Announcer: Duke University Chapel, service of worship. Easter, March 26th, 1978. (people chattering) (solemn organ music) (solemn trumpet music) (energetic trumpet music) (upbeat trumpet music) (solemn trumpet music) (choir singing harmoniously) 

Pastor: The Lord is risen. 

Congregation: The Lord is risen indeed, amen. 

Pastor: And a voice from the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." (congregation speaking indistinctly) (solemn organ music) ♪ Christ the Lord is risen today, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Sons of men and angels say, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Raise your joys and triumphs high, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Sing ye heavens and earth reply, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Lives again our glorious king, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Where oh now is death thy sting, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Dying once our souls to save, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Where's thy victory oh stiff grave, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Loves redeeming work is done, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Fought the fight the battle won, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Death in vain forbids Him rise, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Christ has opened paradise, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Soar we now where Christ has led, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Following our exalted head, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Made like Him, like Him we rise, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, hallelujah ♪ (organic trumpet music) (congregation singing harmoniously) 

Pastor: The Lord is risen. 

Congregation: The Lord is risen indeed, amen. 

Pastor: Our faith in God's power and love, which we celebrate this Easter day, enables us to acknowledge who we are, and to confess our sins before God and our neighbor. Let us pray. Oh God, you have put immortal longings into the hearts of us all, and we thank you for them. For the ideals which hone us, for the noble desires which move us to long for goodness, for the high ambitions to make life a beautiful thing, we thank you, oh God. Forgive us oh God for everything that keeps us from making the ideal into the real, for the laziness that will not make an effort, for the idleness which loves to do nothing, for the procrastination which puts things off until it is too late ever to do them, for the lack of perseverance, which gives up too easily and too soon, forgive us oh God. Grant unto us God all that we need to make the ideal become real, strength of will, steadiness of purpose, ability to do, willingness to bow. Grant us this, oh God. Wisdom to see what we ought to do, courage to begin it, fidelity to continue it, strength and skill to complete it. Grant us this, oh God. And even if we begin and fail, help us to know that it is better to attempt and to fail in some noble cause rather than not to try at all. So grant unto us the vision and the power to make the vision into a deed through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. Amen. Let us give thanks for God is good, and God's love is everlasting. (congregation praying indistinctly) Greetings in the name of the risen Christ. Two special opportunities to celebrate Easter are noted in the bulletin. Next Sunday at 7:00 PM here in Duke Chapel, the school of the arts using music and dance will present the passion according to St. Luke, a work by Penderecki, which has been called the most important passion written during this century. Then tonight, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 8:00 PM, the spectacular production of Leonard Bernstein's mass under the direction of Ben Smith will be presented in Page Auditorium. For your convenience, the Page box office will be open immediately after the service. It is impossible to imagine celebrating Easter in Duke University Chapel without the glorious music. On your behalf, a very special word of appreciation for all of the people who have made this service possible and especially the musicians. 

Preacher: Let us pray. Prepare our hearts oh Lord to accept your word. Silence in us any voice but your own, that hearing, we may also obey your will through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. The Old Testament lesson is from the 15th chapter of Exodus, verses one through 11. "Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord saying, "I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider, He has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation. This is my God and I will praise Him. My father's God and I will exalt Him. The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is His name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host, He cast into the sea, and his has picked officers are sunk in the Red Sea. The floods cover them, they went down into the depths like a stone. Thy right hand oh Lord, glorious in power. Thy right-hand oh Lord, shatters the enemy. In the greatness of thy majesty, thou overthrowest thine adversaries. Thou sendest forth thy fury, it consumes them like stubble. At the blast of thy nostrils, the waters piled up, the floods stood up in a heap, the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, "I will pursue, I will overtake. I will divide the spoil. My desire shall have its fill of them. I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them." Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them. They sank as lead in the mighty waters. Who is like thee oh Lord among the gods? Who is like thee, majestic in holiness, terrible in glorious deeds, doing wonders." The epistle lesson is from the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians, verses one through 11. "Now I would remind you brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you were saved. If you hold it fast, unless you believed in vain, for I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12, then he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me, for I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God, which is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed." Here ends the reading of the epistle, amen. (solemn organ music) (choir singing harmoniously) 

- Will you arise to hear the words of the gospel lesson? Now, after the Sabbath, toward the Dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalen and the other Mary went to see the sepulcher. And behold there was a great earthquake for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here for He has risen as He said. Come see the place where He lay, then go quickly and tell his disciples that He is risen from the dead, and behold He is going before you to Galilee. There, you will see him. Lo, I have told you." So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell His disciples. And behold Jesus met them and said, "Hail." And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me." Here ends the reading from the gospel. All praise and glory be to God, amen. (organic music playing) (choir singing harmoniously) Christ the Lord is risen. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. What does the crucifixion, resurrection of Jesus, the Christ mean to you? What does it mean to me? Whoever you are, whatever your theological, philosophical, Christological, historical viewpoint, whatever your status or rank or position or place in life may be, wherever you have been, are now, or may be headed, however weak or strong your faith, overcome by doubts, are shored up by affirmations, what does the crucifixion, resurrection of Jesus, the Christ mean to you, to me? The answer you and I give to this question is at the heart and soul of the Christian faith, as we know it, as we believe it and as we live it. Who is this Jesus the Christ? Crucified, buried, raised. Who is He to you or to me? What do the life, death, resurrection of Christ mean on this day to each of us? For today is Easter day. Christ the Lord is risen today. This is indeed a day of Easter celebration. But let's go back a few days. In the crucible of redemption, a book by Carlyle Marney, he writes, "Everything that lives, lives only by running the risk of living. Everyone who gives birth, every mother runs the gauntlet. Every teacher who is a teacher, teaches himself away. Every doctor who has a cure rather than a mere healer gives himself away in driblets. Every brother loses himself in another. And unless God is a God who will die to save us, we cannot be saved. Maybe we have to keep dropping by Golgotha to see if God is still there so that our crucifixion is still all right for the God who is God gives Himself away." It all happened fast, almost too fast to be believed. Seven days ago, shouts of joy and celebration and acclimation. Three nights ago, supper together, 13 men, there were, close friends, intimate fellowship, bread, wine, prayers, hymns, the Passover feast, God in the midst of them. One departs, betrays. The other 12 finish the meal, leave singing, go to get semini. Jesus takes Peter, James and John deeper into the garden and goes on to pray alone. Arrested, forsaken, denied, shifted from religious authorities to civil authorities, condemned, death by crucifixion. "Bare your own cross," He was told. Peter burdened with the guilt of denying his Lord three times. Mary, Mary, and Mary completely bewildered. Jesus hanging by hands and feet, dead on a cross, all alone, all alone. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Surely maybe quoting a song, but also uttering a cry from the depths of His soul. I thirst, it is finished. "Love so amazing, so divine. Demands my soul, my life, my all," says the hymn writer. Arrest, trial, crucifixion. Death by mid-afternoon. Arrest, trial, crucifixion. In the tomb by dark. It is finished. It is finished. John tells us, the gospel of John that is, tells us that those were the last words which Jesus uttered on the cross. Now I know, particularly on a dreary, rainy, wet, cold, Easter morning, you did not come here this Easter day to hear about death. For Easter, for us of the Christian faith is not about death, but about resurrection. It's not even about immortal life, but it is about the resurrection of the body. But before resurrection, let's be sure there is death. Before resurrection, there has to be death. As a matter of fact for Jesus, there were many death-feel experiences in his life. Lost from his family as a boy, tempted by Satan, starving in the wilderness, estranged from his mother and his family, rejected by his hometown, misunderstood even by His best friends, betrayed by one of his own, denied by his dearest friend, accused recklessly, humiliated by the rulers, forced to walk the streets with his cross of execution, and finally death between two thieves. Death, you see, happened to Jesus and happens to us not only at the end of life, but at moments of deep pain and loss and rejection and separation all along the way of life. Indeed, life would be so much easier for us if there were only one death, physical, when we stop breathing. But no, there's the pain of a broken relationship, the unbearable hurt of someone disappointing us. The deep, deep agony we feel when we have been less than the person we know God wants us to be, or the bitter sadness of a love longed for, or a dream cherished, or a hope yearned for, a striving to which we have given our all only to find ourselves empty or beaten or broken or alone and saying it is finished. It would be so much easier if there were only one death. So it was with Jesus so much so that the last few days of Jesus' life was filled with such painful rejection and disappointment that he may well have felt as the character in one of John Buchan's novels, where it was described that there remained for him, only the trivial business of dying. It is finished, but not really. What seems to be the finish is not really the finish. It is finished for our Lord becomes not a stop, but a start, not an end, but a beginning, not the darkness, but the light, not a dead end, but an open door, not a brick wall, but a way through. Like someone said, many people leave the theater before the play is over. And here the play of Jesus' life is not over, not at all. As it turns out, what has happened thus far is only prelude or prologue or preface or introduction. Essential, surely it was, but only the beginning. For here, the good news is that the bad news of Jesus' death will not win out. Or as John Claypool, Baptist minister puts it reflecting upon the tragic death from leukemia of his 11-year-old daughter, "The point is," he says, "Life never comes to a complete dead end." But how often does it seem that it does? How often does it happen to us? How often do we think it is finished and really feel that we have had all that we can take, and that for us, the end has come. Only defined that there is more that life can go on. Indeed life does go on, indeed life will go on. For Jesus, after it is finished, death had done its worst, life was over and gone. The tomb was indeed his resting place. There was no life, no breath, no reach, no touch, no word, no glance, no hope, and yet there was more. This says to me that we really do not know when the end is come. We really can never be sure when it is finished, whatever it may be. Job, friendship, interview, examination, chosen career, plan of study, sickness, marriage, separation, divorce, trial, testing, temptation, death. We really never know when it is finished, whatever it may be. As James Russell Lowell puts it in his poem, Columbus, "One day with life and heart is more than time enough to find a world, and so it is." No one, perhaps not even Jesus had any idea that there was anything beyond Friday, or at least if the disciples did have any notion of something beyond, in the way of a resurrection, they surely didn't act like it. They stayed away Friday, Saturday, and even on Sunday morning, they were miles away. The remaining 11 disciples had such little faith that they locked themselves into an upper room in Jerusalem. Their response was about like that of the man facing surgery. The hospital chaplain was talking with a middle-aged man who was soon to have various serious surgery and asked him, "You got much waiting for you when you leave the hospital?" The man replied, "Nothing and nobody, just hard work." If we had asked the disciples on Friday, as they were gathered somewhere nearby, "You got much waiting for you after Golgotha?" They would have said, "Nothing and nobody, just an empty life. It is finished." That was their answer, their speculation, their hopelessness, their futility, their faithlessness. They had forgotten what we often forget that God has the final fulfilling word. We often lose our sense of the transcendence of God that God really is in control. And as Ernest Campbell puts it, "When in your life and mine, we are void of the transcendent, then we sink into the absurd." They had forgotten that Jesus said, "On the third day I will rise again." Or at least they had ignored that, or they had never heard it, or they didn't believe it at all. We often forget the promises of God. Job. Then Job answered the Lord, "I know that thou canst do all things and that no purpose of thine can be thwarted. Therefore, I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see thee." "It is finished," Jesus cried. But God said, "No, there is more, much more, more for you, more for your beloved, more for all my children." And the word I hear from God here is, "Never think that you have reached the end." What seems to be finished may be only a beginning, even rejection, even suffering, even misunderstanding, even death. And just because we think it is finished, does not mean that we know the full story or have the whole picture or have the complete answer. God does. And in the meantime, between the time we think it is finished and the time we really begin to understand, God's grace sustains us and upholds us. Thus in the meantime, on the morning of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the place where Jesus lay. But it turned out to be not just a casual stroll in the garden, not just an everyday walk down the primrose path. Listen, there was a great earthquake. An angel came, rolled back the stone and sat up on it. His appearance was like lightning, raiment white as snow, guards trembled and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for He has risen. Go tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead." They departed quickly from the tomb with fear and with great joy, with mixed feelings of fear and great joy and ran to tell His disciples. And behold Jesus met them and they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. And Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid." It is not finished. If we read the gospels carefully, we begin to get some idea of after it is finished, what then? What then, death turned to life, despair become hope, doubt become faith, fear become joy. What then? Easter, life, reunion, communion, fellowship, breaking bread, eating fish, recognition, words of peace and experience of a presence, hope for the present, promise for the future. A word, a look, an invitation, a walk on the beach. A composite of Jesus' words spoken after the resurrection would include these words, "Peace, shalom, do not be afraid, peace be with you, receive the Holy Spirit, follow me, feed my sheep, tend my lambs, tend my sheep. Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of this age." After it is finished, what then? Life, Christ, God, tomorrow, forever. Hugh Prather writes, as his wife lay sick beside him, in his writings entitled, Notes to Myself, "I must accept the justice of death and the injustice of life. I have lived a good life longer than many, better than most. I have had 32 years, I couldn't ask for another day. What did I do to deserve birth? It was a gift. But now it's morning. I have been given another day, another day to hear and read and smell and walk and love and glory. I am alive for another day." It is finished sounds so final, so definite, so sure, so certain, so much like the end, but there is more. And so the question comes back again, what then does the crucifixion, resurrection mean to you and to me? That even when we cry, "It is finished." God says, "There is more. There is life for you, for now and for forever." Easter then, my friends, is yes. Easter then is life, Easter then is the touch of a friend, Easter then is people, people partying and people meeting. Easter then is promise, promise given and promise fulfilled. The resurrection is a sign the other half of the Bethlehem star. Not a hearts and flowers routine we go through once a year to cheer ourselves up, but rather an authentic word of who we are and of life that cannot be destroyed regardless of the death of our physical bodies. Easter is a promise and Easter is yes, but there is a choice. We must choose whether to believe the star and the sign, or to cry ourselves to sleep, to split the sky with our praises, or to waste ourselves in resentment and fear. We must choose between death and adoration, and so we do. Easter is memories and talk. It is two people trusting each other. Easter is laughter, Easter is life. Easter is yes. Easter is yours and mine with all its joy and beauty and goodness and hope. All we need to do is to claim it, and to claim it in the name and in the the spirit of Jesus Christ, our risen Lord. Christ the Lord is risen. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Amen. (drum rolling) (solemn organic music) (choir singing harmoniously) Let us affirm what we believe. We believe in God who has created and is creating, who has come in the truly human Jesus to reconcile and make new, who works in us and others by the spirit. We trust God, who calls us to be the church, to celebrate life and its fullness, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil. Our judge and our hope, in life and death and life beyond death. God is with us, we are not alone. Thanks be to God. The Lord be with you. (congregation speaking indistinctly) Let us pray. Oh, loving God, oh sovereign God, we bow before you lifting to your love all of your children who suffer, who wait for the word of hope. Comfort those who are weighed down with the grief and despair of their life. Write in their hearts your words of eternal hope. Nourish those oh God who are cast down because of poverty or hunger, because of illness or death of loved ones, or death of ideas or dreams or relationships. Help us not to forget these who you love. Oh God, source of comfort, companion of the lonely, be with those who by neglect or willful separation are left alone. Fill the empty places with love. You have bound us together in life. Give us grace to understand how our lives depend upon the courage and industry and honesty and integrity of our brothers and sisters. And may we be mindful of their needs, grateful for their faithfulness and faithful in our responsibilities to them. Send us your spirit oh God so that each of us may grow in our ability to care for your children and your creation. Help us to rediscover our compassion, our sensitivity, our ability to feel another's pain. Oh God, raise our broken spirits, our weak faith, our downcast hearts, our broken relationships. And may we have the courage to live as fully as Jesus did, serving others with generosity and joy. Hear us now as we pray the prayer our Lord taught us. Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. 

Congregation: 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, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. Forever and ever, amen. Amen. (lady singing soulfully) (solemn organic music) (lady singing soulfully) (choir singing harmoniously) (organic music) (choir singing harmoniously) Oh God, we rejoice in the hope which comes from you every day but especially on this Easter day. We give thanks that you have created us through your power, recreated us through your mercy, that you sustain us to the spirit of our risen Lord. To you oh God of love, we bring our selves, our failures, our compromises, our fears, our joys, our hopes, our commitment. Use us, use our gifts to express your love for those who are in great need. We pray in the spirit of the risen Christ, amen. (solemn organic music playing) (choir singing harmoniously) May the God who raised Jesus from the dead, sustain you and comfort you from this day forever more. (choir singing harmoniously) (solemn organic music)