Once again, Dr Henry has recorded the service for the wider Presbyterian family in his own church, Maze Presbyterian, which includes a choir piece from a previous Easter service at Maze, ‘The Lord is my Salvation’.
Speaking before the recording, the Moderator said, “When our thoughts, and indeed all news feeds seem to lead us to the Coronavirus, we could almost forget that it is Easter in these lockdown days. But having remembered the terrible sadness of Good Friday, today we celebrate with exuberant joy the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
“It was a time when God’s awesome power was most evident and displayed. As I said in my Easter Message, Easter is the ‘peak of hope’ and in the midst of what is happening around us, we need hope. And hope is not something to be ‘wished for’, but something to possess, for it is God who gives us hope. While we still do not control the circumstances of life, and there may be many points at which we are puzzled and perplexed; we look forward with certainty to the future that God has perfectly prepared for us. Because of this sure and confident hope, we can live more fully and assuredly in this present uncertain world.
“In today’s sermon I will be reflecting on Mary encountering Jesus that first Easter Sunday, an encounter that offered her a whole new world, when that morning she wasn’t really expecting anything!”
The service begins with ‘O Lord my God and ‘Be thou my vision’. The Bible reading comes from Matthew 28: 1-10 and the kids address is about new life in Jesus, with the song, ‘the greatest day in history’. The final praise will be ‘Living Hope’.