Verse of the Day

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Easter Sunday


So God loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

St. John iii. 16.

Easter makes good the promise – I am the life, I am the resurrection!

The Propers for today are found on Page 163-164, with the Collect first:

Easter Sunday.

The Collect.

ALMIGHTY God, who through thine only-begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life; We humbly beseech thee that, as by thy special grace preventing us thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

¶ This Collect is to be said daily throughout Easter Week.

The Epistle came from Saint Paul’s letter to the Colossians, beginning at the First Verse of the Third Chapter:

I

f ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

As usual, Paul is exhorting us to be the New Man, to put away the trappings of the old and go forward. He asks us to do what anyone who is successful does, hang around with those you want to be like in the end and to emulate their actions. In this case rather that earthly success, Paul is helping prepare us for eternal success through salvation.

The Gospel for this Sunday came from the Twentieth Chapter of the Gospel of Saint John beginning at the first verse. It is the straightforward accounting of the discovery by Mary Magdalene, Simon Peter and John that the Lord was risen indeed.

T

he first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.

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