Sunday Meditation | Easter 2 | Creation Care | 19 April 2020

Special thanks to Elisa and Matthew Leahy for video production.

Welcome and Call to Worship | Cindy Fath

For many, even most of us, the past month has meant that we find a new way of life.  For me, it meant creating a workspace in a room at home from which to facilitate classes for my ESL students. I suspect we’ve all found a new rhythm in our routines all the way from our tinies to our seasoned citizens.

What you may be less aware of is that our earth has also found a new routine.  Our world has been forced into a rest, a pause.  Covid-19’s globe-zigzagging impact has reminded us that nothing happens in isolation, that what affects one part, also affects the other, just as in the Body of Christ.  We are truly all in this together.

Today is Earth Sunday and we hope to together learn more about what it means to care about and care for creation, all the while giving honor to our Creator.  After God brought our planet into being, God pronounced it as very good.  And don’t we resonate with that description?  Maybe the pause we are experiencing has given you reason to walk around your neighborhood or putter about your yard more and behold the delights of new growth and life in this season of spring. 

Let’s join in reading:

Leader:  Lord, you placed us in your glorious creation, into the garden you made for each of us.

People:  You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens and all the starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. 

Leader:  You give life to everything and the multitudes of heaven worship you.  How many…

Easter

Special thanks to Elisa and Matthew Leahy for video production and Tom Blosser for music coordination.

The Cross and Resurrection

Prelude | In the bulb there is a flower, for quartet | Myers Family

Peace Candle | Al & Kathy Bauman, JoAnn and Paul Knapke

Opening Words | Jen Cartmel

Call to Worship | Inspired by Luke 1:78-79; John 1:4-5; John 11:25 | Cartmel/Plessinger Family

Leader:  Come to me, all you who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death!

Everyone:  On you has the light shone!

Leader:  For Jesus Christ is the light of the world
and this is the story;

Everyone:  the light shines in the darkness
and the darkness could not put it out!

Leader:  Jesus said,
“I am the resurrection and the life.
I am the bright and morning star.”

Everyone:  We join with the angels in their hymns of praise;
Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace,  Alleluia!

Leader:  Christ is risen! 

Everyone:  He is risen indeed!

— adapted from Carole Penner, and posted on her Leading in Worship blog.

Easter Greetings from afar | Organized by Phil Hart

Comunidad Cristiana Menonita de Paz – Our sister church in Armenia, Colombia

Yasir Makki, Sudan

David Emch, serving in Thailand

Hymn | HWB 280  Christ the Lord is Risen Today | Tom Blosser

Children’s Time | Elisa Leahy

Hymn | Anita’s Song: Love is a Beautiful Thing | Tom Blosser

Love is a beautiful thing.
Let’s spread it all over.
Love is catching on.
Let’s pass it on, pass it on, pass it on.

Pastoral Prayer | Mark Rupp

God of resurrection and new life, give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts that are open to your presence walking with us along this road of life. 

For those of us who still find ourselves re-treading the footsteps of hopes unfilled, asking ‘where did it all go wrong’, we pray that in our breaking open we would find you there. 

For those of us…

The Cross and Being a Witness | Lent 6 | Palm Sunday | April 5

Opening Remarks | Joel Miller 

Peace Candle/Welcome | Jen Cartmel & Maya Plessinger 

As we meet today in spirit but not in person, we gather around these Sunday Meditations offered by members of the CMC community. Just as we light the Peace Candle to begin our worship, you are invited to light a candle for these Meditations. The flame joins us in spirit across distance, along with our sister church in Armenia, Colombia.

Call to Worship | Jen Cartmel 

Hymn | Hold me God | Katie Graber 

Children’s Time | Debra Martin and family 

Hymn | Hosanna, Loud Hosanna | Katie Graber 

Prayers of the People (sent via email)

Pastoral Prayer | Mark Rupp 

God, you are the one who weaves together the great tapestry of Creation, yet this morning many of us are feeling frayed, as if the world is coming unraveled and pulling us apart with it.  In the moments when we feel undone, help us to remember that it is on the fringes that your presence can sometimes be the most clear.  Give us courage to wave these tattered edges of ourselves along with our palm branches, knowing that you hear both our shouts of joy and our cries of lament. 

We remember those in our community who have asked for prayer along with any unnamed prayers that weigh on our hearts…

[silence]

As we move from Palm Sunday toward Easter, grant us faith enough to face the pain of Good Friday, hope enough to brave the silence of Holy Saturday, and love enough to keep us always on the lookout for the dawning of new life.  Amen. 

Special music | It is Well | Katrina Cortes 

Scripture | Matthew 27: 27-46, Common English Bible | Leo and Reuben Wyse 

27 The governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the…

Peace Candle Opening | Mark Rupp 

As we meet today in spirit but not in person, we gather around these Sunday Meditations offered by members of the CMC community. Just as we light the Peace Candle to begin our worship, you are invited to light a candle for these Meditations. The flame joins us in spirit across distance, along with our sister church in Armenia, Colombia.

Scripture Reading | John 8:2-11 Common English Bible (CEB) | Oliver Davey 

 2 Early in the morning he returned to the temple. All the people gathered around him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The legal experts and Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery. Placing her in the center of the group, 4 they said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of committing adultery. 5 In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone women like this. What do you say?” 6 They said this to test him, because they wanted a reason to bring an accusation against him. Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground with his finger.

7 They continued to question him, so he stood up and replied, “Whoever hasn’t sinned should throw the first stone.” 8 Bending down again, he wrote on the ground. 9 Those who heard him went away, one by one, beginning with the elders. Finally, only Jesus and the woman were left in the middle of the crowd.

10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Is there no one to condemn you?”

11 She said, “No one, sir.”

Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on,…