"Hallelujah!"
It's an ancient word. Sung by millions of Christians around the globe this morning, it is Hebrew in origin, from deep within the Jewish tradition. Its Arabic parallel, "Al-Hamdulillah," is a common refrain in Islam and is an appropriate response to the question "Kaif halak?" ("How are you?") throughout the Arabic-speaking world.
Hallelujah is most easily translated "Praise the LORD!" More accurately, it is "Praise YHWH" -- the name by which God introduces God's self to Moses, and which, in the Jewish tradition, is never actually pronounced. It might mean something like "I AM," or perhaps "I will be who I will be." So Hallelujah means: "Praise the One Who Is," or "Praise the Name Beyond Names."
It feels somewhat odd to sing "Hallelujah!" this morning, with the pain of our world so readily on display.
And yet, again: it is an ancient word. The word and the traditions in which it is sung have survived plagues and pandemics, revolutions and reformations, wars and rumors of war. Hallelujah is resilient.
As I shared in an Easter greeting to our wider community this morning, when we look back on the earliest stories of the Resurrection, which Christians commemorate on this day (well, Western Christians -- our Orthodox neighbors have another week of Lent left to observe!), we see that for the people closest to Jesus, this morning was one of uncertainty, anxiety, and fear. And yet, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that hope and new life was already emerging from an experience of trauma and pain.
