Book of Common Prayer

The Lord is King!^[a]

God rules the world^[a]

This psalm is a song for the music leader.

Praise God!^[a]

¹⁴ In future years, you must remember this day as a special day every year. It will be a festival when you worship me, the Lord. You and your descendants must do this every year, for all time. ¹⁵ For seven days, you must eat flat bread that has no yeast in it. On the first day of the Passover festival, you must take all the yeast out of your houses. During those seven days, if anyone eats bread with yeast in it, he will no longer belong to my people, the Israelites.

¹⁶ On the first day of the festival, you must bring together all the people to a special meeting. And you must do the same thing on the seventh day. On these special days, you must not do your usual work. You may prepare the food that you need to eat on those days. That is the only work that you may do.

¹⁷ This will be the Feast of Flat Bread, when you eat bread with no yeast in it. You will remember that I brought you all out of the country of Egypt on this day. You marched out like an army, family by family! That is why you must enjoy this day as a special day, for all time. This is a rule that you must always obey. ¹⁸ In the first month of each year, you must eat bread without yeast in it. Do this from the evening of the 14th day until the evening of the 21st day. ¹⁹ For those seven days, you must not have any yeast in your houses. Whoever eats anything with yeast in it will no longer belong to my people, the Israelites. Everyone must obey these rules, those who live among you as strangers, as well as those who have been born in your land. ²⁰ Eat nothing that has yeast in it. Whatever country you live in, you must eat bread without yeast in it.’

²¹ Then Moses called the leaders of the Israelites to come to him. He said to them, ‘Go immediately and choose a lamb for each of your families. Then kill the animals for the Passover feast. ²² Put the blood into a dish. Then take a branch of hyssop.^[a] Make it wet with the blood that is in the dish. Then put some of the blood on the wood that is round your door. Nobody must go out of the door of his house until the morning. ²³ The Lord will pass through the country and he will kill the Egyptians. But when the Lord sees the blood on the wood round the door, he will pass over that house. He will not let the death angel come into your houses. The Lord will not let him kill you.

²⁴ You must obey these rules always, both you and your descendants, for all time. ²⁵ You will go into the land that the Lord promised to give you. Then you must continue to obey these rules. ²⁶ Your children may say to you, “What does this feast mean?” ²⁷ Then you must say to them, “It is the Lord's Passover sacrifice. The Lord passed over the houses of the Israelites when they were in Egypt. He killed the Egyptians but he saved our families.” ’ Then the people bent their heads down to the ground and they worshipped God.

Christ became alive again after he died

15 My Christian friends, I want you to remember the good news that I taught to you. You received it from me and you continue to believe it as a true message. ² Because of the message that I spoke to you, God will save you. He will save you if you continue to trust that same good news. If you do not, you have believed it for nothing.

³ I received the good news from Christ, and I told that message to you. I told you the most important things:

Christ died as a sacrifice for our sins. The Bible already said how that would happen. ⁴ People buried his dead body. On the third day after that God raised him up to live again. The Bible already spoke about that too.

⁵ After that, Christ appeared to Peter. Later, he appeared to his 12 disciples. ⁶ And after that, he appeared to more than 500 believers at the same time. Most of those 500 people are still alive, but some of them have died. ⁷ Then Christ appeared to James. Later he appeared to all the apostles.

⁸ After all these people had seen him, Christ also appeared to me. I was like someone who was born at the wrong time. ⁹ Among all the apostles, I am the least important. I caused so much trouble for God's church that people should not really call me an apostle. ¹⁰ But God was very kind to me. He helped me to become a different person. And because God has been so kind to me, the result has been great. I have worked more than all the other apostles. But it was not really I myself who could do that work. No, I could do it because God was so kind to me. ¹¹ So then, all of us apostles teach the same good news about Christ. That is the message that you have believed. It does not matter which of us told it to you, whether it was me or someone else.

Jesus becomes alive again

16 After the day of rest had finished, the women bought some spices. They wanted to mix these with some oil to put on Jesus' body.^[a] These women were Mary from Magdala, Salome, and Mary the mother of James. ² They went out at dawn on the first day of the week, Sunday. They went to the hole in the rock where Joseph had put Jesus' dead body.

³ The women asked each other, ‘Who will roll away the heavy stone for us? It closes the hole in the rock where they put Jesus' dead body.’

⁴ Then they looked and they saw the stone. It was a very big stone. But someone had already rolled it away from the hole. ⁵ When the women went into the hole in the rock, they saw a young man there.^[b] He was sitting in there on the right side and he wore bright white clothes. The women were very afraid.

⁶ The young man said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. You are looking for Jesus from Nazareth. The soldiers killed him on a cross, but he has become alive again. He is not here. Look! You can see the place where the men put him. ⁷ But now you must go to tell his disciples and Peter about this.^[c] Tell them, “Jesus is going to Galilee and you must also go there. You will see him there, just as he told you it would happen.” ’

⁸ Then the women went out of the hole in the rock, and they ran away from that place. They were very upset and they had trouble in their minds. Because they were afraid, they did not say anything to anyone.