Hymns
#216 Christ the Lord Is Risen Today
#234 Crown Him with Many Crowns
#226 He Lives!
#452 Here I Am, Lord
#638 In the Bulb There Is a Flower
#464 God of Grace and God of Glory
Easter Podcast
“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.”
― Langston Hughes
Thanks for tuning in! Please visit our church sites at facebook and at our website at www.franklinfederated.org.
We are uploading sermon podcasts since our church building is closed until at least May 4th. Join us for a live stream prayer request service at 10 am on Sunday!
Call to Worship (you can read along, your part will be signaled by the bell):
Leader: We come to this place,
seeking Jesus in the familiar story of our faith.
People: Do not meet us only here, O Living Christ,
but surprise us with Resurrection power
in all the places of our lives!
Leader: We gather together to sing and pray the story we know by heart,
a story of loving triumph and powerful grace.
People: This story of “Alleluia!” means great joy
for the One who lives and the ones who witness to this new life
in all the places of our lives!
Leader: We rejoice and thank you for the life of your son,
resurrected by the power of your loving, vibrant Spirit.
People: Let this same Spirit fill all the places of our lives,
that we may know the truth
of resurrection for the rest of our lives!
Leader: We join our hearts in song and sing
“Alleluia! Gracious Jesus!”
for Christ is living and so are we!
People: Alleluia indeed!
“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.”
― Emily Dickinson
POEM:
Morning Poem by Mary Oliver
Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches—
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it
the thorn
that is heavier than lead—
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging—
there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted—
each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.
Scripture for this podcast was read by Emmett Eastman.
Luke 23:44-49 The Death of Jesus
44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45 while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last. 47 When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, ‘Certainly this man was innocent.’ 48 And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. 49 But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
