The Power of the Reasurrection: A Responsive Reading

 

The Power of the Resurrection

A Responsive Reading

 Reader One: Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. 

 Congregation: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  For by him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities

 Reader Two: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped

 Congregation: All things were created by him and for him.

 Reader Two: But made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness...

 Congregation: He is before all things, and in him all things hold together

 Reader Two: And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.

 Congregation: For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.

 Reader One: I have lost all things.  I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ

 Congregation: For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the son he loves, in whom we have redemption the forgiveness of sins.

 Reader Two: Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him a name that is above every name

 Reader One: I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings becoming like him in his death, and so somehow, to attain to the resurrection of the dead.

 Reader Two: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

 All: Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ.