March 31, 2013: Easter Sunday

Mar 31 2013 Easter Sunday

Hymn: Jesus Christ Is Risen Today

The text for this hymn comes from an anonymous Latin manuscript written in the fourteenth century. It was translated into German, then later to English in 1708. The hymn, paired with the EASTER HYMN tune that we’ll sing today, was published in Lyra Davidica, an early songbook. The tune has been called “extraordinary for its time, anticipating the more exuberant tunes of the Evangelical revival later in the [eighteenth] century.”

Response: Christ is Risen!  Shout Hosanna!

Brian Wren wrote the text to this Easter piece in September 1984.  Wren was inspired by the Easter text “Christ is Risen, Raise Your Voices.” Paul Westermeyer writes that the hymn is “a celebration of life, with numerous zesty images that drive to the song of Hosanna in the face of the ‘grim, demonic chorus.’” The tune HYMN TO JOY is taken from a tune in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, “Choral.”  Edward Hodges adopted it for use as a hymn.

Hymn: Christ Is Alive!

Brian Wren wrote this hymn in April 1968 for Easter not long after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. He “tried to express an Easter hope out of that terrible event,” rather than Easter as “long ago, far away, and high above.” The hymn has been revised several times as Wren has sought to keep the original theme of the text while seeking better language. The fourth stanza, revised in 1995 and therefore not included in The Presbyterian Hymnal, reads, “Women and men, in age and youth, / can feel the Spirit, hear the call, / and find the way, the life, the truth, / revealed in Jesus, freed for all.”

Anthem: Earth, Earth, Awake: Your Praises Sing

This Easter anthem is replete with images of earth and God’s creation, calling them to respond to Christ’s resurrection. The first and third lines of the first verse implore creation to sing praise and pay homage, while the second and fourth lines speak to the power of the resurrection. The second verse encompasses the world’s song in response to Easter, making known Christ’s “promise of joy for all who weep.” Keeping in line with the theme of nature and creation, Christ is shown as the light that “pales the dawn” and life that “bursts like flame from death’s cold tomb.” The fourth verse serves as a doxology to the victorious, loving Trinity.

Anthem: Rise, O Church, like Christ Arisen

Susan Palo Cherwien was commissioned in 1997 to write a hymn on the occasion of a church’s fiftieth anniversary. She was influenced by a lecture during which the speaker said, “God invited us here [to the Eucharistic meal]; who are we, not to become merciful?” Paul Westermeyer writes: “The result was this sending hymn about the church rising to take up its role in the world in this (and every) generation, remembering the future God gives us to receive.”