I like to wake up and look at the sky first thing on Easter morning. I think about the cool of the day – how the sun rose just like any other day. I think about the dew that was there, the birds, the earth waking up to a new day that was so like every other day… but so unlike any other day, all at the same time.

I think about Mary Magdalene. I think about how her heart broke… because the person who could see right through her, who saw her faults and loved her the most, who sat as she poured out her perfume and her tears on his feet, had died and left her. I think about how sad she must still have felt, not even three days since she’d seen him die, how he was the last person she would expect to see that day.

All week I’ve been thinking of the song “Hallelujah”. The last verse says that “love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.”

I think about Jesus’ walk through the city streets, as he carried the cross towards his own death.

If I were to save the world and take away the sins of everyone and bring new life to each and every person, I think I would have done it with fanfare. I would have done it like a super hero. I would have had fireworks and announcements and a spectacle. But not so with Jesus

His love was not a victory march. There was no fanfare, no fireworks, no spectacle. He humbled himself to the greatest pain and humiliation possible. He was judged for crimes he wasn’t guilty of. He was killed for sins he didn’t commit.

And yet, somewhere, there was a cold and broken Hallelujah.

I picture the hallelujah echoing in the hearts of everyone who loved him and saw him die – the ones who believed he was the Messiah. They were so grieved. And yet, somewhere in the earthquake and the temple curtain ripping and the darkness that covered the land, it was impossible to miss that something deeply spiritual and holy had happened.

For three days the earth held his body. And then, at the break of day, it held him no longer.

Can you imagine Mary Magdalene’s heart bursting as she saw him? The thrill of hope. The cold and broken hallelujah that turned into a shout. How could it not? It burst forward – her realization that he not only did not leave her but he conquered the finality of death in a way that brought the greatest of hopes to all mankind. The man who forgave her wealth of sins had taken time to meet her once again and remind her of the greatest of all that is possible.

And with that, the hallelujah echoes throughout time and space, bringing us that great hope. A king that came as a babe and was brutally killed has defeated the finality of death.

Hallelujah.