The best music for Easter Sunday morning, and why it's Christ lag in Todesbanden.

 It's easy to find good music for Good Friday. There's a wealth of things from the Italian baroque all the way through to contemporary composers. Hymns and worship songs abound, too.

But Easter Sunday is a bit harder. There's lots of drums and trumpets, and rowdy rumpty-tump. You can have introspective things about facing the morrow, you can have simulated garden encounters. 

But for me nothing touches the spot like Christ lag in Todesbanden. It's just a setting of Luther's hymn, that goes like this :

Christ Jesus lay in death’s strong bands,
For our offenses given;
But now at God’s right hand He stands
And brings us life from heaven.
Therefore let us joyful be
And sing to God right thankfully
Loud songs of alleluia!
Alleluia! 

No son of man could conquer Death,
Such ruin sin had wrought us.
No innocence was found on earth,
And therefore Death had brought us
Into bondage from of old
And ever grew more strong and bold
And held us as his captive.
Alleluia! 

But Jesus Christ, God’s only Son,
To our low state descended;
The pow’r of sin He hath undone,
The might of Death is ended:
Stripped of pow’r, no more he reigns;
An empty form alone remains;
His sting is lost forever.
Alleluia! 

It was a strange and dreadful strife
When Life and Death contended;
The victory remained with Life,
The reign of Death was ended.
Holy Scripture plainly saith
That Death is swallowed up by Death,
Made henceforth a derision.
Alleluia! 

Here our true Paschal Lamb we see,
Whom God so freely gave us;
He died on the accursèd tree—
So strong His love!—to save us.
See, His blood doth mark our door;
Faith points to it, Death passes o’er,
The Murd’rer cannot harm us.
Alleluia! 

So let us keep the festival
Whereto the Lord invites us;
Christ is Himself the Joy of all,
The Sun that warms and lights us.
By His grace doth He impart
Eternal sunshine to the heart;
The night of sin is ended.
Alleluia! 

Then let us feast this Easter Day
On Christ, the Bread of heaven;
The Word of Grace hath purged away
The old and evil leaven.
Christ alone our souls will feed,
He is our meat and drink indeed;
Faith lives upon no other.
Alleluia!