Rise Heart, Thy Lord is Risen

The poem below, simply titled Easter, was written by the country priest George Herbert (1593-1633). Herbert wrote devotional poetry about the Christian life. And while his life was marked by a great deal of suffering, he resolutely looked to Jesus as his Master, in whose service he found perfect peace. Using Herbert as our guide, I want to invite us to engage with and dwell upon this simple and beautiful poem as a way of lifting our hearts to greet this coming Easter, and in doing so to also find peace in knowing the life that we have in Jesus. 

Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delays,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more just.

I got me flowers to straw thy way:
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

The Sun arising in the East,
Though he give light, and th’ East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,
Though many suns to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we miss:
There is but one, and that one ever.

Herbert begins the poem saying, “Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise without delays.” He is exhorting his own heart to leave behind the sorrowful mood of Lent and our meditations upon Christ’s suffering and death. The time has come for us to rise with Christ in joyful song! On Easter we rise because our Lord is risen! Christ takes us by the hand and leads us out of death into life. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, our lives are made pure as gold and we are justified before God.

The second stanza evokes the crowds pulling boughs of palm branches off the trees and laying them down in the road as Jesus entered Jerusalem. The reference to “sweets” likely refers to the spices that the woman had brought to anoint Jesus’s body in the tomb. But the risen Christ has no need of spices because he is no longer dead. These images remind me that everything we try to furnish to our Lord in our service and devotion to him— “boughs, flowers, and sweets”—is not essential to his glory. His resurrection defies adornment. He is beautiful and glorious in himself. And yet, while we cannot add anything to Christ’s risen glory, our response is simply to receive his life and to find our life in him.

In the final two stanzas, Herbert compares the physical sun, that brings life to the earth, to Jesus and the resurrection life that he gives. The brightness of the sun rising on Easter morning and the exotic fragrances of the East can’t compare with the brightness and fragrance of Christ’s rising. Moreover, the sun that rises each day of the year cannot shine as brightly as the Son of God as he brings light and life to the world. All other days pale in comparison to the resplendent never-ending day of Easter.

Even as we continue to live under the shadow and sorrow of a pandemic, let’s lift up our hearts; for Christ is risen!