After searching for an opening Easter Acclamation that is progressive and cosmic in nature, and finding nothing that went where I'd like to take the congregation this Easter, I decided I'd just have to write one.

So, here's an acclamation/invocation that draws on themes found in the high Christology of Saint Paul (Colossians) and well as the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas; it's also drawn from the medieval mystics Meister Eckhart and Hildegard von Bingen, and the modern evolutionary theologians, Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry. I also hope it has some of the poetic flare of that great earth mystic, Saint John (Muir) of the Mountains.

O Radiant Light,
O Flame Divine,
as shines the light of Easter’s dawn—
Come, bless the embers of the earth,
sparks flung from our eternal birth.

O Word of God,
the Source of Life,
you rouse us from the night of fears
to open souls and minds and ears
and hear the music of the spheres.

You are the Fire that birth’d all things,
the Force that spins the galaxies;
you are the Flame within all flames,
the Hidden Power that knows no name.
From you all things that are were sent,
and into you does all extend.
Peel back the bark of any tree,
lift up a stone—they blaze with Thee!

O Risen Christ,
you shine in us,
the radiance of your holiness;
despite the sting of death and strife,
we rise to dance this Dance of Life.