[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 49 (Thursday, April 8, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4001-S4002]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE EASTER PROMISE
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the Senate will soon enter a period of
recess prior to the Easter holidays. I am a bit like Samuel Adams, I
believe it was, who said that he could listen to anyone speak of his
religion. I am that way. I can listen to a Methodist, to a Baptist, a
Presbyterian, Seventh-Day Adventist, a Jewish rabbi, a Catholic priest.
I have no problem in listening and paying rapt attention to anyone
speak of his or her religion.
My own religion is the Christian religion. I grew up in a Christian
home. I was raised by an aunt and uncle who took me after my mother
died during the influenza epidemic in 1918. I was a bit less than 1
year old at that time, my mother having died on Armistice Day 1918. I
was brought to West Virginia and grew up in the coal camps of southern
West Virginia.
At this point I should say that the woman who raised me was a very
religious woman. She did not go around wearing religion on her sleeve
or claiming to be better than anybody else; she simply was a kindly
lady who believed in religion, the old-time religion. She practiced it
and many times I used to hear her pray after the old kerosene lamp was
out and the rooms were dark. I heard her praying on her knees. I could
say that my uncle, Titus Dalton Byrd, was also a God-fearing man who
died when he was 82 years of age, a coal miner. He never owed any man a
penny when he passed away from this Earthly life. I never heard him
utter the Lord's name in vain in all the years that I lived with him.
So that is the way it was. They were poor folks.
I recently heard someone say--I believe one of the Democratic
Presidential candidates--that he was the first in his family to attend
college, or some such thing. Well, I am the first in my family to have
gone to second grade in school. About the only books that were in my
home when I grew up as a child were a Montgomery Ward catalog, perhaps
a Sears Roebuck catalog, and the Holy Bible, King James Version. The
man who raised me could read the Bible. I do not know how he learned to
read, but nevertheless there was a Bible in that home, and here is the
Bible on my desk at this moment.
Now, why do I have this Bible here? Well, Easter is coming on and I
am going to read from chapter 20 of the book of Saint John. I will not
make any comment on the Scriptures, except to read very briefly from
them. I do not claim to be a minister. I am not a minister, but I am
fortunate enough to have the gift of being able to read, and as we
approach Easter, I think it appropriate to read into the Record the
following excerpts from the book of Saint John, chapter 20:
The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when
it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone
taken away from the sepulchre.
Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the
other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They
have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know
not where they have laid him.
Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and
came to the sepulchre.
So they ran both together: and the other disciple did
outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.
And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes
lying; yet went he not in.
Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the
sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,
And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the
linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to
the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.
For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise
again from the dead.
Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.
But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she
wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre,
And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head,
and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.
And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith
unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know
not where they have laid him.
And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and
saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest
thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him,
Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast
laid him, and I will take him away.
Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith
unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.
Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet
ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto
them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my
God, and your God.
Easter Sunday, Mr. President, is the holiest day on the Christian
calendar. On that first Easter Sunday, so long ago, a momentous gift
was given to the world. It was a promise of life everlasting, of
immortality.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son,
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.
It is easy to overlook the magnitude of this great but invisible gift
amid all the brightly colored cellophane and foil-covered chocolates,
amid the soft nests of translucent plastic grass nestled around sugary
jelly beans and luminous dyed eggs. The talents of advertising agencies
and merchandisers effect a powerful sleight of hand, drawing our focus
away from the moving story of Easter with the dazzle of sugary
commercial products that have been divorced from their historical and
religious meaning.
It is difficult to ponder the end of life and death while surrounded
by a quickening Earth under a warm Sun. These lovely spring days are
each a small gift, too. In West Virginia, the trees are just in bud,
allowing the warmth of the Sun to reach all the way into the shadiest
hollows. In Washington, the 92nd annual Cherry Blossom Festival is
underway, as the cherry trees along the tidal basin and the Jefferson
Memorial create a lovely vista of blossoms.
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Easter.
[[Page S4002]]
So said Alfred Edward Housman, who was a Shropshire lad.
But the promise of rebirth and gift of new life everlasting are the
great prize, hard won from the tragedy of betrayal and a torturous,
protracted death.
Over the span of a week, from His entry into Jerusalem on Palm
Sunday, and the final miracle of the resurrection and ascension on
Easter Sunday, an epic unfolds. Christ's pain and suffering, so nobly
borne, gave no hint of the miracle to come.
On this Easter Sunday, I offer my hopes to our men and women serving
in Iraq and Afghanistan and all the dangerous places in the world. Our
hearts, our hopes, and our thoughts are with you, and may the Lord
protect you and give you the strength to see you through these
difficult times.
As William Cowper wrote:
It is the Lord who rises with feeling in his wings. When
comforts are declining, he grants the soul again a season of
clear shining to cheer it after rain.
I would like to think as we used to back in my younger days of the
words spoken by William Jennings Bryan. The words that come from his
proof of immortality:
If the Father deigns to touch with divine power the cold
and pulseless heart of the buried acorn and to make it burst
forth from its prison walls, will He leave neglected in the
earth the soul of man, made in the image of his Creator?
If he stoops to give to the rosebush, whose withered
blossoms float upon the autumn breeze, the sweet assurance of
another springtime, will He refuse the words of hope of the
sons of men when the frosts of winter come?
If matter, mute and inanimate, tho' changed by the forces
of nature into a multitude of forms, can never die, will the
imperial spirit of man suffer annihilation when it has paid a
brief visit like a royal guest to this tenement of clay?
No. I am sure that He who, notwithstanding His apparent
prodigality, created nothing without a purpose, and wasted
not a single atom in all His creation, has made provision for
a future life in which man's universal longing for
immortality will find his realization.
I am as sure that we live again as I am sure that we live
today.
I also enjoy reading from William Jennings Bryan's ``The Prince of
Peace,'' reading what he said about the grain of wheat.
He said:
In Cairo I secured a few grains of wheat that had slumbered
for more than thirty centuries in an Egyptian tomb. As I
looked at them, this thought came into my mind: If one of
those grains had been planted on the banks of the Nile the
year after it grew, and all of its lineal descendents had
been planted and replanted from that time until now, its
progeny would today be sufficiently numerous to feed the
teeming millions of the world. An unbroken chain of life
connects the earliest grains of wheat with the grains that we
sew and reap. There is in the grain of wheat an invisible
something which has the power to discard the body that we
see, and from earth and air fashion a new body so much like
the old one that we can not tell the one from the other. If
this invisible germ of life in the grain of wheat can thus
pass unimpaired through three thousand resurrections, I shall
not doubt that my soul has power to clothe itself with a body
suited to its new existence when this earthly frame has
crumbled into dust.
I thought a couple of these reminiscences from William Jennings Bryan
and a few passages of the Scriptures might be appropriate on this April
afternoon as we close.
I finally end with the words of Julian S. Cutler, whose poem,
``Through the Year,'' reminds us the Lord is with us in all the seasons
of the year and in all the seasons of our lives. And at Easter, we
celebrate God's promise that we may be with Him in life everlasting:
God be with you in the Springtime
When the violets unfold,
And the buttercups and cowslips
Fill the fields with yellow gold;
In the time of apple blossoms,
When the happy bluebirds sing,
Filling all the world with gladness--
God be with you in the Spring!
God be with you in the Summer,
When the sweet June roses blow,
When the bobolinks are laughing
And the brooks with music flow;
When the fields are white with daisies
And the days are glad and long--
God be with you in the Summer,
Filling all your world with song.
God be with you in the Autumn,
When the birds and flowers have fled,
And along the woodland pathways
Leaves are falling, gold and red;
When the Summer lies behind you,
In the evening of the year--
God be with you in the Autumn,
Then to fill your heart with cheer.
God be with you in the Winter,
When the snow lied deep and white,
When the sleeping fields are silent
And the stars gleam cold and bright.
When the hand and heart are tired
With life's long and weary quest--
God be with you Erma, in the Winter,
Just to guide you into rest.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
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