Worship Service at Church of the Dawntreader Thursday April 11, 2013 10:00 a.m. SLT
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
    Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™
    Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
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"New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989,
Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved." Designated by the initials, (NRSV).

Invocation:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen
Confession and Absolution
We come before you, our Loving Father, Mother God, confessing most of all our need of you.
We confess that we have not always acknowledged just how much we depend on you.
We confess that we have not always loved you with all our heart, soul and mind.
We have not always loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We ask that you will forgive us and grant us your strength to conform more fully to your loving will for us.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Amen.
In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is my privilege to declare to you and to myself, the entire
forgiveness of all our sins.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen

Prayer of the Day
Let us pray.
Eternal and all-merciful God, with all the angels and all the saints we laud your majesty and might.
By the resurrection of your Son, show yourself to us and inspire us to follow Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen

First Lesson: Acts 5:27-41 (NRSV)
27 When they had brought them, they had them stand before the council. The high priest questioned them,
28 saying, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.”
29 But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.
30 The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.
31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
32 And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”
33 When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them.
34 But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, respected by all the people, stood up and ordered the men to be put outside for a short time.
35 Then he said to them, “Fellow Israelites, consider carefully what you propose to do to these men.
36 For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him; but he was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and disappeared.
37 After him Judas the Galilean rose up at the time of the census and got people to follow him; he also perished, and all who followed him were scattered.
38 So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail;
39 but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them — in that case you may even be found fighting against God!” They were convinced by him,
40 and when they had called in the apostles, they had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.
41 As they left the council, they rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.
Here ends the First Lesson

Psalm 30 (NRSV)
1 I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
2 O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.
3 O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.
4 Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.
5 For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
6 As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.”
7 By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed.
8 To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication:
9 “What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?
10 Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!”
11 You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
12 so that my soul may praise 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.

Second Lesson: Revelation 5:11-14 (NRSV)
11 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands,
12 singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”
13 Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, “To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”
14 And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” And the elders fell down and worshiped.
Here ends the Second Lesson.

Gospel Lesson: John 21:1-19 (NRSV)
1 After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way.
2 Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee,
and two others of his disciples.
3 Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.”
They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
4 Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.
5 Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.”
6 He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.”
So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.
7 That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!”
When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea.
8 But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land,
only about a hundred yards off.
9 When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread.
10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.”
11 So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them;
and though there were so many, the net was not torn.
12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”
Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord.
13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.
14 This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”
16 A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.”
17 He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?”
And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.
18 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished.
But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands,
and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”
19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”
Here end the Readings from Holy Scripture.

 - Sermon -

In our Gospel lesson for this week
we have a witness for a clear and very definite understanding of the resurrection of our Lord.
He arose bodily from the dead.
He was not a ghost.
When He appeared to His disciples and as many as 500 people,
He did not just appear as a vision.
He did not just appear as a voice.
They did not just have a feeling of His presence.
He did such things as cook breakfast for them
and eat breakfast with them.
Whoever heard of a ghost or a disembodied spirit cooking anything for anybody,
to say nothing of eating anything?!
What the story tells us
is that our Lord came back to us -
and comes back to us still -
in a physical body.
Of course, it is also a spiritual body,
with everything that implies.
His resurrected body is not limited in the same way it was while He walked on the ground of this world.
Of course, when He walked among us,
He did not always show the same limitations that we have most of the time.
Anyway, when He rose from the grave,
He was somewhat different from the way He was before.
We see that most clearly
in the way it often took a while for the disciples who had seen Him every day
to recognize Him.
That began from the very first.
The first witness to the resurrection,
the Apostle to the Apostles,
the beloved St. Mary Magdalen herself,
thought He was the gardener when He first appeared to her.
She asked Him where He had taken His body,
and she knew Him when He called her by name:
"Mary!" He said,
and she responded, ""Rabboni!" my Teacher, my Rabbi!
In the Gospel lesson for this week,
the writer tells us that they knew Who He was,
not that they actually recognized Him at first.
There has to be an element of the absolutely unexpected.
Even though He had tried to tell them,
no one actually expected to see Him in His body in this world
after He had died.
But it happened to them!
No wonder they were so awestruck
that their minds could not fully grasp the reality that was standing before them,
showing at the very least a little of His wonderful sense of humor.
Thank God for His sense of humor!
We would all be in so much trouble of God did not have a sense of humor.
He who dreamed up and created that wonderful and hilarious creature, the giraffe,
also made us with all our foibles,
and instead of condemning and despising us for our shortcomings, He laughs with us now and always.
People who have encountered the Judge of us all
in a near death experience
describe what is often called the "life review,"
the experience of going over the experiences of their lives with the compassion of the One whom they meet on the other side.
One of the most consistent characteristics of that encounter
described by those who have experienced it
is His sense of humor.
In our Gospel lesson,
he repeated one of the first encounters He had with the fishermen who became His disciples.
He told them to lower the nets on the other side of the boat,
and they brought in so many fish - again as before - that they could not haul it in.
Peter put some clothes on, jumped out of the boat, and hurried ashore to be with the Lord.
There, Jesus cancelled out Peter's denial of Him by giving Peter a chance to affirm his love three times.
Then he described a little too vividly the way Peter would die.
He gave us all a foretaste of what is coming to us all:
Not only death is coming, but final, free, complete forgiveness of all our sins,
and then our own resurrection from the dead
to live with Him and each other forever
in a body that will be able to sit down at table with Him and each other at the wedding banquet of the Lamb of God.
Amen.

Prayer of the People
Please type your spontaneous petitions in chat.
Each prepared petition is intended to remind us of the things we need to pray about,
so a brief pause will be provided for us to pray our own petitions,
either sharing them in the chat window
or praying them in our own hearts.

Loving God, we pray for each other, for those who depend upon us for prayer, and for all people according to their needs.
We ask that your healing power may prevail in our lives.
We pray that those in positions of public trust may be worthy of that trust as they act as stewards of power and wealth
for the benefit of all.
We pray that conflicts may be resolved in the context of relationships,
so that violence of thought word and deed may be diminished all through our world.
We ask your blessing for all who bear witness to the Gospel, so that relationships with you may be deepened for all people.
All these things, and whatever else you see that we need, we ask that you will grant for the sake of your Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose name we pray.
Amen.
Our Lord's Prayer
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 sins as we forgive those who sin 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 and ever,
Amen.
Benediction
May the Lord bless us and keep us.
May the Lord make His face to shine upon us and be gracious to us.
May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, and give us peace.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen +