Month: April 2025

C. S. Lewis “An Easter Hymn”

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From a June 10, 1958 letter to Francis Turner (at which time Turner was President of Magdalene College, Cambridge), in which Lewis wrote: “A challenge is a challenge, so here comes my (Easter) hymn. It aims at little more than to be mouth-filling. If the numbers are unpleasing, the sentiments, since they are scriptural, must surely be just.”

Lords coëval with creation,
Seraph, Cherub, Throne and Power,
Princedom, Virtue, Domination,
Hail the long-awaited hour!
Bruised in head, with broken pinion,
Trembling for his old dominion,
See the ancient dragon cower!
    For the Prince of Heaven has risen,
    Victor, from his shattered prison.

Loudly roaring from the regions
Where no sunbeam e’er was shed,
Rise and dance, ye ransomed legions
Of the cold and countless dead!
Gates of adamant are broken,
Words of conquering power are spoken
Through the God who died and bled:
    Hell lies vacant, spoiled and cheated
    By the Lord of life defeated

Bear, behemoth, bustard, camel,
Warthog, wombat, kangaroo,
Insect, reptile, fish and mammal,
Tree, flower, grass, and lichen too,
Rise and romp and ramp, awakening,
For the age-old curse is breaking.
All things shall be made anew;
    Nature’s rich rejuvenation
    Follows on Man’s liberation.

Eve’s and Adam’s son and daughter,
Sinful, weary, twisted, mired,
Pale with terror, thinned with slaughter,
Robbed of all your hearts desired,
Look! Rejoice! One born of woman,
Flesh and blood and bones all human,
One who wept and could be tired,
    Risen from the vilest death, has given
    All who will the hope of Heaven.//

Lewisians will hear echoes of Narnia (and Malacandra and Perelandra) in this poem — especially in stanza 3 when all manner of animal and nature romp with joy at the onset of New Creation, and in stanza 4 when Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve are called to look and rejoice because one who wept and could be tired has risen and given the hope of Heaven to all who will receive it.

Lewis wrote other things about Easter, but this little poem, tucked away in a non-Eastertime letter, is not well known. Read it today and with all other Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve who feel weary, twisted, mired, pale with terror, thinned with slaughter, and robbed of all your hearts desired, Look! and Rejoice! For Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.

Palm Sunday (Holy Week Day 1)

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Today – Palm Sunday – begins what we today call Holy Week or Passion Week. It marks the days leading up to Jesus’ death and resurrection, allowing space and time to listen, focus, and remember what happened on these days almost 2000 years ago.

Just before this day, Jesus had been in Jericho. He’d met and spent time with Zacchaeus – a Jewish tax collector who worked for the Roman occupying government, doing a job which his family, neighbors, and fellow Jews despised and looked down on. And yet Jesus spent time with Zacchaeus and befriended him, giving a glimpse of how very upside-down the kingdom of God truly is. 

Shortly after that, Jesus met a blind man on the road, and in usual fashion, he stopped, listened, and healed him, giving physical sight to a specific man, giving a glimpse of what was to come — clear spiritual sight for any and all who ask.

From Jericho, Jesus headed to Jerusalem, the capital city, where faithful and devout religious people traveled regularly for feasts and other temple celebrations.

Like so many others, Jesus was going to Jerusalem for the coming Passover. But he was mostly going there for another reason: to not just celebrate the Passover but to be the Passover lamb and to die the Passover lamb’s death.

If you’ve ever been in church on Palm Sunday, you’ve likely experienced the joy and energy of young children walking the aisles, a chaotic mass of little bodies, smiling at parents, poking younger siblings, waving their palm branches wildly (like the children they are) or methodically (like the adults they may grow into), shouting at the top of their tiny young lungs, “Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

They’re re-enacting what the people did when Jesus himself rode into Jerusalem. Riding on a donkey. Think about that for a moment: Jesus – the Creator of all, the King of all, the Savior of all, the long-awaited Messiah, God himself — riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. The Jewish people had long been living under the oppression of different occupying rulers, currently the Romans, and for hundreds of years, they’d been waiting for God to send them a conquering Messiah, someone who would overthrow their oppressors and set things right with a strong military reign. 

But Jesus came to set things right in a different way, at a deeper level: in our very souls.

And for that monumental task, he arrived on a donkey.

We might think of a donkey as nothing more than a work animal. In the ancient world, thought, donkeys were associated with kings, specifically with peaceful kings. A warrior king arrived on a horse, a peaceful king on a donkey. Already Jesus was making a statement about how his Kingdom worked. 

Long before Jesus was born, the prophet Zechariah had spoken about this very thing when he said, “Rejoice, O people of Zion! Shout in trumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey — riding on a donkey’s colt.” (Zech 9:9) Over the years, people focused and clung to the first part of those words about victory and justice. The humility part, the donkey part, somehow got lost in the days and years and generations of waiting.

Today when we hear Hosanna, most people either have no idea what it means, or they think it means, “Praise him!” or “Honor him!” or “Worship him.” But Hosanna simply means either “God saves” — a statement of fact, or “God, save us” — a plea for rescue.

Jesus does in fact save. At that moment, people were hoping and expecting him to save them and their city in a very specific way. But the way he eventually saved was actually more amazing than anything they imagined, for he came to save everything — all of broken humanity, all of cursed creation.

Jesus saves. Hosanna. When he rode a donkey into Jerusalem that day, he rode into a crowd of branches and praise. But mostly what he rode to was betrayal, rejection, and death.

For you. For me. For the whole world. For all of creation.