Longing for the “Alleluia”

During Lent we refrain from the places where we normally say, “Alleluia” in our liturgy. It is meant to remind us of the season. It creates longing.

Last Sunday I started to put an “Alleluia” in a spot… loudly. I mumbled, half joking, “I’m just so anxious.”

I long for the Alleluia. I hold on to his promises. Resurrection is coming. We still need the cross and the grave.

But hold on to the promise:

Isaiah 49:8–10 (NIV)

⁸ This is what the Lord says: 

“In the time of my favor I will answer you, 

and in the day of salvation I will help you; 

I will keep you and will make you 

to be a covenant for the people, 

to restore the land 

and to reassign its desolate inheritances, 

⁹ to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ 

and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’ 

“They will feed beside the roads 

and find pasture on every barren hill. 

¹⁰ They will neither hunger nor thirst, 

nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. 

He who has compassion on them will guide them 

and lead them beside springs of water.