Made Like Him, Like Him We Rise

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia! 
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia! 
Once he died our souls to save, Alleluia! 
Where's thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia! 

Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia! 
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia! 
Made like him, like him we rise, Alleluia! 
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia! 

- "Christ the Lord is Risen Today," verses 3 and 4, Charles Wesley (1739)

The soaring soprano notes and trumpet blasts of this traditional Easter hymn lifted us up on Easter Sunday even as tears started and I had to mouth the words around my constricted throat. One of my favorite pieces of music reminded me that we are called to hope, to envision a better future, to have faith that good will triumph in the end. It could not have come at a better time.

Perhaps you have stumbled through my latest entries (stumbles due to the faulty writing and not to your reading ability) and realized that our spring has been full of tragedy.  In addition to the loss of life, we had to sit through a day of school closure due to a "valid threat" to schools across the Denver metro area. Over 434,000 students and their teachers sat at home on a Wednesday because a young woman, obsessed with Columbine, had flown to Denver from her Florida home, purchased a gun and ammunition, and threatened to take young lives.

The situation was not a reality I ever want to adopt - feeling held hostage by an individual with mental health problems who was somehow allowed to by weapons with an out-of-state license, no waiting period, and no regard for the fact that she cannot even buy a beer at age 19, but could somehow buy a gun.  One neighbor reflected, "We close the schools so that the gun stores stay open."  Another noted that we had a spring snow day one week, and a spring terrorist day the next.

I can't make the situation feel normal, can't normalize it for my children. Their resilience in the face of danger reassures me in small ways and horrifies me in others. How can they be expected to operate in school with much larger pressures weighing on their young shoulders?

My mood was a bit low going into Easter, but this pivotal spring holy day reminded me of my duty as a Christian and as a parent, to hold on to hope, to have faith in a better day, and to work hard not only to envision this better world but to make it possible.