The Lord has come!
Yesterday I got up while everything was still very dark and got ready for the community sunrise service. After my week of pondering the darkness and heaviness of life and what it meant for Jesus to have stepped down into the darkness, I was already filled with anticipation as I looked forward to the rising of the sun and the resurrection celebration with other believers in my town of at the time of the daily transition from darkness to light.
When I got into my car, the CD that was on was one my daughter had chosen the day before when I drove the children to their Dad’s house. It was a Celtic Christmas CD. The song that was playing was an instrumental, Irish jiggy version of “Joy to the World”. It started out a bit somber and then picked up. As I listened to the music, the first words to run through my mind were from the third verse:
No more let sin and sorrow grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground.
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as the curse is found.
And from there, as the music become progressively jiggier, my heart burst into delightful rejoicing:
Joy to the world! the Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King.
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n and heav’n and nature sing.
And there in my car on my way to celebrating the resurrection, Easter and Christmas kind of collided in my brain in a wonderful way. At Christmas, earth received her King, as a little helpless baby. At Easter, earth and all it’s worst limitations and realities, could not hold the King.
Hallelujah, He is risen. He is risen indeed!
Last week I focused on the darkness and how extensive and invasive the fall and the curse is. On Easter morning, listening to this Christmas carol, my heart overflowed with thankfulness that through Jesus’ death and resurrection, there is not one place that the curse has extended that His blessings do not also cover and reach. I may not see it all yet, but I believe it is true, and I am grateful. I have hope in the darkness. My heart is rejoicing.
Joy to the World!
Amen!
Amen from me too.
Something that I’ve been thinking about in regard to this is that in our American tradition we tend to see the holiday as the climax of the celebration whereas in the church calendar, the holy days mark the beginning of a new season. So, after Easter we usually put away the decorations and start thinking about other things but what we should be doing is living within that season. It’s fair to say that we in effect always live in celebration of Easter but it’s worth putting as much effort into celebrating Eastertide as people put into “celebrating” Lent.
Lingamish, I agree about Easter not being an ending to all the buildup, but a beginning and a celebration that should be made more space for. Living within the season. That makes a lot of sense to me. And Eastertide is a good word for the whole season.
[…] to the CD, Deep Still Christmas, (you can hear samples here) at various times throughout the year. Last Easter I posted some thoughts that were stirred, listening to this CD on the way to my community sunrise service. The Christmas […]