Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Jesus has risen! Alleluia!
Back in the 4th Century AD St Augustine wrote a beautiful discourse on the psalms. For Psalm 148 subtitled All Creation Summoned to Praise he wrote “we are given two liturgical seasons, one before Easter and the other after. …What we commemorate before Easter is what we experience in this life; what we celebrate after Easter is something we do not yet possess. This is why we keep the first season with fasting and prayer; but now the fast is over and we devote the present season to praise. Such is the meaning of the Alleluia we sing. “
It is very easy for us to get stuck in the before Easter mindset that St Augustine wrote about so long ago. All we have to do is turn on the television or read the newspaper. Bad news makes for exciting media. But we are not bad news people. We are good news people. And the good news is that three days after he was crucified, died and was buried, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, was raised from the dead. ALLELUIA! And, St Paul tells us, “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life” (Romans 6: 4). ALLELUIA!
Given this extraordinary historical event we all should be out in the streets shouting “Alleluia, Alleluia, Jesus has risen from the dead.” There is more, St Augustine tells each one of us to make sure that “your praise comes from your whole being in other words, see that you praise God not with your lips and voices alone, but with your minds, your lives and all your actions.” Sixteen centuries later, Saint Pope John Paul II said “Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Jesus has risen! Alleluia!
Heavenly Father and God of mercy,
We no longer look for Jesus among the dead,
For he is alive and has become the Lord of life.
From the waters of death, you raise us with him
And renew your gift of life within us.
Increase in our minds and hearts the risen life we share with Christ,
And help us to grow as your people
Toward the fullness of eternal life with you.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
