Easter Service

The Lenten prelude to
  Your atoning
  sacrifice for us,
    in somber tones
      and cadences of
      death's own march,
had to be played
  before
    Your sweet offertory
    music
    could be presented
in our service.

Then came declaration
  of Triune God's
    eternally established
    and agreed upon
    message for Adam's
      ruined and
      estranged race.
When Your setting forth of
  unbounded love
  and unmerited favor,
clearly declaimed between
  heaven and earth,
Your dying
  eloquently
spoke God's 
redemption theme
  before darkness descended
  over finality at noon.

Only when Your passage
  was completed,
with all righteousness
  forever satisfied,
could new music play
  after the stillness
  of determined bars
  of rest-
to peal forth in
  mighty resurrection
  postlude
resounding in the heavens.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Christ Is Risen!
Christ Is Risen, Indeed!
- Nancy Spiegelberg