Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Alleluia for the start of another theme here at Our Redeemer. We will be saying alleluia or praise God for all the blessings He gives us. We have so many wonderful things to praise God for! This year we will focus on our place as part of God’s creation. He made you and me and everything around us and He continues to sustain all of His creation. So we say Alleluia, praise God.
We praise God for the change of seasons and how He continues to bless us. We now get to prepare for winter and we get to enjoy the changing of leaves in the trees. We get to see all the fruits of the earth, the apples and pumpkins and corn. We get to be in community with one another at football games and cross country meets. We get to celebrate holidays with friends and family. For all these wonderful blessings we say, “Alleluia, Praise God!”
Alleluia literally translates to Praise the Lord. It comes from the Hebrew word Hallelujah. הַ֥לְלוּ יָ֨הּ You can see that in Hebrew Hallelujah is two words. In Hebrew you read right to left so the first word הַ֥לְלוּ or “hālal” means praise. The second word יָ֨הּ or “yāh” is a shortened version of God’s divine name YHWH. So when you put it all together hālal and yāh you get hallelujah. The word alleluia comes from Greek. The Greek language does not have a “H” sound so it got dropped off the the beginning of the word. When we say hallelujah or alleluia we are saying “Praise the Lord”.
So this year we will say, “Alleluia, Praise the Lord” for all He gives us!
Vicar Vought