For the (I don’t know) thirty-fourth year in a row, I rang my grandfather’s little Rotary Club bell and called out “He is risen!”

“I have not!” replied my good-natured husband. My grandson came to the top of the stairs and asked, quizzically “Why are you ringing that bell?” “Because Jesus is alive” I answered, realizing that the logic of ringing of bells is not as familiar as it was during my childhood.

Our church had a sandstone tower with a big bell that was attached to a rope which hung down from the ceiling of a small closet on the children’s Sunday School hall. Every week, we took a turns pulling on the thick rope which rang the bell that called the church family to come for worship.

I have another sweet memory of Mr. and Mrs. Emory, teaching our second-grade Sunday School a sweet Easter song full of memorable imagery: “Comes the wondrous hour every heart knows well. Every little flower has a lovely bell. All the birds are happy, all the church bells ring. Christ the Lord is risen. Glory to the King.”

It would be several more years until I fully understood the good news ringing out from those bells. I have vivid memories of Easter 1972, now forty-five years ago, after God was pleased to reveal His Son to me . The ringing of bells became an “ebenezer,” a reminder that God’s promises are true, and continuing to unfold.

Two years later, 2nd Chapter of Acts, a popular band during the infancy of contemporary Christian Music, released “Easter Song,” which  is just as joyful four decades later, and calls us to a fresh understanding of the truth that Jesus is ALIVE. Here’s the original version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-hLSR5F4Y0&feature=share