O fill us, Lord, with dauntless love;
Set heart and will on things above
That we conquer through Your triumph;
Grant grace sufficient for life’s day
That by our lives we truly say:
“Christ has triumphed! He is living!”
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

(Lutheran Service Book 465:3; Text: Paul Z. Strodach, 1876–1947, alt.) 

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

As the salvific benefits of the victory of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ are delivered graciously to us through Word and Sacraments, He makes His triumph our triumph.

Just as His words and actions proclaim life, so do ours.

Loved with His everlasting love, we relish His faithfulness to us and His mercies that are new every morning.

With grace sufficient for each day, our lives direct others to the victory of Christ our Passover who was sacrificed for us, not to our own failed efforts to survive or our feeble attempts at success. “Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians 5:8 ESV)

With the same dauntless love with which we are loved, we respond to the Lord’s extravagant grace with indomitable charity that is grounded neither in our emotions nor our short-sighted perspectives on life but is founded and flourishing instead from the compassionate Rock of our Salvation—the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas—who forgives us, renews us, and leads us so that we may delight in His will and walk in His ways to the glory of His holy name.

Revenge is strangled. Self-reliance is derailed. Pettiness is extinguished. The serpent’s head is smashed. Death is swallowed up by death as its sting is lost forever.

With our minds set on things above, we who have died with Christ have our lives hidden with Christ in God, living each day with the promise that when Christ our life appears, we also shall appear with Him in glory.

New life in Christ brings a new way of life for us, one in which we conquer through His triumph with sufficient daily grace to proclaim Christ’s resurrection in our lives so that all, with sincerity and faith, may join the refrain that which echoes through the entire cosmos: Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Peace, hope, and joy in the Risen Christ,

Bishop Taylor