Recognise

Imogen hunts through the top drawer of the tall chest that stands in the hall by our front door, looking for our hymn books. She finds the old red Living Parish books, held together by sticky tape, that somehow found their way to us many years ago.

“Can we sing Through the Red Sea Brought at Last?” I ask as Imogen passes around the hymn books. “And how about we sing By Your Kingly Power, O Risen Lord? It’s the second Sunday of Easter, and we haven’t sung that hymn even once.”

In a normal season, Easter is full of singing. My family starts practising during Lent. We sing through Holy Week and on to Easter. And we keep singing for the next six weeks.

But this year, our voices have been silent.

“We need to sing,” I say. “We need to feel the joy of Easter.”

I perch myself on the arm of Andy’s chair where I can see the words in the hymn book that he’s holding, and then we follow Imogen’s lead and start singing:

By your kingly pow’r, O risen Lord,

All that Adam lost is now restored:

In your resurrection be adored.

Sing the joyful Easter cry,

Sound it to the souls in prison,

Shout our triumphant to the sky,

Sing Christ risen, Sing Christ risen.

Suddenly, Andy thrusts the hymn book into my hand and starts fiddling with his phone. I raise my eyebrows but keep singing. Then Andy’s thumbs stop moving. Looking over his shoulder, I can see that he’s found the words to our favourite hymn online.

Death has lost and life has won;

Ev’ry newborn soul we christen

Now becomes the Father’s son:

Sing Christ risen, Sing Christ risen.

We sing the final words, our faces stretched wide with smiles.

Andy is more than smiling. He’s laughing. “You won’t believe this,” he says. “When I scrolled to the last words on this website, I saw someone I recognise. Actually, I saw a family I recognise. I saw us!”

Andy turns his phone towards us and, yes, there’s our family on a Catholic hymn book website singing the very hymn we’ve just sung: By Your Kingly Power, O Risen Lord.

For a long time, each Easter Sunday morning, Andy and our kids would sing By Your Kingly Power while I recorded the hymn as a video. We have years and years of videos that tell our Easter story: who was at home that year and how old everyone was. A couple of those videos are on Youtube. They’re probably the last ones we ever made. One Easter, after we’d returned home from Mass, I didn’t get out my camera. No one gathered together to sing our favourite hymn. And, sadly, that was the end of that tradition. But it wasn’t the end of the story. One of our videos has unexpectedly reappeared.

Andy hits ‘play’ on the video on his phone, and the past enters the present.

“I sound awful!”

“No, you don’t.”

“Look how young we were.”

“Look at how Dad was messing around.”

“That was the second version we recorded that year. Do you remember how we did a serious one, and then I said we should sing it again with more joy?”

“Dad thought that meant he could be silly!”

My thoughts turn to Easter. A normal Easter.

As the sun sets on Holy Saturday, we follow the Paschal candle into the church. We sit, silent and still, eyes alight with excitement, listening to the familiar Biblical stories. Imogen’s voice rises higher and higher, filling the dark with the psalms. Then overhead the lights appear. We blink. The Light is here! And joy flows over.

As we emerge from the church, we cry, “Christ has risen. Alleluia! Alleluia!” And the reply flies back to us, “He is risen indeed. Alleluia! Alleluia!”

We hug. We kiss. We grin. It’s the best moment of the whole year.

Right now, Easter is difficult to recognise. We can’t go to our churches. We can’t receive Jesus. We can’t gather together.

But we can sing.

It’s not too late to raise our voices. Chase away the ordinary. Claim back the Easter season. Recognise that Christ is risen.

Sing!

Photo: Sophie took this photo of Charlotte, Gemma-Rose, Andy, Duncan and Imogen on Easter Sunday.