Woman gathering flowers, first century CE. Detached fresco, 38 × 32 cm, from the Villa Arianna in Stabiae, Campania, Italy, now in the Collection of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, Italy. The woman may be Primavera (a personification of spring) or Flora (the Roman goddess of flowers, fertility, and abundance), or simply a generic maiden at leisure.
Spring bursts today, For Christ is risen and all the earth’s at play.
Flash forth, thou Sun, The rain is over and gone, its work is done.
Winter is past, Sweet Spring is come at last, is come at last.
Bud, Fig and Vine, Bud, Olive, fat with fruit and oil and wine.
Break forth this morn In roses, thou but yesterday a Thorn.
Uplift thy head, O pure white Lily through the Winter dead.
Beside your dams Leap and rejoice, you merry-making Lambs.
All Herds and Flocks Rejoice, all Beasts of thickets and of rocks.
Sing, Creatures, sing, Angels and Men and Birds and everything.
All notes of Doves Fill all our world: this is the time of loves.
This poem was originally published in A Pageant, and Other Poems(London, 1881) and is in the public domain.
One of the most celebrated poets of the Victorian era, Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894) was an English writer of Romantic, devotional, and children’s poems. She was the youngest of four siblings, among them the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, several of whose paintings she sat for, famously modeling for the Virgin Mary. A devout Anglican whose verse gives vivid expression to the life of faith and to spiritual longing, she is recognized as a saint by the Church of England and the Episcopal Church, who celebrate April 27 as her feast day.
Nicholas Mynheer (British, 1958–), Jesus Appears on the Shore: The Calling, 2007. Oil on canvas, 31 × 25 cm. Final painting from the thirteen-piece Sarum Cycle on Christ’s passion. [read artist profile]
Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. (John 21:4)
Lap lulled by lifeless waters, ill-cast nets bearing no weight, the fishermen see against charcoal dawn the lone figure of the Lord— come to draw them in again, and launch them out.
Roycroft’s poems from the collection 33 are remarkable for their concision, especially this one based on John 21. There’s so much richness packed into these seven spare lines, about resurrection, restoration, plenitude, calling. The rabbi Jesus whom they had followed for three years and staked all their hopes in had died; he was executed by the state. Disappointed and forlorn, and some perhaps ashamed by their abandonment of him in his hour of deepest need, the disciples return to their livelihood as fishers. But their first night back at sea proves fruitless, yields no catch; the waters are dead, like their Lord. Or so they thought.
A voice from the shore yells out to them, telling them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. Skeptically, they do, and the nets fill with such an abundance of fish that the men can barely heave them up. It’s then that they recognize the voice as that of their beloved Jesus. Peter cannot contain his joy and jumps into the sea, splashing his way to reunion with the one he had denied knowing just the previous week.
Jesus and friends then have a fish barbecue breakfast on the beach. He redeems Peter and removes his guilt by asking him three times, “Do you love me?,” giving him the chance to respond triply in the affirmative, counteracting the three no’s he had spoken the other night outside the house of Caiaphas. “Then feed my sheep,” Jesus says. Peter would go on to show his love for Jesus by doing just that, playing an instrumental role in the early church.
Luke places the episode of the miraculous catch of fish at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, when Jesus calls his very first disciples (see Luke 5:1–11). That this episode bookends the Gospels speaks of second chances and the persistence of God’s promise to make fruitful his word. In both versions, the call is the same: “Follow me.” Through life and in death and out the other side.
At the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus calls his disciples back into ministry, to teaching and healing and spreading the good news of resurrection. The abundance teeming below the surface of the Sea of Galilee hints at the life and heft of the new movement Jesus was launching—the imminent multiplication of followers of the Way. Having reeled them in from their feelings of lostness and imbued them with fresh hope, Jesus casts his disciples back into the waters of the world, commissioning them to draw others into God’s kingdom of love and grace.
Andrew Roycroft is a poet and pastor from Northern Ireland who blogs at Thinking Pastorally. His poetry has featured in a variety of journals in the UK and Ireland, in Arts Council for Northern Ireland projects, on BBC Radio, and in the work of composer Anselm McDonnell, and he has received several commissions from New Irish Arts. 33: Reflections on the Gospel of Saint John (Square Halo, 2022) is his first poetry collection.
Here’s my new (nonthematic) playlist for the month of April!
But also, because Easter lasts through May 18, be sure to check out the 184 songs I handpicked for the season, which includes some new ones mixed in since the playlist’s original publication.
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NEW SONGS:
>> “He Lives” by Emma Nissen: Emma Nissen is a Latter-day Saint singer-songwriter from Arizona known for her gorgeous jazz vocals. Here she performs an original song about God the Father giving his Son, Jesus, to redeem the world through his life, death, and resurrection. “Let there be light, let there be love . . .”
>> “Living Among the Dead” by Caleb Stine: Alt-country singer-songwriter Caleb Stine, based in Baltimore, released this Johnny Cash–esque, resurrection-themed song just before Easter. The title and chorus come from the words the angels spoke to the women who went to Jesus’s tomb the Sunday after his death, looking for his body. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” they asked. “He is not here but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to the hands of sinners and be crucified and on the third day rise again” (Luke 24:5–7).
The first verse narrates that momentous visit to the tomb. The second verse fast-forwards to the present day and raises issues of poverty, mental illness, substance abuse, culture warring, and militarism, some caused and others exacerbated by the death-dealing policies or neglect of the government. Many people look to politicians for salvation, trusting in their often empty promises, embracing their divisive rhetoric, and ignoring major character flaws for the sake of power. This song cautions us not to go to a dry well for sustenance—not to quench our thirst for living water in places that cannot give it.
The third verse tells of a “thin man in a dusty hat” who regales the story of a carpenter who healed and fed people, who drove out demons from bodies and greedy opportunists from temple courtyards, who befriended those of little means and those who were ostracized. He addressed human suffering head-on with tenderness and self-sacrifice. When the chorus comes in a final time, I hear in it that this loving, serving, reconciling Christ is still living, his Spirit is still moving, and that we ought to get behind that movement, practicing resurrection where we live. “Be not of fear, be of light, lift your head.” As the body of Christ, we should follow him in doing the same deeds and proclaiming the same good news of liberation.
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BLOG POST: “50 Ways to Practice Resurrection during the 50 Days of Eastertide” by Tamara Hill Murphy: Spiritual director and writer Tamara Hill Murphy of Connecticut shares fifty simple ideas for celebrating the Easter season in your day-to-day, including retelling baptism stories, visiting a botanical garden, watching a movie that makes you laugh, swinging on the playground, cooking a new veggie recipe, building a new piece of furniture, or washing your car by hand. “I find a lot of joy . . . in seeing these ordinary choices during my day as ways to practice a life that trumps death, a resurrection kind of life,” Murphy writes.
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PODCAST EPISODE: “The Beauty—the Poetry—of Christian Experience” with Benjamin Myers, Faith & Imagination: I listen to at least a dozen podcast episodes a week, and this one has been one of my favorites of the past few months. Dr. Benjamin Myers is a literature professor at Oklahoma Baptist University and a former poet laureate of Oklahoma. Here, host Matthew Wickman interviews Myers about two of his six books: A Poetics of Orthodoxy: Christian Truth as Aesthetic Foundation (2020) and the poetry collection The Family Book of Martyrs (2022). They talk about the incarnation and its implications on art; the disclosure of the extraordinary in the ordinary; the inherently unsecular nature of all good poetry; how beauty mirrors grace; the importance of the humanities in Christian education (how it “thickens up” the soul); the obligation of Christian art to capture both the “something good” and the “something missing” of our lives; and how love calls us to the things of this world.
A few additional highlights for me:
Myers came to faith after attending a Lessons & Carols service, compelled by the beauty and truthfulness of the story it told.
“Beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder but also in the being of God.”
At 37:24, Myers reads a poem he wrote for his youngest daughter: “Elizabeth Discovers Rock and Roll.”
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INSTAGRAM VIDEO:from AJ+: On March 31 in the Borgerhout district of Antwerp, a mile-plus-long table set up along the Turnhoutsebaan brought together city residents for a joint Easter-iftar dinner. Easter is the most sacred feast of the Christian year, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus; on Easter Sunday, Christians break the forty-day fast they’ve held for the duration of Lent. Lent almost always overlaps in part with Ramadan, a Muslim holy month of fasting that commemorates the prophet Muhammad’s first revelation. On each day of Ramadan after sunset, the fast is broken with an evening meal called an iftar.
Christians and Muslims in Antwerp broke their fasts together at an outdoor Easter-iftar dinner on March 31. Photo: Sanad Latifa.
Borgerhout carried out this interfaith initiative in collaboration with the FMV cultural association and other partners in the hopes of promoting dialogue, social cohesion, and connection. I love this idea of gathering folks together across lines of religious difference to enjoy community, good food, and spiritual celebration! For more information, see https://www.2kmsamenaantafel.be/.
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NEW ALBUM: Three Gifts by Liturgical Folk and Jon Guerra: Ryan Flanigan of Liturgical Folk and Jon Guerra have teamed up to release an EP of three songs, one for each of the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and love (1 Cor. 13:13). Here’s “the greatest of these”:
The risen Christ bounds victoriously over the abyss—using his cross like a pole vault!—in this scratched painting by the Congolese artist André Kamba Luesa (1944–1995). The flaming pit of hell has been conquered, cleared. And crossing over from death to life, Christ brings us with him. That’s why the men, women, and children lift high their hands in celebration. His victory is ours!
The Gospel of Matthew describes the Crucifixion-Resurrection event as causing a geological quaking; “the earth shook and the rocks were split” (Matt. 27:51; cf. 28:2). Kamba Luesa portrays this frightening phenomenon in his Resurrection. And yet he also uses warm reds, oranges, and yellows to convey the radiant joy of resurrection. The sky is awash in a soft glow. The Son rises with the sun, its orb a halo behind his head.
As is common in Christian art, the artist connects the Resurrection to his own cultural context. His Jesus is African and wears traditional printed cloth, just like those who praise him from the sides. As much as Jesus’s rising was a historical happening that took place some two thousand years ago outside Jerusalem, it is also an ongoing reality whose implications continue to reverberate as the life of God is made manifest in believers all over the globe.
I originally wrote this art commentary for the Daily Prayer Project’s Easter 2023 prayer periodical.
Mfurahini, haleluya, mkombozi amefufuka. Amefufuka, haleluya, msifuni sasa yu hai.
Refrain: Tumwimbie sote kwa furaha. yesu ametoka kaburini. Kashinda kifo, haleluya; haleluya, Yesu yu hai.
. . .
[I can’t find the Swahili lyrics to verses 2–5]
This Easter text was written in Swahili by Rev. Bernard Kyamanywa (born 1938), a Tanzanian Lutheran pastor, while a student at Lutheran Theological College Makumira (now Tumaini University Makumira). He set it to a tune from the Haya people of northwestern Tanzania, an ethnic group he belongs to.
The English version of the song, “Christ Has Arisen, Alleluia,” is relatively popular throughout the world. Here’s a video of Christ the King Choir in Molyko Buea, Cameroon, singing the song in English:
Christ has arisen, alleluia! Rejoice and praise him, alleluia, For our Redeemer burst from the tomb, Even from death, dispelling its gloom.
Refrain: Let us sing praise to him with endless joy; Death’s fearful sting he has come to destroy, Our sins forgiving, alleluia. Christ has arisen, alleluia!
For three long days the grave did its worst Until its strength by God was dispersed. He who gives life did death undergo; And in its conquest his might did show. [Refrain]
The angel said to them, “Do not fear! You look for Jesus who is not here. See for yourselves the tomb is all bare; Only the grave cloths are lying there.” [Refrain]
“Go spread the news: He’s not in the grave; He has arisen this world to save. Jesus’ redeeming labors are done; Even the battle with sin is won.” [Refrain]
Christ has arisen; he sets us free; Alleluia, to him praises be. Jesus is living! Let us all sing; He reigns triumphant, heavenly King. [Refrain]
Trans. Howard S. Olson, 1977 (admin. Augsburg Fortress)
LOOK: (She thought he was)The Gardener by Helen Sherriff
Helen Sherriff (Australian, 1951–), (She thought he was) The Gardener, 2013. Acrylic and oil on found medium-density fiberboard tabletop with parquetry veneer and bark insert, 15 × 10.7 cm.
This painting by Helen Sherriff, which won the Needham Religious Art Prize in 2013, shows Christ appearing to the forlorn Mary Magdalene after his resurrection. Sheriff cut the figure of Christ out of the MDF substrate and “inserted a piece of thick tree bark which had a scar in an appropriate place suggesting a wound,” she writes at ArtWay.eu.
The colorful flowering cast forth from his form is such a unique way to visually interpret the significance of this moment of encounter. “Normally there would be a shadow stretching forward,” Sherriff says, “but this darkness is light.”
Sherriff also notes how the shape of the Stargazer lily is echoed by Mary’s hand held up to shield her face from the brightness.
LISTEN: “J’entre dans mon jardin” (I Come to My Garden) by the Choeur des Moines de l’abbaye de Keur Moussa au Sénégal, on L’heure vient (2007)
This instrumental piece, an air for kora (traditional calabash harp-lute) and recorder, is part of the Liturgy of the Resurrection at Keur Moussa Abbey in Senegal. Its title is taken from Song of Songs 5:1:
I come to my garden, my sister, my bride; I gather my myrrh with my spice; I eat my honeycomb with my honey; I drink my wine with my milk.
Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love.
The liner notes for this track on the CD sleeve, which are all in French, say, “Christ, in the Christian tradition, is the Bridegroom. He comes, resurrected on Easter morning, to meet Mary Magdalene, seated at the entrance to the tomb. The kora and the flute convey the joy of this Easter reunion with freshness and brightness.”
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. . . . [She] stood weeping. . . .
As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”
Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary!”
She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).
Jesus said to her, “. . . Go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.
—John 20:1, 11–18
LOOK: ‘Woman, Why Are You Weeping?’ by Rebekah Pryor
Rebekah Pryor, ‘Woman, Why Are You Weeping?’, 2016. Pigment on archival cotton rag, 60 × 59 cm.
Dr. Rebekah Pryor [previously] is a visual artist, curator, scholar, and member of Australian Collaborators in Feminist Theologies. In this photograph of hers, she poses as Mary Magdalene in the garden of the resurrection at the moment when the risen Christ appears to her. Having wept copious tears, represented by the mounds of salt in front of her, Mary kneels in the soil as she converses with this man whom she at first supposes to be the gardener. Pryor writes that “dawn light and the horizon of regrowth suggest the possibility of ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ in which death, dying, mourning and crying will be no more (Revelation 21:1-5).”
LISTEN: “Still Thy Sorrow, Magdalena!” | Original Latin words (title: “Pone luctum Magdalena”) attributed to Adam of St. Victor, 12th century; English translation by Edward A. Washburn, 1868 | Music by Jon Green, 2023 | Performed on Resurrect, vol. 2, a Cardiphonia Music compilation
Still thy sorrow, Magdalena! Wipe the teardrops from thine eyes; Not at Simon’s board thou kneelest, Pouring thy repentant sighs. All with thy glad heart rejoices; All things sing, with happy voices, Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Laugh with rapture, Magdalena! Be thy drooping forehead bright: Banished now is every anguish, Breaks anew thy morning light. Christ from death the world hath freed; He is risen, is risen indeed: Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Joy! exult, O Magdalena! For he hath burst the rocky prison. Ended are the days of darkness: Conqueror hath he arisen. Mourn no more the Christ departed; Run to welcome him, glad-hearted: Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Lift thine eyes, O Magdalena! See! thy living Master stands; See his face, as ever, smiling; See those wounds upon his hands, On his feet, his sacred side— Gems that deck the Glorified: Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Live, now live, O Magdalena!
This medieval Easter hymn was retuned by Jon Green, a Texan living in Edinburgh, Scotland, as part of a Cardiphonia project spearheaded by Bruce Benedict to bring new life to some of the old texts found in Resurgit: A Collection of Hymns and Songs of the Resurrection (Boston, 1879). The lyrics follow a longstanding tradition in the church of conflating the identities of two Marys in the Gospels (Mary of Magdala and Mary of Bethany) and that of the “sinful woman” in Luke 7; all three women become Mary Magdalene, characterized as a penitent who scandalously anoints Christ’s feet with expensive perfume and her own tears during a supper at the house of Simon the Pharisee.
None of the Gospels indicates that this anointer was Mary Magdalene. (Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not name her at all, and John identifies her as the sister of Lazarus and Martha.) But popular tradition ascribes to Mary Magdalene this role—hence the references in the first stanza of the hymn.
What we do know, though, is that Mary Magdalene came early Sunday morning to Jesus’s tomb with the intention of anointing his body, only to find the tomb empty. John 20 is, I think, one of the most glorious chapters in all of scripture. John’s is the only Gospel that recounts Mary’s intimate encounter with the postresurrection Jesus. He tells us that she is distraught over the absence of Jesus’s body, which she presumes someone moved to some unknown location. She had wanted to say her proper goodbyes—he had been taken so suddenly—and, as a gesture of honor, to finish the job of treating his corpse with myrrh and aloes that had been hastily performed by Joseph and Nicodemus on Friday. Now unable to do either, she weeps.
It’s then that Jesus comes to her, alive and in the flesh, revealing himself as her Lord and as conqueror of the grave. He bids her to weep no more.
The gladness of this moment is palpable in the hymn text by Adam of St. Victor. “Laugh with rapture, Magdalena! . . . Joy! exult . . . ! . . . Live, now live.” We are called to do the same.
>> “He Is Lord (In Every People),” adapt. Gregory Kay: In this video from 2021, members of Spring Garden Church in Toronto take turns singing the popular twentieth-century worship song (of unknown authorship) “He Is Lord” in their native languages: English, Portuguese, Arabic, Korean, and Chinese. Greg Kay, one of the church’s copastors, added a fun refrain that highlights the global character of Christianity and the lordship of Christ over all creation, which everyone joins in on. Love this idea! [HT: Liturgy Fellowship]
>> Easter Medley performed by Infinity Song, feat. Victory Boyd:Infinity Song is a sibling band from New York City that was led for years by Victory Boyd, who is now focusing on her solo music career; its current members, represented in this video from 2021, are Abraham, Angel, Israel, and Thalia “Momo” Boyd. (Victory is singing lead.) The group combines the songs “In the Name of Jesus” by David Billingsley, “Jesus Is Alive” by Ron Kenoly [previously], and “Redeemer” by Nicole C. Mullen into an Easter medley at Fount Church in New York.
>> “Yessu Jee Utheya” (یسوع جی اُٹھیا) (Jesus Is Risen), performed by Tehmina Tariq:Tehmina Tariq is a prolific gospel singer from Islamabad, Pakistan. Here she performs a song in Urdu by Nadir Shamir Khan (words) and Michael Daniel (music). Press the “CC” button on the YouTube video player to follow along with the lyrics. For a more recent Easter song that Tariq recorded, see “Zinda Huwa Hai Masih” (The Messiah Is Risen). [HT: Global Christian Worship]
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MEDIEVAL MYSTERY PLAY: The Harrowing of Hell from the York cycle, produced by the YMPST (York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust): From the mid-fourteenth to mid-sixteenth century in England, during the feast of Corpus Christi in early summer, villagers used to enact stories from the Bible on moveable stages called pageant wagons, which would wheel through town making various stops for performance. Playing the roles of sacred personages were not professional actors but members of the trade guilds. Such plays were banned in Tudor times but since the mid-twentieth century have enjoyed a revival.
One of the few complete surviving English mystery play cycles, consisting of forty-eight individual verse dramas of about twenty minutes each, is the York Mystery Plays, named after the historic town where they originated. One of the plays, assigned to the town saddlers, is The Harrowing of Hell. The following video is a 2018 performance sponsored by the York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust, also available on DVD. You can follow along with the script at TEAMS Middle English Texts, though note that the players do adapt it lightly. Learn more at https://ympst.co.uk/.
A soul writhes in Hades, awaiting rescue by Christ, in the 2018 YMPST wagon play performance of The Harrowing of Hell
For a preview of the language, here’s Adam’s speech toward the end, after Christ binds Satan and casts him into a fiery pit (I love the alliterative phrase “mickle is thy might”!):
A, Jesu Lorde, mekill is thi myght That mekis thiselffe in this manere Us for to helpe as thou has hight Whanne both forfette, I and my feere. Here have we levyd withouten light Foure thousand and six hundreth yere; Now se I be this solempne sight Howe thy mercy hath made us clene.
Modern English translation:
Ah, Lord Jesus, mickle [great] is thy might That makest thyself in this manner To help us as thou hast said When both of us offended thee, I and my companion [Eve]. Here have we lived without light For four thousand six hundred years; Now see I by this solemn sight How thy mercy hath made us clean.
The YMPST performance incorporates modern elements in the music and costuming, including an electric guitar–driven rendition of the American gospel song “Ain’t No Grave” at the opening and closing.
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ART COMMENTARIES:
Below are discussions of two medieval English artworks of the Harrowing of Hell, one of my favorite religious subjects. In modern-day parlance, the word “hell” (an English translation of the Greek “Tartarus” or “Hades” or the Hebrew “Sheol”) typically connotes a place of eternal torment where the damned go, but in Christian theology it was long used more broadly to refer to the compartmentalized netherworld where both righteous and unrighteous souls go after death to await the general resurrection that will take place at Christ’s return.
>> “The Harrowing of Hell” (Smarthistory video): Drs. Nancy Ross and Paul Binski discuss a fifteenth-century alabaster that’s in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. What sticks out to me—the commentators mention it only briefly—is that Christ stands on a green, flowery lawn! The artist is probably alluding to the springtime, the new life, that Jesus’s resurrection ushered in: the redeemed exit the hellmouth, barefoot like their Lord, onto this lush grass. This detail reminds me a bit of Fra Angelico’s Noli me tangere fresco at San Marco in Florence.
The Harrowing of Hell, England, 15th century. Carved, painted, and gilt alabaster, 58 × 32 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
>> “Under the Earth” by Joanna Collicutt: The Visual Commentary on Scripture is a free online resource that provides material for teaching, preaching, researching, and reflecting on the Bible, art, and theology. For one of her three VCS-commissioned “visual commentaries” on Philippians 2:1–11, Rev. Dr. Joanna Collicut has selected an illumination of the Harrowing of Hell from a thirteenth-century psalter. The Christ Hymn that forms the meat of this passage celebrates Jesus’s descent and ascent, and in verse 10 it says that at his name, every knee will bow in heaven, on earth, and “under the earth.” This phrase had never stood out to me until now.
The Harrowing of Hell and The Holy Women at the Tomb, from an English psalter (BL Arundel 157, fol. 110), ca. 1220–40. Ink, tempera, and gold leaf on vellum, 29.5 × 20 cm. British Library, London.
Kateryna Shadrina (Ukrainian, 1995–), Harrowing of Hell, 2021. Acrylic on gessoed wood, 40 × 30 cm.
This contemporary icon of the Resurrection shows Christ standing atop the gates of hell—which have fallen into the shape of a cross—redeeming Adam and Eve while flames whip all around. In the sudden rush of rescue, his cloak billows behind him. His mandorla—that is, the radiant oval that frames him—is traditionally gold, but here the artist has chosen a deep royal blue, symbolic of heaven, and jade green for healing, renewal, and prosperity. The black oval in the upper right may signify the mouth of the empty tomb, or the portal through which Christ will return with the newly liberated to the realms above.
LISTEN: “Welcome, Happy Morning!” | Original Latin words by Venantius Fortunatus, 6th century; English translation by John Ellerton, 19th century | Music: NOEL NOUVELET (traditional French tune), 15th century | Performed by the Green Carpet Players (musicians of Redeemer Church of Knoxville), feat. Tyler Anthony, on Rise, O Buried Lord, 2011
“Welcome, happy morning!” age to age shall say: hell today is vanquished, heav’n is won today. Lo! the dead is living, God forevermore! Him, their true Creator, all his works adore.
“Welcome, happy morning!” age to age shall say: hell today is vanquished, heav’n is won today.
Maker and Redeemer, life and health of all, thou, from heav’n beholding human nature’s fall, of the Father’s Godhead true and only Son, manhood to deliver, manhood didst put on.
Thou, of life the author, death didst undergo, tread the path of darkness, saving strength to show. Come then, True and Faithful, now fulfill thy word; ’tis thine own third morning: rise, O buried Lord!
Loose the souls long prisoned, bound with Satan’s chain; thine that now are fallen raise to life again; show thy face in brightness, bid the nations see; bring again our daylight; day returns with thee.
I like how this hymn—whose origins are in the sixth century!—integrates the Incarnation into the story of Easter, enfolding together Jesus’s birth, life, death, and resurrection as well as his second coming.
To deliver humanity from the thrall of sin and death, the second person of the Trinity put on human flesh. He lived faithfully and died a sacrificial death. And then this God-Man came back to life! Now all the created world praises his name. The hymn ends with a prayer to see resurrection life in our world and for Christ’s return. “True and Faithful” in the third stanza are epithets of Jesus, the white-horse rider, in Revelation 19:11.
The musicians of Redeemer Church of Knoxville have paired the early medieval text with the fifteenth-century French carol tune NOEL NOUVELET, which is more commonly used with “Sing We Now of Christmas” and “Now the Green Blade Riseth” but works equally well here. The group brings a raucous energy and sings at a quickened tempo, using xylophones, mandolins, and trumpets in their celebration of the Risen Christ.
During the Easter Octave (the first eight days of the fifty-day season of Easter), I will continue publishing short daily posts in this art-and-song format.
Joaquín Vaquero Turcios (Spanish, 1933–2010), Alba de Resurrección (Dawn of Resurrection), 1956. Oil on canvas, 120 × 180 cm. Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain.
The garden in the deep night after God’s rapt silence has no breath. No echo even in the vacant tomb which no one yet has visited, no one seen, and yet everywhere his breathing, the turn begins, the blanket of sunrise in mist stretches to swaddle the earth, gouged and waiting.
Jill Peláez Baumgaertner (born 1948) is the multi-award-winning author of six poetry collections and an academic book on Flannery O’Connor as well as the editor of the anthologies Taking Root in the Heart: Poems from the Christian Century (Paraclete, 2023) and Imago Dei: Poems from Christianity and Literature (Abilene Christian University Press, 2012). A Fulbright fellowship to Spain and a nomination for the Pushcart Prize are among her honors. Professor emerita of English and former dean of humanities and theological studies at Wheaton College, she lives in Chicago with her husband, Martin, where she serves as poetry editor of the Christian Century. Hear her discuss her work on a recent Faith and Imagination podcast episode on poetry and the Divine Presence.
O set me as a seal upon thy heart O set me as a seal upon thine arm For love is strong, strong as death, my love And jealousy is cruel as the grave
Its flashes are the living flame of a blazing fire That cannot be drowned out in a flood All earthly gold in exchange for love Would be utterly contemptible and scorned
Come, my love Let me hear your voice My companions and I wait in the garden Make haste, my love, and shine out like the rising sun Like a stag appearing on the mountain
After the crucifixion of Jesus, a small group of his female followers purchased spices and prepared them to bring to the tomb to anoint his body on Sunday morning. (Sabbath restrictions prevented them from doing work on Saturday.) This was an act of love and reverence that served the practical function of counteracting the smell of decomposition.
The singer-songwriter Katy Wehr [previously] imagines the women consoling each other by singing excerpts from the Song of Songs as they crushed the myrrh, mixed it with oil, and bottled it up for transport—maybe also as they headed over to the gravesite. Wehr has set to music four of the verses from the book’s final chapter, a setting she says she hopes conveys a tone that is both mournful and hopeful.
The Song of Songs, or Song of Solomon, is an ancient collection of Hebrew love poems that Christians have long read as allegorical of the love between Christ and his bride, the church.
Wehr’s selections comment on the nature of love: it is permanent, strong, passionate, inextinguishable, and priceless. The female speaker in the poem seeks to stamp herself on her lover’s heart like a seal, claiming him as hers. She professes love’s power, which is as severe and enduring as death. In the context of this passage, the word “jealousy” appears to be used in the positive sense to mean zeal or passion—a resolute devotion.
She goes on to describe love as fiery and intense.
It seems her lover has gone out for the day, or gone on a trip, and she calls him back home. She can’t wait to hear his voice again. She waits outside for him in the garden, wishing for him to come bounding back into her arms.
“Make haste, my love, and shine out like the rising sun.” One can imagine the myrrh-bearing women of the Gospels hoping beyond hope that their beloved Jesus would arise, would speak their names once more, would prove that love is indeed stronger than death.
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