Easter

We had a really wonderful program for Easter today at church. I knew it was going to be good because I'd been at many of the rehearsals as the pianist. Then, we had to go forward on the Frankenfoot episode, so someone else took over for me. I love to play the hymn, "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today" on the organ or piano. And it is mostly a once a year song...but, even though I didn't get to play it, I did get to sing it. Easter is a favorite of mine. Christmas is filled with tradition, and it feels so nice and it is a wonderful story and really a terrific religious holiday. (Yes, even though it has been nearly smothered over the years with froo-froo.) But, maybe that's why Easter is so great: it is pure and clean and has just one point:

HE IS RISEN. Imagine...death overcome.

It is so powerful. It really doesn't matter about the colored eggs (I love to make them), the jellybeans (I love to eat them) (ditto chocolate rabbits), or the Easter bunny or whatever extra little frilly things have been tossed in there over the years. The power of the story of the Atonement, the crucifixion, and the Resurrection is fully able to overcome all of that. When I sat there today in church and listened to the scriptures being read that told this account, and the songs chosen to illustrate it, I was bathed in the Spirit of God. It is a phenomenal, spectacular concept. It is almost incomprehensible, and yet the essence of Christianity. He lives, so will we, eternally, with Him.

Come, Saints, and drop a tear or two

For Him who groaned beneath your load;

He shed a thousand drops for you,

A thousand drops of precious blood.

Here's love and grief beyond degree;

The Lord of glory died for men.

But lo! What sudden joys were heard!

The Lord, though dead, revived again.

Isaac Watts 1764-1748

LDS Hymns #191 v. 2 & 3