“Thanks be to God,
who gives us the victory
through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

We begin with a joyful celebration of gratitude from First Corinthians.  It is our victory, this rising from the dead.  It is Jesus’ victory over the cross that he bore, but ultimately it is mankind’s victory over the false belief of death.  The way-shower illuminated the truth of life for all mankind and we celebrate on this day.

…a sad supper
taken at the close of day,
in the twilight of a glorious career
with shadows fast falling around;
and this supper closed forever
Jesus’ ritualism
or concessions to matter.

We flash back to probably the most famous meal in the history of mankind where the Master said his goodbyes, not only to his followers, but also to his own illusion of life in the mortal state.  The music turns melancholy befitting the moment.  Mary Baker Eddy’s text from her book Science And Health beautifully sets the tone for the evening of farewells.

She continues…
The final demonstration
of the truth which Jesus taught,
and for which he was crucified,
opened a new era for the world.

No one knew it at the time, but the world had changed.  Now death was no longer the ultimate end to life, but we had an eternal future.  The most feared experience of life, the most eluded event of life on Planet Earth had suddenly become a lie and an event that was simply a transition, not the end.  And so we celebrate this wondrous fact.

“Thanks be to God,
who gives us the victory
through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Then Mrs. Eddy continues again…
Glory be to God,
and peace to the struggling hearts!

Christ hath rolled away the stone
from the door of human hope and faith,
and through the revelation
and demonstration of life in God…

(Christ)
hath elevated them
to possible at-one-ment…

Yes, the stone was the door that was opened and let in the light, the illumination of the truth that death is not real, and is a lie in life.  The revelation first came to Mary and then to Jesus’ disciples as they struggled to accept the concept of this new idea.  The music becomes like a child skipping down the lane lost in the energies and wonder of life.  As each of us accepts this revelation, we become at one with a new mankind, a new spirituality where the old inevitable no longer exists.

And so we proclaim through Mrs. Eddy’s words…
We acknowledge
that the crucifixion of Jesus
and his resurrection
served to uplift faith
to understand eternal Life,
even the allness of Soul, Spirit,
and the nothingness of matter.

Our Master
fully and finally
demonstrated
Divine Science
in his victory over death and the grave.

Here is the spiritual fact set forth.  Here is the meaning of Easter.  Here is the cause for celebration set purposefully in the woodwinds of the orchestra – simply, straight forward, matter of fact.  And so, once again we must celebrate.

“Thanks be to God,
who gives us the victory
through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Then once again Mrs. Eddy reminds us…
The periods of spiritual ascension
are the days and seasons of Mind’s creation,
in which beauty, sublimity,
purity, and holiness —
yea, the divine nature —
appear in man and the universe
never to disappear.

No, there was not just one ascension, only one miracle.  Instead, this was a new world being illuminated for all of us that choose to live it.  This is not an old story retold through the centuries, but a present possibility today.  Now is a period of spiritual ascension.  These are the days and seasons of Mind’s creation.  I choose to walk in this light.  Will you walk with me?  I choose to live in the divine nature.  This doesn’t make me better than anybody else; it is just a choice I choose to make.  I choose to live in the new world where death has no reality.  I choose life instead.  I celebrate this on this day of Easter and every day.

And the pipe organ begins to peel the paint from the walls of the old church and the orchestra fills the rooms of Mind and the timpani and cymbals crash through the barriers of human existence.

“Thanks be to God,
who gives us the victory
through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Allelulia
Allelulia!

This new song, with lyrics from the prose text of Mary Baker Eddy and the Bible, and music by yours truly, will debut to the world Easter Morning broadcast via the Internet from Boston’s First Church of Christ, Scientist.  Sung by their soloist, Julia Wade, and played on its huge and wondrous 4 manual pipe organ by Bryan Ashley, it will also be released on Julia’s new CD, Solos, in early May of 2012.  The CD version will accompany Julia with pipe organ and full orchestra.

Easter is only and ultimately about the resurrection.  The rest of the story is the old picture.  We welcome in the new!