I am a son of the month of April. There’s something about it that makes my heart skip with delight and leads my mind to the memories I hold of childhood days playing by muddy puddles that needed splashing and robin’s songs that needed listening and a mother’s whisper that answered a little boy’s question, “April means spring is here.”

I also hold impish thoughts about the woods and fields of my childhood property that annually filled with water from the melting winter snows. I once relished being able to tramp through them and hear the sounds of “squish, squish, splat” from my trespassing feet as they landed exuberantly upon water-saturated earth. April signalled to me then and now the absolute certainty that the distant winter sun would turn it’s magnificent gaze upon the sullen earth and rain and mud and frozen snow would yield to its strengthening ray and invite green grass and brown dirt and short sleeves and summer sneakers to make their grand entrance. How I loved being an adoring son of the month of April!

But one memory I hold in particular reserve is that of family getting dressed in finest attire for April Church. We were C & E Christians – “Christmas and Easter” worshippers - at the local Wesleyan Methodist church in town. I was so excited about church in those days because I loved the Easter lilies that would adorn the holy sanctuary and the heavenly music that would waft its way through the morning air and strum our heartstrings as we made our way to the steps of faith.

One hymn caresses my heart from these formative days and I wonder if you know it? It’s the Laudes Domini translated by Edward Caswell and sung to the music of Joseph Barnby. Let it’s message touch you as it’s music fills you with delight.

When morning guilds the sky, My heart awaking cries
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Alike at work and pray’r, to Jesus I repair
May Jesus Christ be praised!

The night becomes as day when from the heart we say
May Jesus Christ be praised!
The pow’rs of darkness fear, when this sweet chant they hear
May Jesus Christ be praised!

In heav’n’s eternal bliss the loveliest strain in this,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Let earth, and sea, and sky, from depths to heights reply,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

Be this, while life is mine, my canticle divine,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Be this th’eternal song thro’ all the ages long,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

And why, you asked, would a hymn like this be given such high affection in a little boy mind after all these years? The answer is found in the words of two angels to mourning women at an empty tomb: “He isn’t here! He has risen from the dead!” (Luke 24: 6 NLT).

When the Easter sun strolls past the Isle of Newfoundland and chuckles at the darkness resting on the shores of Nova Scotia Province, my heart will be transported back to those days so long ago when wet feet and muddy clothes and singing birds and old hymns brought renewal to my winter spirit and pointed with certainty to the One who overcame sin, hell and the grave so that I could become a son of April. April, to me, is about Easter. And because of Easter I have become a son of the One who died so that I could live and rose again that I, too, will shake off the chains of death and rise victoriously to a place where spring comes every morning and where April will last forever!