HYMNS FOR EASTER SUNDAY Christ the Lord is Risen Today
- Gracia Grindal
- 9 hours ago
- 2 min read
REFLECTION
The hymn for today in the English speaking world is Christ the Lord is Ris’n Today. While there may be many many other hymns that fit the day well and are worthy, those planning the Easter service would be well advised not to leave this one out. People expect it and love it. And for many it won’t be a real Easter service without it.
There is a feeling among many that we shouldn’t be so caught in our traditions and find new things and not repeat old chestnuts. The older I get the less advisable I think that is. Our faith is rooted in memory. Psalm 42, among many others, teaches us that. We have had a mountain top experience in our past and want that feeling to return. It often can when we repeat a hymn much loved. The truth of the gospel is that often just when we think we are tired of the old old story, we hear it again, and suddenly something pops and it is new, entirely new.
That cannot happen when we only do new things. New things come when the old is repeated and it seems utterly new. As the old hymn has it, “Sometimes a light surprises a Christian while he sings.” That happens most often when we sing something old.
On Easter something happened that changed everything. Sin, death and the devil were defeated. I have a friend in Denmark who writes hymns and she loves the Easter story, especially the surprise of Easter morning. When the women hear the good news from the angels and run to tell the disciples she describes it as a time when flowers fill their way and all things are made new. It is hard to describe that in anything but poetry, but it must have been what they thought as they were running to tell the disciples. How the good news changed everything!
Even when we are in the depts of despair, which many are today, the resurrection of Jesus tells us that what our situation is, what governments are doing, what we fear for the world and for our own situations, because of Easter we now know that what we fear is not the last word. Jesus is. There is something out there because of his death and resurrection that makes penultimate all our worries. He is in charge of the future and rules over it all for the good. Christ is risen, he is risen indeed!
HYMN INFO
There are far too many hymns that are musts for Easter. For information on Christ the Lord is Ris’n Today see below, and then a couple more. You can find blogs on more Easter hymns if you search in the blog front page. Just enter Easter and many will appear!
LINKS
Christ the Lord is Ris’n today
I come to the Garden alone, plus ..
Easter Morrow Stills our Sorrow