“Hear the bells ringing/They’re singing that you can be born again/Hear the bells ringing/They’re singing Christ is risen from the dead.” Those splendid lyrics bounce through my head at least once a year to this day even though it’s been almost 35 years since Keith Green recorded Annie Herring’s words and they began their determined journey into my mind and heart. “The angel up on the tombstone/Said He has risen, just as He said/Quickly now, go tell his disciples/That Jesus Christ is no longer dead.”
Keith’s passion and fire for serving our Lord was extremely influential in my early Christian walk as a tween and teenager, and more times than you might imagine I’ve wondered over the years after his death (in 1982) what he might think of where we’ve come as a culture. Where we’ve come as a church. But it’s not really Keith’s opinion that I’m contemplating. It’s Christ’s. Keith showed His love and channeled His desires so effectively for me that he became something of a symbol, an icon, a spiritual goal of sorts for me. The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” And that’s what happened with Christ, Keith and me.
Now as it’s my turn, with my wife, my daughter, my friends, my colleagues, all I can do is pray at this Easter time that I am imitating Christ well enough that someone might actually be inspired to imitate me. Not for my sake, but for His. “Joy to the world, He has risen/Hallelujah/He’s risen, hallelujah/He’s risen, hallelujah/Hallelujah.”
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