April 12th, 2020
ONLINE WORSHIP SERVICE
|
Rev. Johan Reiners
Assistant Pastor, Chungong English Ministry | ||
Dear Chungdong family,
Happy Easter!
Welcome to our online worship service. Along with our brothers and sisters all around the world, we’re now coming to terms with the ‘new normal’ brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. Due to the spread of COVID-19, Chungdong First Methodist Church, English Ministry will continue worshiping online until further notice.
We hope and pray that things will get back to normal soon. In the meantime, please join us with your family and friends for online worship. You can follow the liturgy here along with the video sermon. Click on the links provided for hymns. The order of service has been simplified to include a prayer and two hymns.
We will keep you updated about services during the following weeks.
Please remember to pray for the country, the leaders and those affected by this crisis.
This week’s preacher is Rev. Johan Reiners.
HOME WORSHIP
Call to Worship
As our call to worship today, let’s confess out loud the following words:
Morning has broken, but this morning is different.
The birds are singing tunes of joy in the trees surrounding the graves.
The flower buds are bursting in colors vibrant around each stone.
We’ve come to visit the grave of a friend, but “he is not here.”
The Sun is rising in the East; the shadowed grays turn bright!
The Son is risen indeed; darkness and death end in defeat.
Now we understand what Christ said, what God did.
Now we can proclaim,
CHRIST IS RISEN! HALLELUJAH!
Song of Praise
Singing is an ancient Christian tradition.
No virus or any other global crisis can keep God’s people from raising our voices in praise. By singing from home, we are engaging in an act of resistance, telling the world that no matter it throws at us we will be faithful to the God who casts out fear.
Easter Hymn
Christ the Lord is Risen Today
Happy Easter!
Welcome to our online worship service. Along with our brothers and sisters all around the world, we’re now coming to terms with the ‘new normal’ brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. Due to the spread of COVID-19, Chungdong First Methodist Church, English Ministry will continue worshiping online until further notice.
We hope and pray that things will get back to normal soon. In the meantime, please join us with your family and friends for online worship. You can follow the liturgy here along with the video sermon. Click on the links provided for hymns. The order of service has been simplified to include a prayer and two hymns.
We will keep you updated about services during the following weeks.
Please remember to pray for the country, the leaders and those affected by this crisis.
This week’s preacher is Rev. Johan Reiners.
HOME WORSHIP
Call to Worship
As our call to worship today, let’s confess out loud the following words:
Morning has broken, but this morning is different.
The birds are singing tunes of joy in the trees surrounding the graves.
The flower buds are bursting in colors vibrant around each stone.
We’ve come to visit the grave of a friend, but “he is not here.”
The Sun is rising in the East; the shadowed grays turn bright!
The Son is risen indeed; darkness and death end in defeat.
Now we understand what Christ said, what God did.
Now we can proclaim,
CHRIST IS RISEN! HALLELUJAH!
Song of Praise
Singing is an ancient Christian tradition.
No virus or any other global crisis can keep God’s people from raising our voices in praise. By singing from home, we are engaging in an act of resistance, telling the world that no matter it throws at us we will be faithful to the God who casts out fear.
Easter Hymn
Christ the Lord is Risen Today
CONFESSION OF FAITH
We believe in God, the Creator of all that we see and all that we do not see.
We believe in Jesus Christ, God becomes flesh;
in death the Forgiver of sinners, in rising the Healer of the broken.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, God within us,
Comforter, Strengthener and Friend.
Amen.
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
Prepare our hearts, o 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.
GOSPEL LESSON
John 20:1-2 (NIRV)
(1) Early on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb. It was still dark. She saw that the stone had been moved away from the entrance. (2) So she ran to Simon Peter and another disciple, the one Jesus loved. She said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb! We don’t know where they have put him!”
This is the Gospel of Christ.
Thanks to the Living Lord!
PRAYER
God who stills the waters and quiets the storm,
God who lets not a hair of our heads fall without your knowledge,
God who brings sight to the blind and words to quieted tongues,
God who created the earth and all that is in it,
God who teaches the foolish and strengthens the wise,
God who promises a coming day
when there will be no more mourning or crying or pain,
when death will pass away,
when all things will be made new:
On this day of resurrection, bring healing to our world, to our neighbors, and to us.
Bring wisdom so we may honor you and bring glory to you in these days of plague.
Bring strength so we may rejoice in your love.
Bring patience that is grounded in actively living in your ways.
Bring hope that is rooted in your resurrection power.
Bring grace and calm to us so we may bring grace and calm to others.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
SERMON
Easter Sunday, 2020
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark…” (John 20:1 NRSV)
We believe in God, the Creator of all that we see and all that we do not see.
We believe in Jesus Christ, God becomes flesh;
in death the Forgiver of sinners, in rising the Healer of the broken.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, God within us,
Comforter, Strengthener and Friend.
Amen.
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
Prepare our hearts, o 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.
GOSPEL LESSON
John 20:1-2 (NIRV)
(1) Early on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb. It was still dark. She saw that the stone had been moved away from the entrance. (2) So she ran to Simon Peter and another disciple, the one Jesus loved. She said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb! We don’t know where they have put him!”
This is the Gospel of Christ.
Thanks to the Living Lord!
PRAYER
God who stills the waters and quiets the storm,
God who lets not a hair of our heads fall without your knowledge,
God who brings sight to the blind and words to quieted tongues,
God who created the earth and all that is in it,
God who teaches the foolish and strengthens the wise,
God who promises a coming day
when there will be no more mourning or crying or pain,
when death will pass away,
when all things will be made new:
On this day of resurrection, bring healing to our world, to our neighbors, and to us.
Bring wisdom so we may honor you and bring glory to you in these days of plague.
Bring strength so we may rejoice in your love.
Bring patience that is grounded in actively living in your ways.
Bring hope that is rooted in your resurrection power.
Bring grace and calm to us so we may bring grace and calm to others.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
SERMON
Easter Sunday, 2020
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark…” (John 20:1 NRSV)
It’s a resurrection-tomorrow!
Earlier this week, I read an article by a well-known South African writer about two paintings of the Last Supper. The one picture is Da Vinci’s famous The Last Supper. In it, Jesus and his disciples are sitting at a long table with a white cloth draped over it. We know the painting – it’s beautiful, it’s deep and the story it’s telling is never-ending and always new.
There is another painting of the Last Supper by the German artist Ben Willikens, painted in the 1970s called Abendmah. In stark contrast to the Da Vinci painting, this one is modern and empty. You can see the DaVinci motif – a long table, a white cloth but no Jesus, no reclining disciples, no bread, and no mugs – just a stark departure. You get the feeling of alienation, disorientation, loss, and void – a feeling that finds its best expression in the Dutch term: “Godsverlatendheid.” This word conjures images of a place God has deserted. The emptiness is palpable; you can feel it. It is shockingly empty. There’s an eeriness that at the same time invites you to come in and pushes you with force to flee this “Godverlatendheid” – God-desolation! The place is lonely in its ugliness. The Presence has left the house. God has fled the scene. The tiled floor, steel doorways, and sanitary white walls appear more like a science lab than dining room. Even the table, adorned in da Vinci’s white tablecloth, reeks of industrial design, with its steel legs and their rubber tips. Willikens may, then, be replacing religion with science, or worse, the very nihilism Nietzsche warned of.
And then, only for the brave at heart who lingers for another painful moment, the void en desolation reveals a treasure. The place is not empty after all!
There’s an incongruity in this alienated image. Despite the cold metal of the dining hall, the background contradicts everything concrete about it. The space itself doesn’t ooze godlessness.
Wait another moment – stay just one more second! Can you see it? The emptiness is filled with a beam of light flooding in from the rear three windows. Taking a cue from da Vinci’s original, Willikens focuses on a light source from outside the main dining area. From the three orifices, a divine light tears through the entire room, pervading it with mystery. Suddenly you realize that the light is making the difference. It’s the light that kept your attention in the first place. It’s the light that has drawn you closer, nearer, to look deeper. It’s the light that kept you looking! Horst Schwebel describes the light in Beyond Belief: “Thus the viewer, having first accepted the grey melancholy of emptiness, is being rewarded for his steadfastness as he gets his share of the emanation of light from behind” (Crumlin).
Willikens’ painting is intriguing in so many ways! It resonates with the resurrection story in the Gospel of John. The writer is like a skilled painter. Masterfully he’s using words as his brush on a pallet of the mind. Like with the Willikens painting, you have to linger, wait, drink every letter of the words he so carefully arranges to see the glimpses of hope dashing through the cracks of darkness. “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark…” Did you hear that? “While it was still dark….” In this hollow darkness, I see the emptiness of Willikens’ painting. There’s a nothingness. A seemingly, in the thought of Nietsche, godlessness!
Imagine Mary. The hell of a bloody and cruel cross she had to witness. Her total powerlessness, her desolation, and stunned nothingness. Everything she had hoped for – the promise of new life, the brisk faith and her tomorrow – all gone in a matter of hours! What’s left? Nothing! All she had left was a grave – a nothing! A not-knowing tomorrow! Imagine her heart; see her downtrodden figure quietly scaling the dark, empty, blood-stained streets of the Via Dolorosa.
On this very Easter morning, millions of downtrodden figures are scaling the dark alleys all over the world. The dark alley of a job-loss, fear of tomorrow, a stolen future and the empty prospect of nothingness. Like never before, this world has been brought to a standstill. On April 1st, there were no April Fool’s jokes – the reality has become stranger than fiction. Fear has grabbed hold of people all over the globe. We are trying to come to grips with what we’ve only seen in movies. The outlook is bleak – even dark. Like in Mary’s story, we experience the time “when it was still dark.” Like the Willikens painting, we look in the Easter chamber, and there’s an emptiness. The Internet is flooded with voices – preachers, philosophers, soothsayer, doomsayers, and naysayers. I miss the God-sayings! And somehow, I found the God-saying in the emptiness of the Willikens painting. Stripped from color, grey and bleak as the world in April 2020! Still dark… as in the Mary story…
And yet! And yet! It was not empty after all! It was filled with light – all the time, and we haven’t noticed it! The painting wasn’t bare! It was flooded from the sun, beaming, piercing the dark from the other side!
Mary, you’ll see an empty tomb! You’ll feel the final blow of hopelessness! But, Mary, look! It’s empty, but it’s full! Filled with the hope of all hopes – He has overcame death! He has risen! The light that filled the empty tomb is light piercing through the open door!
Today is Easter. Yes, we are overwhelmed by the empty table, the empty grave, the reality that life has changed. That our tomorrows have changed forever. We have nothing on the table! Look up! Like the Psalmist: I will lift my eyes to the hills! Where will my help come from? My help is from the Lord! Look up – the empty room is filled with God’s light. He is here, and His light is a resurrection light that has overcame the darkness of despair.
I lift my gaze on this painting. My heart is filled with hope! There is hope for tomorrow. It’s a resurrection tomorrow!
I want to close with this beautiful poem by Anna Onishchkuk:
Earlier this week, I read an article by a well-known South African writer about two paintings of the Last Supper. The one picture is Da Vinci’s famous The Last Supper. In it, Jesus and his disciples are sitting at a long table with a white cloth draped over it. We know the painting – it’s beautiful, it’s deep and the story it’s telling is never-ending and always new.
There is another painting of the Last Supper by the German artist Ben Willikens, painted in the 1970s called Abendmah. In stark contrast to the Da Vinci painting, this one is modern and empty. You can see the DaVinci motif – a long table, a white cloth but no Jesus, no reclining disciples, no bread, and no mugs – just a stark departure. You get the feeling of alienation, disorientation, loss, and void – a feeling that finds its best expression in the Dutch term: “Godsverlatendheid.” This word conjures images of a place God has deserted. The emptiness is palpable; you can feel it. It is shockingly empty. There’s an eeriness that at the same time invites you to come in and pushes you with force to flee this “Godverlatendheid” – God-desolation! The place is lonely in its ugliness. The Presence has left the house. God has fled the scene. The tiled floor, steel doorways, and sanitary white walls appear more like a science lab than dining room. Even the table, adorned in da Vinci’s white tablecloth, reeks of industrial design, with its steel legs and their rubber tips. Willikens may, then, be replacing religion with science, or worse, the very nihilism Nietzsche warned of.
And then, only for the brave at heart who lingers for another painful moment, the void en desolation reveals a treasure. The place is not empty after all!
There’s an incongruity in this alienated image. Despite the cold metal of the dining hall, the background contradicts everything concrete about it. The space itself doesn’t ooze godlessness.
Wait another moment – stay just one more second! Can you see it? The emptiness is filled with a beam of light flooding in from the rear three windows. Taking a cue from da Vinci’s original, Willikens focuses on a light source from outside the main dining area. From the three orifices, a divine light tears through the entire room, pervading it with mystery. Suddenly you realize that the light is making the difference. It’s the light that kept your attention in the first place. It’s the light that has drawn you closer, nearer, to look deeper. It’s the light that kept you looking! Horst Schwebel describes the light in Beyond Belief: “Thus the viewer, having first accepted the grey melancholy of emptiness, is being rewarded for his steadfastness as he gets his share of the emanation of light from behind” (Crumlin).
Willikens’ painting is intriguing in so many ways! It resonates with the resurrection story in the Gospel of John. The writer is like a skilled painter. Masterfully he’s using words as his brush on a pallet of the mind. Like with the Willikens painting, you have to linger, wait, drink every letter of the words he so carefully arranges to see the glimpses of hope dashing through the cracks of darkness. “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark…” Did you hear that? “While it was still dark….” In this hollow darkness, I see the emptiness of Willikens’ painting. There’s a nothingness. A seemingly, in the thought of Nietsche, godlessness!
Imagine Mary. The hell of a bloody and cruel cross she had to witness. Her total powerlessness, her desolation, and stunned nothingness. Everything she had hoped for – the promise of new life, the brisk faith and her tomorrow – all gone in a matter of hours! What’s left? Nothing! All she had left was a grave – a nothing! A not-knowing tomorrow! Imagine her heart; see her downtrodden figure quietly scaling the dark, empty, blood-stained streets of the Via Dolorosa.
On this very Easter morning, millions of downtrodden figures are scaling the dark alleys all over the world. The dark alley of a job-loss, fear of tomorrow, a stolen future and the empty prospect of nothingness. Like never before, this world has been brought to a standstill. On April 1st, there were no April Fool’s jokes – the reality has become stranger than fiction. Fear has grabbed hold of people all over the globe. We are trying to come to grips with what we’ve only seen in movies. The outlook is bleak – even dark. Like in Mary’s story, we experience the time “when it was still dark.” Like the Willikens painting, we look in the Easter chamber, and there’s an emptiness. The Internet is flooded with voices – preachers, philosophers, soothsayer, doomsayers, and naysayers. I miss the God-sayings! And somehow, I found the God-saying in the emptiness of the Willikens painting. Stripped from color, grey and bleak as the world in April 2020! Still dark… as in the Mary story…
And yet! And yet! It was not empty after all! It was filled with light – all the time, and we haven’t noticed it! The painting wasn’t bare! It was flooded from the sun, beaming, piercing the dark from the other side!
Mary, you’ll see an empty tomb! You’ll feel the final blow of hopelessness! But, Mary, look! It’s empty, but it’s full! Filled with the hope of all hopes – He has overcame death! He has risen! The light that filled the empty tomb is light piercing through the open door!
Today is Easter. Yes, we are overwhelmed by the empty table, the empty grave, the reality that life has changed. That our tomorrows have changed forever. We have nothing on the table! Look up! Like the Psalmist: I will lift my eyes to the hills! Where will my help come from? My help is from the Lord! Look up – the empty room is filled with God’s light. He is here, and His light is a resurrection light that has overcame the darkness of despair.
I lift my gaze on this painting. My heart is filled with hope! There is hope for tomorrow. It’s a resurrection tomorrow!
I want to close with this beautiful poem by Anna Onishchkuk:
They say there will be no Easter this year.
No hats.
No hunts.
No hymning.
No lilies to fill a bright room
with a fanfare of pollen.
No garden, no angel,
no victory.
They say that our journey
born in sackcloth and ashes
will lead us at last
to nowhere.
And so we sit worried
that the tomb, this year,
will be found, for once,
still full.
That Mary and the others
will leave with their spices
and come back home with nothing.
That this year the women will finally end their work –
anoint and then
leave empty.
Ssh. Be still.
Do you not hear her?
Clucking close by like an old mother hen,
brooding and sighing and
stretching her wings?
Fear not, she says,
for I did it before –
in the silence
in the dark
in a closed and locked room
in a world that had known
only death.
Did I not once prove
once for all
that there is nothing you can do,
no decision you can make
(for good or for ill)
that can stop
me
rising?
Amen!
No hats.
No hunts.
No hymning.
No lilies to fill a bright room
with a fanfare of pollen.
No garden, no angel,
no victory.
They say that our journey
born in sackcloth and ashes
will lead us at last
to nowhere.
And so we sit worried
that the tomb, this year,
will be found, for once,
still full.
That Mary and the others
will leave with their spices
and come back home with nothing.
That this year the women will finally end their work –
anoint and then
leave empty.
Ssh. Be still.
Do you not hear her?
Clucking close by like an old mother hen,
brooding and sighing and
stretching her wings?
Fear not, she says,
for I did it before –
in the silence
in the dark
in a closed and locked room
in a world that had known
only death.
Did I not once prove
once for all
that there is nothing you can do,
no decision you can make
(for good or for ill)
that can stop
me
rising?
Amen!
THE LORD'S PRAYER
HOLY COMMUNION
CLOSING HYMN
Up from the Grave He Arose
Up from the Grave He Arose
BENEDICTION
Numbers 6:24-26
Numbers 6:24-26
The Lord bless you and keep you,
The Lord lift His countenance upon you.
And give you peace, and give you peace,
The Lord make His face to shine upon you.
And be gracious unto you, and be gracious,
The Lord be gracious, gracious unto you.
Amen, amen, amen.
Amen, amen, amen.
The Lord lift His countenance upon you.
And give you peace, and give you peace,
The Lord make His face to shine upon you.
And be gracious unto you, and be gracious,
The Lord be gracious, gracious unto you.
Amen, amen, amen.
Amen, amen, amen.
POSTLUDE
Lord of the Dance - Laurika Rauch
Lord of the Dance - Laurika Rauch
