Wed. morning Apr. 15
Opening response
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
In your resurrection, O Christ,
let heaven and earth rejoice. Alleluia.
Prayer of thanksgiving
Blessed are you, Lord God of our salvation, to you be praise and glory forever. As once you ransomed your people from Egypt and led them to freedom in the promised land, so now you have delivered us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of your risen Son. May we, the first fruits of your new creation, rejoice in this new day you have made, and praise you for your mighty acts.
Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Blessed be God forever.
The night has passed, and the day lies open before us; let us pray with one heart and mind.
Silence is kept.
As we rejoice in the gift of this new day, so may the light of your presence, O God, set our hearts on fire with love for you; now and forever.
Amen.
Hymn
Ask Ye What Great Thing I Know
Words: Johann C. Schwedler (1741); trans. Benjamin H. Kennedy (1863)
Music: Henri A. Cesar Malan (1827); harm. Lowell Mason (1841)
Our Great Redeemer’s Praise (#107)
Ask ye what great thing I know
that delights and stirs me so?
What the high reward I win?
Whose the name I glory in?
Jesus Christ, the Crucified.
Who defeats my fiercest foes?
Who consoles my saddest woes?
Who revives my fainting heart,
healing all its hidden smart?
Jesus Christ, the Crucified.
Who is life in life to me?
Who the death of death will be?
Who will place me on His right,
with the countless hosts of light?
Jesus Christ, the Crucified.
This is that great thing I know;
this delights and stirs me so:
faith in Him who died to save,
Him who triumphed o'er the grave:
Jesus Christ, the Crucified.
Confession of Sin
Come, Holy Spirit of God,
and search our hearts with the light of Christ.
Our Lord Jesus Christ said:
“The first of all the commandments is, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Amen. Lord, have mercy.
After a period of reflection
Come, let us return to the Lord and say:
Lord our God, in our sin, we have avoided your call. Our faithfulness is like a morning cloud, and like the early dew, it goes away. Have mercy on us; deliver us from judgment; bind up our wounds and revive us; in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
cf Hosea 6
May Almighty God, who sent his Son into the world to save sinners, bring us his pardon and peace, now and forever.
Amen.
Psalm 16
𝙍: The LORD is at my right hand; I shall not be moved.
Preserve me, O God,
for in You I take refuge.
I have said to the LORD, “You are my Lord;
my welfare has no existence outside of You.”
For the holy ones in the land,
they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.
Those who choose another god
multiply their sorrows;
their drink offerings of blood I will not offer
nor take their names upon my lips.
O LORD, you are the portion of my inheritance and my cup;
You hold my lot.
The boundary lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
yes, I have a goodly inheritance.
𝙍: The LORD is at my right hand; I shall not be moved.
I will bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
I have set the LORD always before me;
because He is at my right hand,
I shall not be moved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
my flesh also will rest secure.
For You will not leave my soul in Sheol,
nor will You allow Your holy one to see corruption.
You will show me the path of life.
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be forever. Amen.
𝙍: The LORD is at my right hand; I shall not be moved.
Psalm prayer
Give to us, Lord Christ, the fullness of grace, your presence and your very self, for you are our portion and our delight, now and forever.
Psalm 30
𝙍: O LORD my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me.
I will extol You, O LORD, for You have lifted me up,
and have not let my foes rejoice over me.
O LORD my God, I cried out to You,
and You healed me.
O LORD, You brought my soul up from Sheol;
You have kept me alive, so that I should not go down to the pit.
Sing to the LORD, you saints of His,
and give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.
For His anger endures but for a moment;
His favor is for a lifetime;
weeping may linger for the night,
but joy comes in the morning.
𝙍: O LORD my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me.
In my prosperity I said,
“I shall never be moved.”
LORD, by Your favor
You made me stand as a strong mountain;
You hid Your face,
and I was dismayed.
I cried to You, O LORD,
and to the LORD I made supplication:
“What profit is there in my death,
if I go down to the pit?
Will the dust praise You?
Will it declare Your faithfulness?
Hear, O LORD, and be gracious to me;
LORD, be my helper.”
𝙍: O LORD my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me.
You have turned my mourning into dancing;
You have taken off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness,
so that my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever.
Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be forever. Amen.
𝙍: O LORD my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me.
Psalm prayer
Lord, you hide your face when we trust in ourselves; strip us of false security and re-clothe us in your praise, that we may know you as the one who raises us from death, as you raised your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ.
Old Testament reading
Exodus 16:11-36
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “I have heard the murmurings of the Israelites. Speak to them, saying, ‘In the evening you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. And you shall know that I am the LORD your God.’ ”
So in the evening the quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning a layer of dew was surrounding the camp. When the layer of dew evaporated, on the surface of the wilderness there lay a small flaky thing, as fine as the frost on the ground. 1When the Israelites saw it, they said one to another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was.
And Moses said to them, “This is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat. This is what the LORD has commanded, ‘Every man is to gather of it according to what he will eat, one omer for every man, according to the number of your people. Every man should take for them for whoever lives in his tent.’ ”
The Israelites did so, and gathered, some more, some less. When they measured it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing left over, and he that gathered little had no lack. They gathered every man according what he could eat.
Moses said to them, “Let no man leave any of it until the morning.”
However, they did not listen to Moses, and some of them left part of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank, and Moses was angry with them.
So they gathered it every morning, every man according to what he could eat. And when the sun got hot, it melted. Now on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers per man, and then all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses. He said to them, “This is what the LORD has said, ‘Tomorrow is the Sabbath, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. Bake that which you will bake today, and boil that you will boil, and all that which remains over lay up for yourselves to be kept until the morning.’ ”
So they laid it up until the morning, just as Moses commanded, and it did not stink, nor was there any worm in it. Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the LORD. Today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.”
It happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found nothing. Then the LORD said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep My commandments and My instructions? See, the LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore He gives you bread for two days on the sixth day. Every man remain in his place. Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.” So the people rested on the seventh day.
The house of Israel named it manna, and it was like coriander seed and was white, and its taste was like wafers made with honey. Then Moses said, “This is what the LORD has commanded, ‘Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations to come, so that they may see the bread that I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt.’ ”
Moses said to Aaron, “Take a pot and put an omer full of manna in it, and place it before the LORD, to be kept for generations to come.”
As the LORD commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony, to be kept. The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to an inhabited land. They ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.
Now an omer is one-tenth of an ephah.
Silence may be kept.
New Testament reading
Colossians 2:1-15
I would like you to know what a great struggle I am having for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for everyone who has not seen my face in the body, that their hearts may be comforted, being knit together in love, and receive all the riches and assurance of full understanding, and knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now this I say lest anyone beguile you with enticing words. For though I am absent in the body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing and seeing your orderliness and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, just as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.
Beware lest anyone captivate you through philosophy and vain deceit, in the tradition of men and the elementary principles of the world, and not after Christ.
For in Him lives all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you are complete in Him, who is the head of all authority and power. In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which also you were raised with Him through the faith of the power of God, who has raised Him from the dead.
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has resurrected together with Him, having forgiven you all sins. He blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us and contrary to us, and He took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed authorities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them by the cross.
Silence may be kept.
The Benedictus (The Song of Zechariah)
Luke 1:68-79
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for He has visited and redeemed His people,
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of His servant David,
as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets of long ago,
that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us,
to perform the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember His holy covenant,
the oath which He swore to our father Abraham,
to grant us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies,
might serve Him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our lives.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest;
for you will go before the presence of the Lord to prepare His ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to His people
by the remission of their sins,
through the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise from on high has visited us;
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be forever. Amen.
Brief silence.
The Apostle’s Creed
Let us unite in this historic confession of the Christian faith:
I believe in God,
the Father Almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ,
his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the
right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge
the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.
Intercession and thanksgiving
Prayers may be offered for:
the day and its tasks
the world and its needs
the Church and her life
Prayers may include the following concerns:
The people of God, that they may proclaim the risen Lord
God’s creation, that the peoples of the earth may meet their responsibility to care
Those in despair and darkness, that they may find the hope and light of Christ
Those in fear of death, that they may find faith through the resurrection
Prisoners and captives
Other intercessions and supplications may be offered as the Holy Spirit leads.
Response
Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer.
Silence may be kept.
Collect of the day
Almighty Father, you have given your only Son to die for our sins and to rise again for our justification: grant us so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness that we may always serve you in pureness of living and truth; through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
Rejoicing in God’s new creation, as our Savior taught us, so we pray
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,
and the power, and the glory,
forever. Amen.
Conclusion
May the risen Christ grant us the joys of eternal life.
Amen.