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Easter vigil thoughts
Apr. 19th, 2014 10:48 pmEaster is always my favorite time of the Christian church year. I mean, yeah, not all of it is fun per se -- it's not all about happy happy joy joy. But it's powerful, and personally relevant.
The church I go to is Presbyterian, and for Holy Week we do this: the Sunday before Easter, of course, is Palm Sunday, marking Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. Thursday (Maundy Thursday) remembers the Last Supper (more or less; I generally don't go to that one). Friday (Tenebrae) intersperses scripture readings of the arrest / trial / crucifixion / death sequence, with relevant music offerings, and with each reading the lights get turned out one by one until we end in darkness. Saturday (Easter Vigil) starts in darkness, and recounts some of the pivotal stories of things God has done, including the Genesis creation story and the Exodus story of the parting of the Red Sea, and then the story of the Easter resurrection, at which point the lights come back on and bright banners and flowers get brought in, and it is all cheerful and alleluia-y, and then we do a thing welcoming new members, and it ends all Easterful. And then Sunday of course is Easter.
I am not, generally speaking, comfortable with the angle of Christianity that says that Jesus was somehow cosmically or divinely required to die for our sins or whatever. So the aspects of Holy Week that are, in essence, a celebration of the crucifixion, do not sit easily with me. The Tenebrae service is always borderline for me for that reason; it is powerful, and aesthetically fitting, but focusing on death and torture and despair and betrayal always at best gives me the heebie-jeebies.
But the Easter Vigil service -- in its function as a transition from the darkness of Tenebrae to the brightness of Easter -- is by far the most personally relevant to me. Because for me, the message of Easter is not that Jesus /had/ to die, but that God's love transcends even death. That no matter how dark the metaphorical Fridays get, no matter how bleak and empty, Easter morning still comes.
And also this: remember God's love, and be joyful
...and maybe also that Cadbury creme eggs are amazing, but that's not a church thing.
(My main quibble about the Easter Vigil service as we do it is that the timing is wrong. It feels like it really ought to be early Sunday morning, timed such that it starts in darkness and then the transition happens as the sun rises. Mind you, nobody would come, even me, because that is a very awkward time to do things, and we are after all Presbyterians; but every year it feels odd to me. Especially this year because it was still light outside when we started.)
The church I go to is Presbyterian, and for Holy Week we do this: the Sunday before Easter, of course, is Palm Sunday, marking Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. Thursday (Maundy Thursday) remembers the Last Supper (more or less; I generally don't go to that one). Friday (Tenebrae) intersperses scripture readings of the arrest / trial / crucifixion / death sequence, with relevant music offerings, and with each reading the lights get turned out one by one until we end in darkness. Saturday (Easter Vigil) starts in darkness, and recounts some of the pivotal stories of things God has done, including the Genesis creation story and the Exodus story of the parting of the Red Sea, and then the story of the Easter resurrection, at which point the lights come back on and bright banners and flowers get brought in, and it is all cheerful and alleluia-y, and then we do a thing welcoming new members, and it ends all Easterful. And then Sunday of course is Easter.
I am not, generally speaking, comfortable with the angle of Christianity that says that Jesus was somehow cosmically or divinely required to die for our sins or whatever. So the aspects of Holy Week that are, in essence, a celebration of the crucifixion, do not sit easily with me. The Tenebrae service is always borderline for me for that reason; it is powerful, and aesthetically fitting, but focusing on death and torture and despair and betrayal always at best gives me the heebie-jeebies.
But the Easter Vigil service -- in its function as a transition from the darkness of Tenebrae to the brightness of Easter -- is by far the most personally relevant to me. Because for me, the message of Easter is not that Jesus /had/ to die, but that God's love transcends even death. That no matter how dark the metaphorical Fridays get, no matter how bleak and empty, Easter morning still comes.
And also this: remember God's love, and be joyful
...and maybe also that Cadbury creme eggs are amazing, but that's not a church thing.
(My main quibble about the Easter Vigil service as we do it is that the timing is wrong. It feels like it really ought to be early Sunday morning, timed such that it starts in darkness and then the transition happens as the sun rises. Mind you, nobody would come, even me, because that is a very awkward time to do things, and we are after all Presbyterians; but every year it feels odd to me. Especially this year because it was still light outside when we started.)