Exsultet! Rejoice!

"Rejoice now, heavenly hosts and choirs of angels...Rejoice and sing now, all the round earth...Rejoice and be glad now, Mother Church..." (The Exsultet, The Book of Common Prayer, p. 286)

This evening as we move from darkness into light and begin our Easter celebration, here's a repost from April 13, 2009. Overcoming the strand of dualism in religion is a necessary to step to tapping into the deep compassion for the world that might move us to do the work of healing what has been broken in our relationship to the earth and the atmosphere.

A joyous Easter to all!

The Great Vigil of Easter is celebrated between sunset on Holy Saturday and sunrise on Easter morning. The determination of the time of the service according to the times of sunrise and sunset is significant, as the entire liturgy in its lessons and prayers and use of light, water, oil, bread, and wine points to the integration of spiritual things with the order of nature.

This first service of Easter begins with the lighting of the Paschal candle from the new fire. The deacon carries the Paschal candle into the church, and then sings the Exsultet (beginning on p. 286 of The Book of Common Prayer): “Rejoice now, heavenly hosts and choirs of angels…” As a deacon, I practice the Exsultet throughout Lent, and get very familiar with the words – a necessity when singing an important piece of liturgy by candlelight. The Exsultet is in my head and on my lips as spring begins, the days get longer, and the first tiny green leaves appear on bushes and trees. “Rejoice and sing now, all the round earth, bright with a glorious splendor, for darkness has been vanquished by our eternal King.”

Some of my non-Episcopalian friends, both believers in other traditions and non-believers, comment on the connections to the Earth season as if they suspect that either our joy in the coming of springtime might somehow eclipse or diminish the appreciation of the Resurrection, or that the Gospel story is a sort of culturally approved and maybe even a slightly shady cover for a pagan celebration. What this tells me is that there are lots of people both in the Church and outside of the Church who want to keep the physical and the spiritual well separated: dualism has many devotees in today’s world.

Among the many gifts of the Holy Night proclaimed in the Exsultet is this one: “How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and [we are] reconciled to God.” That image of the realms of earth and heaven being joined together in unity, and the linking of that joining to the restoration of a good and holy relationship between God and humankind get to the depths of the Easter message: in Christ, the chasm has been bridged. All of creation is infused with God’s Holy Spirit; the spiritual and the physical are intertwined. That’s why the things around us can serve as signs of God’s grace; it’s why we believe in the sacraments, and also in sacramental living in a wider sense.

The Exsultet ends with an entreaty for God to accept the offering of the Paschal candle: “May it shine continually to drive away all darkness. May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting, find it ever burning – he who gives his light to all creation, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.”

May we remember throughout the year that Earth and heaven are joined, and that the world around us is God’s good and holy creation.

Rejoice!

The rest of the story...

This evening when the sun sets the waiting of Holy Saturday ends; sometime between sunset tonight and sunrise tomorrow morning most parishes celebrate the Great Vigil of Easter**. We kindle the new fire, hear the Exsultet bid “all the round earth” to rejoice because “darkness has been vanquished by our eternal King,” and then hear the good news: Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Among the many gifts of the Holy Night proclaimed in the Exsultet is this one: “How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and [we are] reconciled to God.” That image of the realms of earth and heaven becoming one, and the linking of that unity to the restoration of a good and holy relationship between God and humankind get to the depths of the Easter message: in Christ, the chasm has been bridged. All of creation is infused with God’s Holy Spirit; the idea of a rigid separation between the spiritual and the physical is shown to be a false dichotomy. That’s why the created world, the world around us is filled with signs of God’s grace ready for the noticing.

Christ’s joining of earth and heaven reminds us of God’s declaration that creation is good. If God had no love for the earth, if the only things that had meaning for God and, by extension, for Christians were “spiritual” things, the damage we have done to the earth would be of practical concern only. Knowing that God loves all of creation and that the Easter story means that heaven and earth are joined gives us cause to rejoice, but also another level of sorrow for the degradation of our planet.

But our grief for what we have done to the earth isn’t the whole story, just as Holy Week wasn’t the whole story. Now we have the message of Easter. This message isn’t that things aren’t really that bad, or that everything is fine now and we needn’t worry about the needs of the world. The message is that God is present with us both in our sorrow and in our joy, and in the end, joy triumphs.

What does it look like for joy to triumph for people living on the earth today? We don’t know, but we do know how faith in the Easter message informs our lives here and now. The message is that even as we work for the future of life as we know it on this planet, we look for joy and allow ourselves to experience joy. The message is that hope is truer than despair.

As we remembered on Maundy Thursday, even in the midst of the events of Holy Week, Jesus gave thanks at the meal; the practice of gratitude, of finding reasons to rejoice, can keep us focused on the whole story. The spring flowers and nesting birds and greening trees give us joy, and it’s good to rejoice in these things. Getting outdoors when the weather warms and planting a garden give us joy, and serves as a sign of hope and faith in the future. Getting away from the lights in town and looking at a clear night sky can give us joy and wonder.

The Exsultet ends with an entreaty for God to accept the offering of the Paschal candle: “May it shine continually to drive away all darkness.” The light of Christ drives away the darkness of despair.

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain, thy touch can call us back to life again; fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been: Love is come again like wheat that springeth green. (The words of John Macleod Campbell Crum, Hymn 204)

Easter joy to you!

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**The words and rubrics for The Great Vigil of Easter are available here at The (Online) Book of Common Prayer.

Easter Joy

Early this morning we had sunshine in central Nebraska. I walked outside as the carillon at a church a few blocks away started playing “Jesus Christ is risen today”; the neighborhood birds provided a background chorus. In the center of our lawn, the sun was shining down on a bunch of daffodils in full bloom. Easter joy!

One of our hymns at St. Stephen’s for both the Great Vigil of Easter and Easter Day was Hymn 178: “Alleluia, alleluia! Give thanks to the risen Lord.” The first verse of this hymn reminds us that while we tend to focus on the Easter message of renewal and salvation for humankind -- looking at what the empty tomb means for us -- the resurrection of Christ is much bigger even than human salvation; our renewal and salvation is connected to the renewal or newness of all creation! And so we sang: “Jesus is Lord of all the earth. He is the King of creation.”

The snow that covered the ground for months this winter in Nebraska has melted away, the grasses and trees and other plants are greening, sprouting, in bud or beginning to bloom. Birds, squirrels, rabbits, and other animals are active. Everything has suddenly come to life! In such a springtime, the proclamation of the renewal of creation resonates with us; it’s easy to feel the interconnection between God and us and the rest of creation. We feel energized by the increased light and warmth in our part of the world and by life and growth of the plants and animals around us.

As a deacon, the words of the Exsultet remain with me in these days following the Great Vigil: “How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and [we are] reconciled to God.” That image of the realms of earth and heaven being joined together in unity, and the linking of that joining to the restoration of a good and holy relationship between God and humankind get to the depths of the Easter message: in Christ, the chasm has been bridged. All of creation is infused with God’s Holy Spirit; the spiritual and the physical are intertwined.

We rejoice in God and in God’s creation, and we have a sense of God’s joy in creation. With Easter joy in our hearts, our work as humans in the care of creation is both an obvious duty and itself the source of profound joy.

The Exsultet ends with an entreaty for God to accept the offering of the Paschal candle: “May it shine continually to drive away all darkness. May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting, find it ever burning – he who gives his light to all creation, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.”

 

[Note: In the Episcopal Church, the Great Vigil is the first service of Easter Day. In our parish, we celebrate it Saturday evening. The Book of Common Prayer says it may be celebrated at any convenient time between sunset on Saturday and sunrise on Easter morning. The words to the Exsultet are found on pp. 286-287 of The Book of Common Prayer.]

Exsultet! Rejoice!

The Great Vigil of Easter is celebrated between sunset on Holy Saturday and sunrise on Easter morning. The determination of the time of the service according to the times of sunrise and sunset is significant, as the entire liturgy in its lessons and prayers and use of light, water, oil, bread, and wine points to the integration of spiritual things with the order of nature.

This first service of Easter Day begins with the lighting of the Paschal candle from the new fire. The deacon carries the Paschal candle into the church, and then sings the Exsultet (beginning on p. 286 of The Book of Common Prayer): “Rejoice now, heavenly hosts and choirs of angels…” As a deacon, I practice the Exsultet throughout Lent, and get very familiar with the words – a necessity when singing an important piece of liturgy by candlelight. The Exsultet is in my head and on my lips as spring begins, the days get longer, and the first tiny green leaves appear on bushes and trees. “Rejoice and sing now, all the round earth, bright with a glorious splendor, for darkness has been vanquished by our eternal King.”

Some of my non-Episcopalian friends, both believers in other traditions and non-believers, comment on the connections to the Earth season as if they suspect that either our joy in the coming of springtime might somehow eclipse or diminish the appreciation of the Resurrection, or that the Gospel story is a sort of culturally approved and maybe even a slightly shady cover for a pagan celebration. What this tells me is that there are lots of people both in the Church and outside of the Church who want to keep the physical and the spiritual well separated: dualism has many devotees in today’s world.


Among the many gifts of the Holy Night proclaimed in the Exsultet is this one: “How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and [we are] reconciled to God.” That image of the realms of earth and heaven being joined together in unity, and the linking of that joining to the restoration of a good and holy relationship between God and humankind get to the depths of the Easter message: in Christ, the chasm has been bridged. All of creation is infused with God’s Holy Spirit; the spiritual and the physical are intertwined. That’s why the things around us can serve as signs of God’s grace; it’s why we believe in the sacraments, and also in sacramental living in a wider sense.

The Exsultet ends with an entreaty for God to accept the offering of the Paschal candle: “May it shine continually to drive away all darkness. May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting, find it ever burning – he who gives his light to all creation, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.”

May we remember throughout the year that Earth and heaven are joined, and that the world around us is God’s good and holy creation.