Easter Wednesday

Image by PhotoSam88

Perhaps you participated in a sunrise service on Easter Sunday... perhaps you just love to watch the sun rise... perhaps you find the sunrise to be a sanctuary of God's presence and a place for prayer...

Easter and sunrise are two words that pair well when we celebrate the Resurrection... I remember the closing words of the Exsultet from the Light Service at the Easter Vigil:

May the morning star which never sets
find this flame still burning:
Christ, that Morning Star,
who came back from the dead,
and shed his peaceful light on all humankind,
your Son who lives and reigns
for ever and ever.
Amen.

An 18th century hymn writer sings,

The unwearied sun from day to day
does his Creator's power display;
and publishes to every land
the work of an almighty hand...

- From a hymn paraphrasing Psalm 19 by Joseph Addison


And spiritual writer Thomas Merton raises sunrise to near sacramental heights:

Sunrise is an event that calls forth solemn music
in the very depth of human nature,
as if one's whole being had to attune itself to the cosmos
and praise God for the new day,
praise God n the name of all the creatures
that ever were or ever will be.

I look at the rising sun and fell that now upon me
falls the responsibility of seeing what all my ancestors have seen,
in the Stone Age and even before it,
praising God before me...

When the sun rises
each one of us is summoned by the living and the dead
to praise God.

-Thomas Merton in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

As you ponder the sunrise and pray in its light, you may want to listen to the Sunrise movement from the Grand Canyon Suite by Grofe: see the widget at the top of the sidebar.

-ConcordPastor