Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Alleluia. Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!
He is risen, He is risen! Welcome Happy Morning, age to age shall sing!
This Resurrection Sunday we visit the tomb of Jesus when it is still dark, just like Mary Magdalene. She sees the stone removed from the tomb. The message she delivers to Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved is about the missing body.
The resurrection story from the Gospel according to St. John is not triumphant but instead leads us to look into the reality of death, where we unexpectedly but intimately encounter the risen Jesus.* [Jin Young Choi, Professor of New Testament, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Rochester, NY.]
It is a very intimate account of the resurrection as Mary Magdalene is the first to recognize Jesus. One-on-one, they had a conversation. But she does not recognize Jesus. It would be too unexpected to even think it! However, when Jesus called her BY NAME, she recognized that this was Jesus, her Lord!
What an unexpected, intimate conversation they have! I cannot fathom the joy that she would have experienced. She had been weeping and torn with grief only a few moments before – and then, she is conversing with the Risen Christ!
Then, Mary Magdalene is given the enormous privilege of going back to the town and telling everyone she saw: “I have seen the Lord!”
The Risen Christ calls each of us by name. How to fathom such a reality? Let us hear his voice in our daily walk – on the Monday after Easter – and always.
Then may we be emboldened to share the GOOD NEWS: “I have seen the Lord”!
Alleluia. Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!
Beloved St. Margaret’s family and friends, I wish you a happy, holy, blessed, extravagant Easter Sunday and in the weeks to come in the Season of Easter.
Jane+
He Is Risen
1 Christ is risen, Christ is risen!
Tell it with a joyful voice.
Christ has burst the three days’ prison;
Let the whole wide earth rejoice.
Death is conquered, we are free;
Christ has won the victory.
2 Come, you sad and fearful hearted,
With glad smile and radiant brow.
Death’s dark shadows have departed,
All our woes are over now;
Through the passion that he bore,
Sin and pain have pow’r no more.
3 Come with high and holy hymning;
Chant our Lord’s triumphant might.
Not one gloomy cloud is dimming
That bright glorious morning light
Breaking o’er the purple east,
Symbol of our Easter feast.
4 Christ is risen, Christ is risen!
And has opened heaven’s gate.
We are free from evil’s prison,
Risen to a holier state;
And a brighter Easter beam
On our longing eyes shall stream.
— Cecil Frances Alexander, 1818–1895
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