhere restored as you call us out of Darkness Into His Marvelous Light May Our Lives reflect his glory and our lips repeat the endless song Blessed Be god father Son and Holy Spirit blessed be God forever that this evening may be holy good and peaceful let us pray with oneart and mind as our evening prayer Rises before you oh God so may your mercy come down upon us to cleanse our hearts and set us free to sing your praise now and forever amen our Psalm is Psalm 96 [Music] sing to the Lord a new song sing to the Lord all the Earth sing to the Lord and bless his name tell out his salvation from day to day declare his glory among the Nations and his wonders among all peoples for great is the Lord and greatly to be praised he is more to be feared than all gods for all the gods of the nations are but Idols it is the Lord who made the heavens honor and Majesty are before him power and Splendor are in his Sanctuary ascribe to the Lord you families of the peoples ascribe to the Lord honor and strength ascribe to the Lord the honor due to his name bring offerings and come into His courts oh worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness let the whole earth tremble before him tell it Out Among the nation that the Lord is King he has made the world so firm that it cannot be moved he will judge the peoples with Equity let the heavens rejoice and let the Earth be glad Let the Sea Thunder and all that is in it and let the fields be joyful and all that is is in them let all the trees of the wood shout for Joy before the Lord for he comes he comes to judge the Earth with righteousness he will judge the world and the peoples with his truth glory to the father and to the son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and shall be forever amen so in Easter evening lesson as Jesus appears to the disciples on the evening of the first Easter day this is St John chapter 20 beginning to read at verse 19 on the evening of that day the first day of the week the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews Jesus came and stood among them and said to him peace be with you when he had said this he showed them his hands and his side then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord Jesus said to them again peace be with you as the father has sent me even so I am sending you and when he had said this he breathed on them and said to them receive the Holy Spirit if you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven them if you withhold forgiveness from any it is withheld now Thomas one of the 12 called the twin was not with them when Jesus came so the other disciples told him we have seen the Lord but he said to them unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side I will never believe well that story continues as our gospel on Sunday next but meanwhile what a mixture of feelings shown in that short lesson about the evening of Easter Day Jesus stood among them what would their feelings have been the last time they had been with Jesus had been at the time when all of them except the Beloved disciple had left him in a panic whatever they had promised beforehand about courage evaporated and they had fled from The Garden of Gethsemane and now despite Peter's promises even if I must die with you I will never forsake you now here is Jesus confronting their failure and their hearts must have quailed as well as being glad that they saw their lord again he knows how they're feeling and his words to them are words of Peace words of comfort for their sorrow in their own failure peace be with you he says not just once but twice peace be with you and we are told then were their hearts glad when they saw their lord words of comfort Recreation total forgiveness iess reassurance always come from Jesus when he is confronted with repentance and sorrow for failures it's one of the great certainties so that tomorrow when sins are confessed in our evening prayers will always be a new beginning we're told that the mercies of the Lord never fail they are new every morning it's a great Cent and it appears in the most unexpected place right in the middle of the Lamentations of Jeremiah his mercies never fail they are new every morning great is his faithfulness lines from two favorite hymns new every morning is the love are waking and Uprising prove and great is thy faithfulness a tremendous affirmation of the way in which each day can be a new beginning with fresh purpose and evening prayers can be a time when the day is reviewed and remembered and as we go on day by day that is even more necessary simply to come To God In Prayer at the end of the day Thomas is not there and next Sunday when we read the whole lesson we shall find out there is even purpose in Thomas's absence and his doubt when he comes back nothing is wasted it reminds one of that sentence which Jesus says to his uh disciples at the end of the feeding of the 5,000 in in John's gospel he says gather up the fragments that nothing be lost in the sense that later on those fragments can feed his people just as these fragments of the feelings of the Apostles the disciples on that first night of Easter when the Lord confronts them gives them his peace and tells them to bring that ample forgiveness into their Ministry day by day and would say to us bring that ample forgiveness into your lives day by day because when forgiveness is given there is a sense in the one receiving it that that forgiveness is whole and absolute and when it is withheld well then that feeling never goes away until once again to extend forgiveness to those this may it is also a very human thing and Jesus to everyone who would follow him on the way this is not a time of night for long it's a time of closing the day down just having a sort of sense of the day ending and coming quietly To God In Prayer this we do and at Easter time that prayer is filled with our all Allelujah that the Lord is risen and a new beginning is offered so let's say our evening prayers now as best we might and think of all those in the world just for a moment they will come to your your minds from things you've heard from things you know about people's situation naming their names quietly in the Silence of your hearts and then joining together in the Easter collect and the Our Father as we commend all the situations throughout our world which need healing forgiveness and prayer here is then the Easter conic 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 now we say together 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 so a final blessing before this day ends peace of God which to all understanding keep your hearts and mind Minds in the knowledge and love of God and of his son Jesus Christ Our Lord and the blessing of God Almighty the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit be amongst you and with those whom you love this night and always amen so we say good night as the the birds sing their last song and the farmer puts away his tractor and his Chainsaw by The Sound of things and the ends here in the countryside in Upstate New York good [Applause] night