[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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