Hymn #206 in Celebrating Grace Hymnal — “Christ Is Risen! Shout Hosanna!”
[pullquote_center width=”85%”]Christ is risen! Raise your spirits from the caverns of despair.
Walk with gladness in the morning. See what love can do and dare.
Drink the wine of resurrection, not a servant, but a friend;
Jesus is our strong companion. Joy and peace shall never end.[/pullquote_center]
What a difference a day makes! Saturday. All your eggs in the Jesus basket; life put on hold to follow this teacher with the topsy-turvy, irresistible ideas about society and community; surging popularity after his healings and teachings got famous; high hopes that he was ‘the one’. Then the vicious, unlawful nighttime arrest, the swift turning of the crowd, the terror at the end. The midday darkness and trembling earth. God’s sorrow At the way humanity had treated the gift. What had you done, following this Jesus?
Then, Sunday. A whole new day. Fear, and hate, and jealousy had threatened to end it all. But that was Saturday. On Sunday, God’s true power, love itself, triumphed over the worst humanity could do. Love dared to continue offering us, all of us, the chance to live in relationship with the God of unbelievable compassion and grace. Somehow, in the morning light of that Sunday, the whole world was reborn, and nothing will ever be the same. What a difference a day makes!