Christ lag yn todes banden
The Victory of Life
Christ has risen from the bonds of death, calling us to joyful praise.
Christ lay bound in death, handed over for our sin. He has risen again and brought us life. So we should be joyful, praise God and give thanks, and sing Alleluia.
Captivity and Deliverance
Humanity was held captive by death until Christ entered the battle to strip death of its power.
No one in all of humanity could overcome death. Our sin caused all of this; no innocence could be found.✦ So death came swiftly, took power over us, and held us captive in its kingdom.✦1 Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to take our place. He did away with sin and stripped death of its power. All its claims and power are gone; nothing remains but the outward form of death. It has lost its sting. It was a marvelous battle, where death and life struggled together. Life won the victory, swallowing up death.✦ Scripture proclaimed how one death devoured another, and death became a mockery.✦✦2
The True Passover Lamb
Christ is the sacrificial Lamb whose blood protects us from the destroyer.
This is the true Passover Lamb, the one God commanded. He was roasted on the wood of the cross in the fire of burning love.3 His blood marks our door; faith holds it up against death, and the destroyer cannot touch us.
Living in the Light of Grace
We celebrate the feast of grace, nourished by Christ as our true spiritual bread.
So we celebrate this great feast with heartfelt joy and delight. The Lord makes it shine for us; he himself is the sun. By the radiance of his grace, he lights our hearts completely; the power of sin has passed away. We feast and thrive on the true Easter bread. The old leaven must not remain alongside the word of grace. Christ himself will be our food and nourish the soul alone; faith will live on nothing else.
Read the original Latin
Christ lag yn todes banden / fur vnser sund gegeben. Der ist widder erstanden / vnd hat vns bracht das leben. Des wir sollen frolich seyn. Got loben vnd danckbar seyn vnd syngen Alleluia.
Den todt niemant zwingen kund / bey allen menschen kynden. Das macht alles vnser sund / keyn vnschult war zu finden. dauon kam der tod so bald / vnd nam vber vns gewalt / hielt vns yn seym reich gefangen.
Jhesus Christus Gottes son / an vnser stat yst komen. Vnd hatt die sund abgethan / damit dem tod genomen. Al seyn recht vnd seyn gewalt / da bleibt nichts denn tods gestalt / die stachel hat er verloren.
Es war eyn wunderlich krieg / da todt vnd leben rungen. Das leben behielt den sieg / es hat den tod verschlungen. Die schrifft hatt verkundet das / wie eyn tod den andern fraß / ein spot aus dez tod ist worden.
Hie yst das recht Osterlam / dauon Got hat gebotten. Das yst an des Creutzes stam / ynn heysser lieb gebrotten. Des blutt zeichet vnser thur / das helt der glawb dem todt fur / der wurger kan vns nicht ruren
So feyren wir dyß hoch fest / mit hertzen freudt vnnd wonne. Das vns der herr scheynen lest / er yst selber die sonne. Der durch seyner gnaden glantz erleucht vnser hertzen gantz / der sunden macht ist vergangen
Wir essen vnd leben wol / yn rechten Ostern fladen Der alte saurteig nicht sol / seyn bey dem wort der gnaden Christus wil die koste seyn / vnd speysen die seel alleyn / der glawb wil keyns andern leben.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Rom.3.10-Rom.3.12 — As it is written: 'There is no one righteous, not even one.' Rom.3.11 — There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. Rom.3.12 — All have turned aside; together they have become worthless. There is no one who does good—not even one.
- ↩Rom.5.14-Rom.5.17 — Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is a type of the one who was to come. Rom.5.15 — But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the trespass of the one man, how much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many. Rom.5.16 — And the gift is not like what came through the one who sinned. For the judgment following one trespass led to condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses led to justification. Rom.5.17 — For if by the trespass of the one man death reigned through the one, how much more will those who receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
- ↩Isa.25.8;1Cor.15.54 — He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces; the reproach of his people he will remove from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. 1Cor.15.54 — But when this perishable puts on imperishability, and this mortal puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory.'
- ↩Hos.13.14;1Cor.15.54-1Cor.15.55 — From the hand of Sheol I will ransom them; from death I will redeem them. Where are your plagues, O Death? Where is your sting, O Sheol? Repentance shall be hidden from my eyes. 1Cor.15.54 — But when this perishable puts on imperishability, and this mortal puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory.' 1Cor.15.55 — Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?
- ↩1Cor.15.55 — Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?
Notes
- 1 ↩Rendered “So” to preserve the causal link: death came as a consequence of humanity’s sin.
- 2 ↩The paradox means that Christ's death consumed or defeated death itself.
- 3 ↩The source literally describes the Passover Lamb as “roasted in hot love,” combining the prescribed roasting of the Passover sacrifice with Christ’s burning love in the Crucifixion.
Erfurt Enchiridion (Early Lutheran Hymns) companion
Never lose the rhythm again
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