easter

We had to be back at the church at 7:30 am to sing for two full services.

To attend Holy Week services is to go on a journey, a much faster and intense journey than, say, the one experienced in the weeks after Pentecost. Ready or not, in darkness, silence, chanting and singing, reflection and prayer, we move through its cycle. The earlier services are often more intimate. One sees familiar faces. Certainly they are somber.

And then it is Easter.

The Great Vigil is a sustained release, a moment of celebrating as early as one can, the Resurrection.

Easter worship is full-throated (we had six brass and horn players) to augment hymns and anthems. There is not a hint of dark about this service. While we have been in the shadows of night and candlelight for three days, we start Easter morning processing with C. Wesley's Jesus Christ is Risen Today. Pews are full and one sees many new people, most I think, families who have come on this day, to be together

If the alleluias were buried in Lent, they are not only sung, but embellished on Easter. This year, we sang Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" after the Eucharist, giving the congregation the sheet music as well. A bit over the top, but that seems appropriate on such a day. Pull out all the stops.

Father Tom told a story of a person who visited Mount St. Helen a few years after the volcano had erupted. On the road up to the top, they were overcome by the devastation and the immense clearing of the landscape. But on the same road down, they noticed what they had not seen driving up the same road -- bursts of life coming up through ash and rubble -- grasses, trees, flowers. A good story for Easter.