Songs for Easter Sunday 2021

I am immensely excited for Sunday, and I usually am. But this Sunday is different.

It is not different because it is a holiday. It is different because it is a genuine holy day. It is set apart because it is a day that changed everything. It is a day that took the great sadness and loss of Good Friday, the crucifixion, and death and gave eternal context through Jesus’ resurrection.

I love the way that the prophet Isaiah foretold it centuries before that first Easter morning:

He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of His people He will take away
from all the earth,
for the LORD has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
“Behold, this is our God;
we have waited for Him, that He might save us.
This is the LORD; we have waited for Him;
let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”
Isaiah 25:8-9

Everything that He promised, He has done, “for He who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23).

From the beginning, it was foretold that Jesus would trample Satan victoriously (Genesis 3:15), and, bearing our sin on the cross, He “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them” (Colossians 2:15).

He promised eternal life to those who believe in Him (John 3:16), and, in His resurrection, He cancelled the death we deserve with the gift of Life He promised (Romans 6:23), showing us forevermore that

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:54-57

The symmetry of what He promised and how He brought it all to pass in His great love, grace, and mercy is a thing of beauty that is greater than anything we could have hoped for. It is greater than anything we could accomplish. It is greater than our sin. It is greater than the power of Satan. And it is all wrapped up in who He is.

I think back to Jesus’ words to Lazarus’ sister Martha when she was grieving Lazarus’ death. Her heart was hurting – as was Jesus’, even to the point of weeping Himself. She stood in the presence of God in flesh and heard words that give hope in the midst of death and grief even two millennia later:

Jesus said to her, “I AM the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
John 11:25-26

You see, it is as I said earlier. Easter is not just a holiday. Easter is a person. Resurrection Sunday is not just our weekly gatherings as Christ’s Church – His bride. He is the Resurrection. Eternal life is not something we earn or accomplish or just receive because of a prayer prayed — He is Life.

So, this Easter Sunday, we will seek to not make it about the gathering. We will seek to have more than a special gathering. We will seek and celebrate Him. We will gather in the midst of His Spirit. We will gather in His presence “for He has risen, as He said” (Matthew 28:6)! He is alive!

Do you believe this?

Here are our songs:

Because He Lives —

Luke 24:1-9 —

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how He told you, while He was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified on the third day rise.” And they remembered His words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.

Death Was Arrested —

1 Corinthians 1:3-5 —

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Thank You Jesus for the Blood —

Forever (We Sing Hallelujah) —

1 Corinthians 15:26-27, 54-57 —

The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him.
—
When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.