Marvelous in our Eyes
“The same stone which the builders refused has become the chief cornerstone.”
Christ is Risen! This year, we’ll give the honor of intoning the Paschal acclamation to the Congo-born priest, Andre Kayombo, who ministers to a congregation in Barundi. He is singing the ancient and joyful proclamation in Romanian — for truly, knowledge of the Gospel covers the earth as the waters the sea — and the mission of God stretches from everywhere, to everywhere!
One of the Flemish Van Eyck brothers painted this arresting and intricately detailed depiction of Three Marys at the Tomb somewhere in the first quarter of the 15th C. Here is the paradox of the Resurrection: the grave is open, an angel, rising from it, speaks of the blessings of life, and not of death. The three guards — men invested with symbols of power, authority, and violence — lie incapacitated: overwhelmed by the power of Life burst forth. The women who have come mourning, bearing spices for the dead, encounter the summit of joy, and leave with apostolic commission, bearing the fragrance of the one who is alive and the proclamation of his defeat of death. The order of all things is overturned: death has been defeated by life, the powerful by the disempowered, mourning overtaken by joy, and the theme of this mighty victory resounds to all people, and to the ends of the earth.
When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
— The Apostle Paul (Col 3:4)
Easter Sunday
Texts for Today
Prayer
Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may, by your life-giving Spirit, be delivered from sin and raised from death; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Rise, Heart, thy Lord is Risen
In the first years of the 20th C, the eminent English composer Ralph Vaughn Williams set to music a series of five poems of his fellow countryman, the old “Country Parson” George Herbert — priest, poet, and imagineer of the 17th C ideal English clergyman. His selection of texts, collectively titled “Five Mystical Songs,” begin with Easter, and comprise a cycle that moves from awe at the mystery of the Resurrection, into a cosmic celebration, wherein the soul, sharing in the resurrection of her Lord, serves as choirmaster to all creation.
Here is the first song of the cycle: Rise, Heart, Thy Lord is Risen, performed by the choristers at King’s College, Cambridge. The words are well worth contemplation. Here is the first of the three verses:
Rise heart; thy Lord is risen.
Sing his praise without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand,
that thou likewise with him may'st rise;
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more, just.
