C H R I S T * I S * R I S E N !

HE IS RISEN INDEED!

ALLELUIA!

Christ, the Lord, is risen today, Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth, reply, Alleluia!

Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Lo! the Sun’s eclipse is over, Alleluia!
Lo! He sets in blood no more, Alleluia!

Vain the stone, the watch, the seal, Alleluia!
Christ hath burst the gates of hell, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids His rise, Alleluia!
Christ hath opened paradise, Alleluia!

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once He died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ hath led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

Hail, the Lord of earth and Heaven, Alleluia!
Praise to Thee by both be given, Alleluia!
Thee we greet triumphant now, Alleluia!
Hail, the resurrection, thou, Alleluia!

But the pains that He endured, Alleluia!
Our salvation have procured, Alleluia!
Now above the sky He’s King, Alleluia!
Where the angels ever sing. Alleluia!

What we proclaim is this:

Death is never the end of the life of the spirit,
but always carries within it the possibility of new, unheard-of life.
AMEN.

The Jewish author Pinchas Lapide is enjoying a certain vogue among conservative Christians [and thus irritating devout Jews] because he wrote towards the end of his life that the proof of the historical fact of the Resurrection, no matter what you think actually happened [what you would have seen if you'd been there with a camera, which I maintain would blow most church blow-hards away], is in the complete and overwhelming change that came over the Apostles.

He also wrote elsewhere that if the Jews were still awaiting the arrival of the Messiah, and doing everything they could to hasten his arrival, and the Christians were awaiting his return, and doing everything they could to hasten his return, maybe they could learn to wait together in peace?

With that lovely thought, I will wish you all the blessings being handed out today, no matter who you are or what you believe, or don't believe. God is bigger than any of this, let alone bigger than any of us and our attempts to conceive of him, and I'm sure he doesn't care much WHAT we think. That's OUR problem...

Eight more days...
Bless you all.
Hang in there!