The most glorious day of our Church year has arrived and despite the social-distancing and church closures we will rejoice in the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour. We are more aware than ever before of our need for Jesus atoning sacrifice and the victory over death that comes from his resurrection. Our Bible readings for today are Acts 10:34-43 and John 20:1-18, if you haven’t already read them then please make sure you have a time of prayer and contemplation and hear again for yourself the discovery of the empty tomb and Jesus first appearing after the resurrection. You might like to use the liturgy provided by our friends at the cathedral as you do this.
Alas, we will miss being in our beautifully decorated churches, singing together our favourite Easter hymns and receiving the bread and wine of the Eucharist. However, there are some things we can do at home to celebrate Easter Day:
- we can follow the Easter liturgy of our cathedral (or one of the other services available on TV radio and via social media, ‘At you service’ is on Manx radio at 9.30am Sunday morning)
- we can create our own Easter garden and offer a prayer to God for it and all creation
- we can read our Bible and say our prayers (I am sure we are doing that every day anyway)
- we can listen to recordings of our favourite hymns and join in enthusiastically with the singing
- we can light a new candle in our home to represent the Easter/Paschal candle that we would ceremonially light in church as part of our morning worship.
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