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Sunday
April 20, 2025

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Lectionary Theme: Kemta – Feast of Resurrection – Easter Sunday (End of Great Lent); The resurrection that gives hope of new life

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    1. Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

    2. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you.

    3. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

    4. Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms.

    5. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you.

    6. A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.

    7. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to you, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you; they shall be acceptable on my altar, and I will glorify my glorious house.

    8. Who are these that fly like a cloud, and like doves to their windows?

    9. For the coastlands shall wait for me, the ships of Tarshish first, to bring your children from far away, their silver and gold with them, for the name of the Lord your God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because he has glorified you.

    10. Foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you; for in my wrath I struck you down, but in my favor I have had mercy on you.

    11. Your gates shall always be open; day and night they shall not be shut, so that nations shall bring you their wealth, with their kings led in procession.

    12. For the nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish; those nations shall be utterly laid waste.

    13. The glory of Lebanon shall come to you, the cypress, the plane, and the pine, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will glorify where my feet rest.

    14. The descendants of those who oppressed you shall come bending low to you, and all who despised you shall bow down at your feet; they shall call you the City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

    15. Whereas you have been forsaken and hated, with no one passing through, I will make you majestic forever, a joy from age to age.

    16. You shall suck the milk of nations, you shall suck the breasts of kings; and you shall know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

    17. Instead of bronze I will bring gold, instead of iron I will bring silver; instead of wood, bronze, instead of stones, iron. I will appoint Peace as your overseer and Righteousness as your taskmaster.

    18. Violence shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders; you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise. God the Glory of Zion

    19. The sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you by night; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.

    20. Your sun shall no more go down, or your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended.

    21. Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever. They are the shoot that I planted, the work of my hands, so that I might be glorified.

    22. The least of them shall become a clan, and the smallest one a mighty nation; I am the Lord; in its time I will accomplish it quickly.

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    1. Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand,

    2. through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.

    3. For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,

    4. and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,

    5. and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

    6. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.

    7. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

    8. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

    9. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

    10. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

    11. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe. The Resurrection of the Dead

    12. Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?

    13. If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised;

    14. and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.

    15. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.

    16. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised.

    17. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

    18. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished.

    19. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

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    13. But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

    14. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.

    15. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died.

    16. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

    17. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.

    18. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

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    1. But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.

    2. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb,

    3. but when they went in, they did not find the body.

    4. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.

    5. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.

    6. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee,

    7. that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”

    8. Then they remembered his words,

    9. and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.

    10. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.

    11. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

    12. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened. The Walk to Emmaus