Book of Common Prayer

The 3rd Hallelujah Psalm^[a]

The 4th Hallelujah Psalm

The 5th Hallelujah Psalm^[b]

Hallelujah, God helps weak people^[a]

Hallelujah, God does great things^[b]

God is good, so thank him^[a]

The first Passover meal

12 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the country of Egypt. ² He said, ‘This month will be the first month of each year for you. ³ Tell all the Israelite people to do this on the tenth day of this month: Each man must choose a lamb to kill as a sacrifice for his family. That will be one lamb for each home. ⁴ But the family may be too small to eat a whole lamb. Then they must share a lamb with another family that lives near. You must decide how much each person can eat and then count the number of people. ⁵ The lamb that you choose must have nothing wrong with it. It must be a male lamb that is one year old. It can be either a young sheep or a young goat.

⁶ Keep the lamb safe until the 14th day of this month. Then every Israelite family must kill their lamb in the evening. ⁷ They must take some of its blood. They must put the blood on the wood that is round the door of their house. They must put it on each side of the door and above the door. They must do this in every house where they will eat a lamb. ⁸ That night, they must cook the meat over the fire. They must eat it immediately, with bitter herbs and with bread that has no yeast in it. ⁹ You must cook the meat before you eat it. Cook it over the fire. Do not cook it in water. Cook the whole lamb, with its head, its legs and the inside parts of its body. ¹⁰ You must eat all the meat before morning arrives. If some of it still remains in the morning, then you must burn it. ¹¹ This is how you must eat the lamb: Dress yourselves so that you are ready to travel. Put your shoes on your feet. Take your stick in your hand. Then eat the food quickly. This is the Passover meal which shows that you obey me, the Lord.

¹² On the night that you eat the Passover meal, I will travel through the country of Egypt. I will kill every firstborn son and every firstborn male animal. I will punish all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. ¹³ When you put the blood round the doors of your houses, that will be a sign to show that you live there. When I see the blood on your house, I will pass over you.^[a] No trouble will hurt you, when I attack the people of Egypt.

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.

The Word became human

1 In the beginning, the Word was already there. The Word was with God. The Word was God.^{[a] 2} He was with God from the beginning. ³ God made all things through the Word. God did not make anything without him. ⁴ It is the Word who caused everything to live. Because of this, he has brought light to all people. ⁵ The light shines in the dark, and the dark cannot put out the light.^[b]

⁶ God sent a man to bring his message. His name was John.^{[c] 7} He came to tell people about the light. God wanted everyone to believe in the one who is the light. ⁸ John himself was not that light. God sent him to tell people about the light. ⁹ The true light gives light to every person. That light was now coming into the world.

¹⁰ The Word was now in the world. God had made the world through him. But the people in the world did not know who he was. ¹¹ He came to his own place, but his own people did not accept him. ¹² Some people did accept him and they believed in him. He gave authority to those people to become God's children. ¹³ They did not become God's children in the usual human way. They were not born because some people wanted to have children. They were not born because of what any man decided. No! They were born from God.

¹⁴ The Word became a man. He lived among us. We saw his great glory. He has the glory of the Father's one true Son. He is full of God's grace and truth.

¹⁵ John told people about the Word. He shouted, ‘This is the man that I told you about. He comes after me. But he is greater than I am. He was already there before I was born.’ ¹⁶ The Word is full of everything that we need. We have all received one good thing after another good thing. ¹⁷ God gave his Law to us through Moses. But Jesus Christ brought God's grace and his truth to us. ¹⁸ Nobody has ever seen God. But God's only Son has shown God to us. He is very near to the Father, and he himself is God.

Jesus shows himself to two disciples

¹³ Later on that same day, two of Jesus' disciples were going to a village. The village was called Emmaus. It was about 11 kilometres from Jerusalem. ¹⁴ They were talking to each other about all the things that had happened. ¹⁵ While they were talking like this, Jesus himself came near to them. He started to walk along with them. ¹⁶ They saw him, but for some reason they did not recognize him. ¹⁷ Jesus asked them, ‘What are you talking about while you walk along the road?’

They stood still and they seemed sad. ¹⁸ One of them, called Cleopas, answered him, ‘Many things have happened in Jerusalem in the last few days. Are you the only visitor here that does not know about it?’ ¹⁹ Jesus asked them, ‘What things have happened?’

They replied, ‘The things that happened to Jesus who was from Nazareth. He was a prophet from God. He did many great things and he spoke powerful messages. God showed that his message was true. All the people believed him. ²⁰ Then the leaders of the priests and our rulers took hold of him. They gave him to the Roman ruler. They said that he had done bad things and that he ought to die. So they killed him by fixing him to a cross. ²¹ But before that we had hoped that he would save the people of Israel. We hoped that he would make us free again.

There are other things too. Today is the third day since Jesus died. ²² After all this happened, some women in our group surprised us. Early this morning, they went to the place where Joseph had put him. ²³ But they did not find his body there. So they returned to us and said, “Some angels appeared to us. They have told us that Jesus is alive.” ²⁴ So some people from our group went to the place where his body had been. They found everything just the same as the women had said. But they did not see Jesus.’

²⁵ Jesus then said to them, ‘How silly you are! You are very slow to believe everything that God's prophets said long ago. ²⁶ You should have known that the Messiah had to die. Only then would he return to heaven and show how great and powerful he is.’ ²⁷ Jesus then began to explain to them what Moses and all God's prophets had taught. He showed them what they wrote in the Bible about himself.

²⁸ Then they came near to the village that the disciples were going to. It seemed that Jesus would continue his journey. ²⁹ But they wanted him to stop there. They said to him, ‘Please stay in our home with us. It is getting late, and it will soon be night.’

So Jesus went into their house to stay with them. ³⁰ He sat down to eat with them. He took the bread and he thanked God for it. He broke it into pieces and he gave some to them. ³¹ Their eyes became clear and they recognized him. But then he disappeared, and they could no longer see him. ³² They said to each other, ‘When he talked to us, it was like a fire that was burning inside us. We felt it while we were walking along the road. We also felt it when he was explaining God's message in the Bible.’

³³ Immediately they got up and they returned to Jerusalem. There they found the 11 apostles and other people who were with them. ³⁴ The people there told the two disciples, ‘It is true! The Lord Jesus is alive again. He has appeared to Simon!’

³⁵ Then the two disciples spoke to the whole group. They told what had happened to them on the road to their village. They told how they recognized Jesus when he broke the bread into pieces in their home.

Jesus appears to his disciples

¹⁹ On the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the disciples were meeting together. They had locked the doors of the room because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Then Jesus came and he stood among them. He said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ ²⁰ After he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were very, very happy when they saw the Lord. ²¹ Jesus said again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, in the same way I am now sending you.’ ²² When he had said this, he breathed on them. He said, ‘Receive God's Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive a person's sins, God will forgive them too. If you do not forgive them, God will not forgive them.’