Common Ground Song 46 ‘Haven’t you heard?’
Words/Music: © Alison Robertson
YouTube recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKws6S1Nd3g
Featured image: Orthodox Easter celebrations in Suwayda, Syria © Jobas cc-by-sa 4.0

Another modern Easter song from Scotland, but in a very different mood from ‘Comes Mary to the Grave’ last week. The two-bar introduction is a fanfare (beautifully played on the organ’s trumpet stop in the recording linked here), and the tempo marking is ‘urgently’.

We have moved past Mary’s initial weeping, shock and confusion: in the first verse here, ‘weeping, she found him down in the garden’ is immediately followed by ‘laughter is living and grieving is gone’. Subsequent verses tell of the experiences of Cleopas encountering Jesus at the breaking of bread in Emmaus, and Peter finding Jesus on the shore of Galilee directing him to the miraculous haul of fish. In the fourth and last verse, we ourselves are invited to receive and share the Good News in a threefold creed: ‘Jesus is risen! Jesus goes on! Jesus is with us!’

The phrase ‘grieving is gone’ ends each of the verses, followed by a joyful chorus of ‘Our hearts are glowing, our eyes are showing that Jesus lives.’ The Easter message is principally one of joy, and that is how we should live: without forgetting the very real pain of Good Friday and sorrow of Holy Saturday, but expressing a confident faith that they have led to eternal life.

The opening phrase of each verse, ‘Haven’t you heard?’ reminds us that this is a message to be shared with a world of pain and grief, as the early apostles did. Peter,  Cleopas and Mary went back to their families and daily life, but no doubt sharing the good news with their respective communities in Capernaum, Emmaus and Bethany, at least until the Great Commission when Jesus sent them out into the world in the power of the Holy Spirit. We, likewise, should live our daily lives in the joy of Easter, awaiting God’s call to wherever he sends us next.