An Easter Reflection

Fr Goerge Bowen

ALLELUIA

For all of Lent, the word Alleluia is never uttered.

But now in Easter, with the Lord risen, it seems that we can't use the word often enough!

Alleluia, like the word Amen, is a Hebrew word.

These are the only two Hebrew words that we use in the liturgy of the Church. Both are words which we humans use in reply to God's revelation:- Amen we use to confirm our agreement and commitment to God's message which he reveals in Christ.

But what about Alleluia?

In Hebrew it means 'Praise The Lord'.

The word Alleluia is full of liquid-sounding vowels, and it’s a word that lends itself to being sung!

We sing Alleluia as our reply to the greatest of news, that the Risen Lord has reached down into the shadows of death and has opened a way for us to travel through death and into the fullness of life.

So even if we don't sing the word Alleluia with our voices, we should be singing the word in our hearts.

The Old Testament is full of song-prayers, amongst them the 150 Psalms which were supposedly written by King David. Many of them are songs of praise or ‘Alleluia Psalms’.

The earliest song of praise in the Bible is the song of thanksgiving which Moses and the Israelites sung as they passed though the Red Sea, and survived, whereas their enemies the Egyptians drowned. It is a

song praising God as Saviour of his children.

In the season of Easter, the Alleluia we sing is to praise God for saving us from the waters of death. We sing, even though we haven’t yet reached the far shore.

While we are still in the waters of mortal life, drowning for much of the time as we struggle to stay afloat, we nevertheless sing Alleluia in anticipation of our rescue from death. We sing in confidence, because we know that having risen from the dead, Jesus will reach into the waters of death and lift us into fullness of life, if we put up our hands and let him lift us up there.

Jesus rose from the dead early on the first day of the week; The Day that was made by the Lord for his work of salvation. Alleluia!