The third great symbol of the Easter Vigil is something rather different; it has to do with man himself. It is the singing of the new song ”“the alleluia. When a person experiences great joy, he cannot keep it to himself. He has to express it, to pass it on. But what happens when a person is touched by the light of the resurrection, and thus comes into contact with Life itself, with Truth and Love? He cannot merely speak about it. Speech is no longer adequate. He has to sing. The first reference to singing in the Bible comes after the crossing of the Red Sea. Israel has risen out of slavery. It has climbed up from the threatening depths of the sea. It is as it were reborn. It lives and it is free. The Bible describes the people’s reaction to this great event of salvation with the verse: “The people ”¦ believed in the Lord and in Moses his servant” (Ex 14:31). Then comes the second reaction which, with a kind of inner necessity, follows from the first one: “Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord ”¦” At the Easter Vigil, year after year, we Christians intone this song after the third reading, we sing it as our song, because we too, through God’s power, have been drawn forth from the water and liberated for true life.
There is a surprising parallel to the story of Moses’ song after Israel’s liberation from Egypt upon emerging from the Red Sea, namely in the Book of Revelation of Saint John. Before the beginning of the seven last plagues imposed upon the earth, the seer has a vision of something “like a sea of glass mingled with fire; and those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb ”¦” (Rev 15:2f.). This image describes the situation of the disciples of Jesus Christ in every age, the situation of the Church in the history of this world. Humanly speaking, it is self-contradictory. On the one hand, the community is located at the Exodus, in the midst of the Red Sea, in a sea which is paradoxically ice and fire at the same time. And must not the Church, so to speak, always walk on the sea, through the fire and the cold? Humanly speaking, she ought to sink. But while she is still walking in the midst of this Red Sea, she sings ”“ she intones the song of praise of the just: the song of Moses and of the Lamb, in which the Old and New Covenants blend into harmony. While, strictly speaking, she ought to be sinking, the Church sings the song of thanksgiving of the saved. She is standing on history’s waters of death and yet she has already risen. Singing, she grasps at the Lord’s hand, which holds her above the waters. And she knows that she is thereby raised outside the force of gravity of death and evil ”“ a force from which otherwise there would be no way of escape ”“ raised and drawn into the new gravitational force of God, of truth and of love. At present she is still between the two gravitational fields. But once Christ is risen, the gravitational pull of love is stronger than that of hatred; the force of gravity of life is stronger than that of death. Perhaps this is actually the situation of the Church in every age? It always seems as if she ought to be sinking, and yet she is always already saved.
I hope everyone has the opportunity to attend an Easter Vigil service with a baptism. The oldest song in the church, the Exsultet is sung soon after the Pascal Candle is lit and the congregation processes into the church. Here is Todd Marchand singing the Exsultet.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6285700810655093191.
Just back from Easter Vigil (RC), with baptisms, reception into the Church, and Confirmations. The liturgy was a disaster: Father was obviously tired and made hash of a couple of things. He sang the first part of the Exsultet, but lapsed into speaking it at the dialogue. He led out the wrong Alleluia on the Gospel verse, which would have been fine, except it didn’t fit the chant tone of the verse. The organist was a substitute who didn’t know what was going on and didn’t seem to care. I chanted the Litany of the Saints, which went fairly well until the last, when the choir forgot to repeat my phrases. The kids were restless to start with, and by 10pm, they were really restless. By 11pm, when the service was over, they were mostly passed out.
All of which is to say, it was a glorious night: God was praised and glorified (indeed! in our weakness), Christ was present to His people, and souls were brought into the kingdom. Will we work toward a better liturgy next year? Sure, although kids will always be kids, and some parents won’t teach them proper manners. By grace are we saved, and not by lovely music and liturgical action (though I do love hearing the Exsultet sung all the way through). The Lord is Risen, and His Spirit draws us together to worship and serve Him. Hence, there are no “bad” liturgies, when the Word of God is preached and the Sacraments administered.
Christ is Risen!