Easter Greetings to you and your loved ones!

As Easter approaches, I always look forward to the “Office of Readings” for the day before Easter, Holy Saturday, part of a supplemental body of readings that the ordained promise to pray daily. This one, from “An Ancient Homily on Holy Saturday,” begins; “Something strange is happening — there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. … I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in Hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I in you; together we form one person and cannot be separated.”

The hope of Easter is an extraordinary one: we are joined with Christ, who, risen form the dead, takes us with him through death to risen life! His sure and certain promise of the Resurrection for all his beloved children is the firm foundation of our eternal hopes! Know of my prayers for you in this holy season, that the Holy Spirit will instill in you a confidence of Christ’s victory over death — a victory in which we all share!

+Scott E. Bullock
Bishop of Rapid City