Easter Indeed...

Pastor: Alleluia.  Christ is risen.

People: The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia.

Do you know how sometimes a word, a singular collection of consonants and vowels, gets your attention? Well, yesterday I experienced that with the word indeed.  The logical liturgical response is to repeat what has been spoken: the people should say "The Lord is risen.  Alleluia."  But somebody, Lord knows who, threw the word indeed in there and now the whole thing's got either a slightly So Cal surfer ring to it or a high-collared Elizabethan formality.  Indeed.  

I'm not So Cal or Elizabethan.  I'm just not.  So I looked up synonyms for this Easter-arresting word, maybe something a little closer to home.  I found - absolutely, amen, for real, certainly, naturally, sure thing, and very much.  Yeah, nothing really bringing it for me there either.  Now this is where the blog post goes south, alright? - "south" as in no doubt offensive to some, bewildering to others, and affirming to an ever hovering handful that yes, John's lost all touch with orthodoxy and one of these days may possibly split the pit wide open.

But I'm from the South.  And I thought of Gretchen Wilson's song "Redneck Woman" and her signature indeed-synonym-phrase that invites her sisters to keep it country.  Some of you know where this is going, don'tcha?  Yes, sometimes the Christmas lights stay on the front porch all year long.  I'm sorry...the mind is often a terrible thing to taste, but he was charged to be a glutton and a drunkard and a friend of tax collectors and sinners.  Hang on, here goes -

Pastor: Alleluia.  Christ is risen.

People: The Lord is risen hell yeah.  Alleluia.