Easter Vigil

Like so much of the Holy Week ceremonies the Vigil is something that
has to be experienced rather than simply described.

I know that most of you who haven't yet made the effort to get up for
the dawn service are a little non plussed by the whole thing. If
anything should encourage you to go it should be the fact that I, who
find mornings so difficult, am enthusiastic about it, there must be
something to it......

To simply describe the vigil fails to capture the experience. You get
up early (or stay up late if ypu have a Holy Saturday evening
celebration) light a fire, sing to a candle, have a long series of
Bible readings and have a Eucharist including the renewal of Baptismal
vows. That prosaic description somehow fails to bring out the way in
which the vigil can have a power to really draw us into the mystery of
the resurrection.

Like the women coming to annoint the body of Jesus we gather before
dawn, only to find that the Lord has risen. The kindling of the new
fire a simple sign of the glory of Christ's victory if death which
takes place in the night and which yet destroys the power of death and
sin and fear (all of which we tend to associate with darkness). The
darkness of the tomb is transformed into the brightness of the
resurrection day. The sun has not yet risen, but the Son has.

From the fire we light the great Easter Candle and are reminded that
this great event of 2,000 years ago is not past, Christ is alive at
the right hand of the Father, and he is with us now as we carry this
candle which, as candles always do for us in Church, is a sign of his
presence to us. And so I sing the great song of Easter Praise, (the
Exultet) not to the Candle, but in praise to Christ, celebrating his
saving work, enabled to proclaim it literally by the light of Christ,
the light from the Easter Candle illuminating the pages of the Exultet.

I always imagine the vigil readings, which help us through a selection
of passages to see the whole of salvation history as leading to the
death and resurrection of Christ, as rather like being able to listen
in on the conversation Jesus had with disciples on the Emmaus road,
when he opened the scriptures for them, helping them to understand the
Passion.

All of this transforms the celebration of the first Eucharist of
Easter, helping us to see more clearly the risen Lord meeting us as he
akways does. As the sun rises we are also reminded of the first
Christians who would gather like this Sunday by Sunday before going
off to work. A reminder to us that they could always find time for
Christ.

If you were able to come I hope you enjoyed it, and if not perhaps
next year you'll be encouraged to try it out.

Special thanks are of course due to everyone who works so hard to
prepare for these celebrations, among them the flower ladies and
sacristans, but especial thanks to Maggie and her team for preparing a
wonderful Easter Breakfast afterwards.