“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.

We have been talking together, here at St. Matthew’s, through
sermons and individual conversations and spiritual formation
opportunities, how the Word of God is rightly called the living
Word because it is always alive and lifegiving among us, reaching
out from the past to transform us in the present and bless a future
we cannot yet see. We believe that as we remember and share all
that God has done for God’s people, that as we proclaim all God’s
promises as real and true for us and for all believers in every time
and place, the fullness of God’s kingdom will reach throughout the
world- light overspreading darkness, brokenness and separation
from God’s mercy and love turning towards wholeness and newness
of life. And on this, “thine own third morning”, we shout and sing
with all the joy we can muster the truth we first hear proclaimed in
today’s reading from Acts: “They put him to death by hanging him
on a tree, but God raised him on the third day.” We boldly
proclaim the truth that “Jesus died and was raised from the dead
once, for all” in present tense because the wonder of it is alive again
every time we do so: Jesus Christ, the Lord of all life is risen today,
Alleluia! “Welcome, happy morning! Age to age shall say.”

So, we sing the hymns- we shout the alleluias- we tell the stories- we
share together in the lifegiving and holy food of Christ’s Body and
Blood- we claim the promise of new and everlasting life made real in
the Resurrection and the message of God’s unchanging love to a
world in need of its truth and its joy: “Welcome, happy morning!
Age to age shall say.

Faithfully, Deacon Dina