Christ Jesus lay in death's strong bandsFor our offenses given;
But now at God's right hand he stands
And brings us life from heaven.
Therefore let us joyful be
And sing to God right thankfully
Loud songs of Alleluia! Alleluia!
It was a strange and dreadful sight
When life and death contended;
The victory remained with life,
The reign of death was ended.
Holy Scripture plainly saith
That death is swallowed up by death,
Its sting is lost forever. Alleluia!
So let us keep the festival
To which the Lord invites us;
Christ is himself the joy of all,
The sun that warms and lights us.
Now his grace to us imparts
Eternal sunshine to our hearts;
The night of sin is ended. Alleluia!
If you take a look at the bottom of this post, you'll notice I'm up at 4 am writing this. Consider this an early morning stroll to the empty tomb. Got in bed late last night after Easter Vigil. Was up at 3:30 am this morning unable to go back to sleep, as hard as I tried...never a good thing. So, I decided to get online and wish you all a blessed Easter as we celebrate the Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord today.
(Note: The hymn stanzas above are from "Christ Jesus Lay in Death's Strong Bands," LSB 458, by Martin Luther)
3 comments:
How did your vigil go?
Our congregation did its first in many years. We prepped a lot for the public readings, and they went swimmingly. I didn't feel at all antsy for them to end, as I have when readers have droned through their passages.
The Vigil is always one of the most beautiful services. Glad your congregation tried having one this year. In order to help the congregation to meditate on the imagery of the readings, I've begun inserting hymn stanzas after each reading which relate somehow to the reading. It helps also to break up some of the monotony of so much reading all at once.
That sounds like a good suggestion. The readings were broken up with some prayers. But we honestly had the lights too low to be able to read from our hymnals. I think next year we may be able to fine-tune the service, though, and get the choir involved. That will be easier now that we've done one.
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