Sunday 12th April | Ben Doolan
Readings
Reflection
It is Easter day! The best day of the year. Jesus is risen! Alleluia!
In our Bible readings today, we are reminded of the time when God split the red sea so that the Israelites could escape slavery and oppression in Egypt and start their journey to the promised land. What a sight that must have been!
As we see from today's Psalms, this amazing act of Salvation from God was a still the cause of celebration and worship for the Psalmists, many hundreds of years later. It was a defining moment in the history of the people of God.
The defining moment for all of us is that first Easter Sunday: the resurrection of Jesus! Jesus has power over everything in creation, even death itself. He died and rose again so that we might know our own permanent liberation from everything wrong with the world and us. It is a happy day indeed!The Israelites being led through the Red Sea was a form of baptism for God’s people. They passed through the waters leaving behind oppression and slavery and came out of the waters on their new journey of freedom. In our baptism, we have been baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus. We have left behind slavery to sin by being buried in the waters of baptism and have come through those waters having risen to new life because of the resurrection of Jesus (see Romans 6).
This Easter day, when we celebrate Resurrection life, may we join in with the song of Moses and Miriam and proclaim:
“I will sing to the Lord,
for he is highly exalted.
Both horse and driver
he has hurled into the sea.
“The Lord is my strength and my defense;
he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.”
(Exodus 15:1-2)
Prayers
In joy and hope let us pray to the Father.
That our risen Saviour may fill us with the joy of his
glorious and life-giving resurrection.
We pray that you may reveal the light of his presence to the sick,
the weak and the dying, to comfort and strengthen them this Easter day.
Heavenly Father,
you have delivered us from the power of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of your Son:
grant that, as his death has recalled us to life,
so his continual presence in us may raise us to eternal joy;
through Christ our Lord.
Further reflection: Pray through Moses’ and Miriam’s song. Perhaps this Easter day write your own song of worship and adoration to God for Jesus’ resurrection!
Collect
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 honour, glory and might,
Now and in all eternity.
Amen.
