Easter Sunday: he is risen indeed, alleluia
Scripture Reading:
Matthew 28.1-4
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
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Reading
from an Easter sermon
But he rose from the dead and mounted up to the heights of heaven. When the Lord had clothed himself with humanity, and had suffered for the sake of the sufferer, and had been bound for the sake of the imprisoned, and had been judged for the sake of the condemned, and buried for the sake of the one who was buried, he rose up from the dead, and cried with a loud voice: “Who is he that contends with me? Let him stand in opposition to me. I set the condemned man free. I gave the dead man life; I raised up the one who had been entombed. Who is my opponent? I,” he says, “am the Christ. I am the one who destroyed death, and triumphed over the enemy, and trampled Hades underfoot, and bound the strong one, and carried off man to the heights of heaven. I”, he says, “am the Christ.”
—Melito of Sardis
{from the 2018 Lent & Easter Prayerbook from Liberti Church Center City + Mainline // art credit: “Angel at the Tomb” by Otto Dix}
the long way home 