Easter Sunday Worship Live From St Albans Cathedral

Welcome to St Albans, and thank you for being part

This is the oldest continuous Christian site of Christian worship

Alban was martyred here in the year 303, and pilgrims have

It is also, by the way, the place the hot cross bun

was invented, to feed hungry pilgrims in Holy Week.

So today you're a pilgrim too; and together we are doing

We are celebrating the Eucharist to know that the Risen Christ,

with Alban and all his saints, is alive and present now,

and shares with us his gift of eternal life.

BISHOP: In the name of the Father, and of the Son,

BISHOP: Grace, mercy and peace be with you.

We recall how Jesus comes to reach of us, to welcome us and invite us

to become part of his continuing story, and looking forward to that

time when we will all share in the eternal banquet of God's Kingdom. So

we prepare ourselves to come to God Let us therefore rejoice by putting

away all malice and evil and confessing our sins

with a sincere and true heart. ALL: Almighty God, our heavenly

Father, we have sinned and deed - through negligence,

through weakness, through our Lord of all life and power,

who through the mighty resurrection of your Son overcame the old order

of sin and death to make all things new in him: grant that we,

being dead to sin and alive to you in Jesus Christ,

may reign with him in glory; to whom with you and the Holy Spirit

be praise and honour, glory and might, now

and in all eternity. a reading from the first letter of

Saint Paul to the Corinthians. But someone will ask,

'How are the dead raised? With what kind of body

do they come?' Fool! What you sow does not come

to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow,

you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare

seed, perhaps of wheat But God gives it a body as he has

chosen, and to each kind So it is with the resurrection

of the dead. What is sown is perishable,

what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour,

it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness,

it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body,

it is raised a spiritual body. For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth

Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah For the Lord God

omnipotent reigneth # Hallelujah Hallelujah

# Hallelujah Hallelujah # Forever and ever

and ever # And He shall reign forever

and ever # And He shall reign forever

and ever # And He shall reign forever

DEACON: Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ

DEACON: Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.

As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two

They said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?'

She said to them, 'They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know

she turned round and saw Jesus standing there,

but she did not know that it was Jesus.

Jesus said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?

she said to him, 'Sir, if you have carried him away,

tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.'

She turned and said to him in Hebrew, 'Rabbouni!'

Jesus said to her, 'Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet

But go to my brothers and say to them, "I am ascending

to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."'

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, 'I have seen

the Lord' - and she told them that he had said these

ALL (SING): Praise to you, O Christ.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

There's an American company, with agents in the UK,

which offers to sell you immortality by freezing your body after death.

Around ?100,000 they promise to get to you within a couple of hours

with ice packs and big syringes full of preservative chemicals.

Then they'll put you on the first plane to their headquarters

in the USA, where you'll be drained of blood,

filled with glycerol, and hung upside down

This is done in the hope that whatever you die of will be curable

in the future, or even that one day old age and dying

So in the year 2050 or whenever, some scientist will pop you out

of your personal fridge and bring you back to supposdly endless life.

There is also a half-price option of getting just your head frozen

and flown to the USA on the assumption that when it's

defrosted it can be put onto a brand new body.

Sometimes the cryonics process has been referred to as 'resurrection'.

Even if it worked, it's not resurrection -

When Christians talk about resurrection we don't just

mean prolonging the sort of life we have now,

I wouldn't want this one back anyway.

It's true that reading some of the Gospel accounts you might be

misled into thinking that the resurrection body is just

Clearly the Risen Christ did appear in bodily form.

Both Luke and John say he ate food, and the disciples were able

Yet at the same time the Gospels also say he could pass

When he walked with the disciples on the Emmaus Road, they didn't

recognise him until he opened their eyes.

Mary Magdalene too doesn't recognize him at first,

and when she does, Jesus tells her not to hold him

because he is about to ascend to the Father.

So Jesus certainly survived death and is objectively there.

But the Gospels are much less clear about the exact way in which he's

He's present, but in a different way of being -

one that we may or may not recognise, depending

It's really St Paul who tackles head-on this question of how

In his first letter to the Corinthians he mentions

that they had asked him exactly that question: "How are the dead

In reply Paul tells them straight that of course the resurrection life

"Flesh and blood do not inherit the kingdom of God", he says.

But that doesn't mean it's unreal, or that it's just a metapor,

We'll still have real, objective existence,

and we'll still be ourselves - in fact we'll be much more

wonderfully ourselves, since we won't be tied

Paul says the dead body is like a seed which is buried

But then, by God's power, it's changed;

it springs into life and becomes a plant,

which is infinitely more glorious than the seed was,

and yet, it has miraculously developed out of it.

So, Paul says, our earthly existance will also be changed into

an unimaginably fuller existence in the Spirit.

We won't be absorbed into undifferentiated

being, like the Buddist idea of Nirvana.

We'll be the persons we are now, but perfected and united

with the union of persons in love which is God the Trinity.

To take another example that both Jesus and Paul use,

think of the way we came into the world in the first place.

When we were a baby in the womb, being born must have felt

like dying, and a very violent death at that.

After nine months of being cosy and peaceful inside our mothers,

suddenly all our life supports were torn away,

and we were shoved out of the only existence we knew,

with no idea that this trauma was actually the start

Yet even while we were in the womb we were forming all the faculties

we would need for that new life - lungs to breathe and eyes to see

We couldn't have imagined our new world, even though

we were preparing for it, and the cost of entering

Well, if that's how it was for us at the beginning, why not

Even after being born, there are still more deaths.

We have to die to childhood, or else remain infantile.

We have to leave home and family behind, to form adult relationships

Even in small things, like changing jobs or moving house,

there is always that wrench from the past, that

that terror of the future, which seems to be the condition

of entering the new and fuller life.

All along the way we have to learn to let go.

That's really what those poor corpses in the cryonics

They wanted to stay on here, with the world they knew

and the kind of life they understood.

You might as well try to crawl back into the womb, just as Nicodemus

thought, when Jesus told him, "You must be born again".

And rebirth through death is the pattern of all our moving on,

from the very start to the very end.

Jesus himself didn't cheat it, he really died, and in the normal

human way, with real pain and real fear.

But becasue he came through the other side of death,

we can trust that for us too it won't be the end,

but only the last of so many letting-goes -

our last Good Friday, before our own Easter Day.

ALL: We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God, begotten not made, of one

Being with the Father - through him all things were made.

BISHOP: In joy and hope, let us pray to the Father.

STEPHEN DE SILVA: Most Glorious Lord of Life, you reveal your love

for the world in your Son's triumph over death and sin,

Hear us as we seek to share that love with all whom we meet.

Let us love each other as we ought; Love is the lesson

STEPHEN DE SILVA: Jesus is Lord of every time and place,

we pray for the Church throughout this land and throughout the world,

especially for Alan, our Bishop, and his priests and deacons;

we rejoice with all the people baptised and confrimed this Easter.

Lord in your mercy... ALL: Hear our Prayer.

STEPHEN DE SILVA: Jesus the King of Righteousness is enthroned

at your right hand; bring your peace and justic

Bless Elizabeth our Queen and all who serve in her name.

We hold in our prayers those who are persecuted for their belief. We pray

for the people of Brussels. Holding your loving hands everyone

who has died, trusting your prophecies. Comfort all who mourn

and remember. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We join our prayers with those of Blessed Mary, Alban

and all the Saints by asking: Merciful Father...

ALL: Accept these prayers for the sake of your Son our saviour

BISHOP: The risen Christ came and stood among his disciples

and said, 'Peace be with you.' Then were they glad

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

BISHOP: Let us offer one another a sign of peace.

Lord Jesus Christ, make yourself known in the breaking of bread.

# Let us give thanks to the Lord, our God. It is our duty and joy to

give you thanks, our mighty Father, and to celebrate with joyful heart

the memory of your wonderful works. For, by the mystery of his passion,

Jesus Christ you're risen son has conquered the powers of death and

hell and restored in men and women in the image of your glory. Please

place them once more in paradise and open to them the gate of life

eternal. And so in the joy of this Passover, earth and heaven resound

with gladness. Angels and all the power of creation sing for ever the

hymn of your glory. # Sanctus, Sanctus,

Sanctus # Pleni sunt caeli

et terra gloria tua. # Benedictus qui venit

in nomine Domini BISHOP: Accept our praises,

heavenly Father, through your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,

and as we follow his example and obey his command,

grant that by the power of your Holy Spirit these gifts

of bread and wine may be to us his body and his blood;

who, in the same night that he was betrayed,

took bread and gave you thanks; he broke it and gave

it to his disciples, saying: Take, eat; this is my body

which is given for you; do this In the same way, after supper

he took the cup and gave you thanks; he gave it to them,

saying: Drink this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant,

which is shed for you and for many Do this, as often as you drink it,

in remembrance of me. Therefore, heavenly Father,

we remember his offering of himself made once for all upon the cross;

we proclaim his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension; we look

for the coming of your kingdom, and with this bread and this cup

we make the memorial BISHOP: Great is the mystery

of faith. BISHOP: Accept through him,

our great high priest, this, our sacrifice of thanks

and praise, and as we eat and drink these holy gifts in the presence

of your divine majesty, renew us by your Spirit,

inspire us with your love and unite us in the body of your Son,

Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him, and with him,

and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

with all who stand before you in Earth and heaven,

we worship you, Father almighty, in songs of everlasting praise:

Blessing and honour and glory BISHOP: Rejoicing in God's

new creation, let us pray with confidence as our

Saviour has taught us. ALL: Our Father, who art in heaven

hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done

on earth as it is in heaven. We break this bread to share in the

body of Christ. ALL: Though we are many, we are one

body, because we all share BISHOP: Christ our Passover

is sacrificed for us. ALL: Therefore let

us keep the feast. qui tollis peccata

mundi, qui tollis peccata

mundi, qui tollis peccata

mundi, # veniunt ad monumentum

orto iam sole. God of Life, who for our redemption

gave your only begotten Son to the death of the cross,

and by his glorious resurrection have delivered us from the power

of our enemy: grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may ever more

live with him in the joy BISHOP: God the Father,

by whose love Christ was raised from the dead, open

to you who believe the gates God the Son, who in bursting

from the grave has won a glorious victory, give you joy

as you share the Easter faith. BISHOP: God the Holy Spirit,

who filled the disciples with the life of the Risen Lord,

empower you and fill BISHOP: And the blessing of God

almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

be among you and remain DEACON (SINGS): Go in

the peace of Christ. ALL: Thanks be to God -

Alleluia, alleluia. ..and that's what

she felt with the blues. Most people can be oblivious

to what's going on around them, I have been around for all the stuff

that you would call "history" - Cavaliers and Roundheads,

Henry VIII, 1066, before that. spurring each other on to

greatness... Yeah. They do feel present,

don't they? Yeah. There is a spirit of

the Brontes' past, somehow.