1. Journeying to Jerusalem
2. A new commandment
3. It is finished
4. Rejoice, heavenly powers!

Journeying to Jerusalem

We’re nearly half-way through Lent now, and this series of four talks is focused on the great week that comes at the end of this season, which we call Holy Week, and we’re going to think specifically about the liturgies we celebrate during that week. ‘Liturgy’ is a word I’m going to use a lot, and as it’s a word that isn’t used outside church perhaps I should start with a definition. It comes from the Greek word leitourgia meaning “public work/duty”, referring to work carried out for the benefit of the community by a usually wealthy individual, either voluntarily or by law. The word is used in the New Testament to refer to the worship of the first Christians, and came to be used by the Church to describe its primary work, the worship of God. We use it specifically to refer to our collective worship above all in the eucharist.

Throughout the churches year, the various texts of the liturgy - such as prayers and readings - reflect the liturgical season, and this is also indicated by the colours of vestments and hangings in the church; but for the most part the basic structure of the liturgy does not change. Holy Week is unique because it is marked by a series of liturgies that contain very distinctive features, and the idea behind these sessions is that by having a better understanding of what we are doing and why, we can enter more deeply into the worship.

The liturgies of Holy Week have their origins in the liturgies celebrated in Jerusalem during the fourth century. The earliest Christians celebrated the passion and resurrection each year at the time of the passover, either the Sunday following, as became the practice throughout the church, or during passover itself. The earliest form of the Easter celebration seems to have been a fast the day before, extending into the night with a vigil of readings and prayers before the eucharist at dawn. Later the fast was extended to two days, taking in the regular Friday fast. By the third century Christians in Syria and Egypt were fasting for the whole week beforehand then this practice became more widespread as the idea of a Holy Week or Great Week (as it is known in the East), with the distinctive liturgies we celebrate today being celebrated in a similar form in Jerusalem at least by the fourth century, as we know from the diaries of a Spanish nun, Egeria, who went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land and took part in those liturgies about 381.

So today we are thinking about Palm Sunday, when we celebrate Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. The next major liturgy is that which is celebrated on the evening of Maundy Thursday, recalling the last supper, followed by the liturgy of the passion on Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil after nightfall on Holy Saturday.

Today’s session is entitled ‘Journeying to Jerusalem’ because I want to try and set the scene for the whole week as well as explain what happens on Palm Sunday. In all four gospel accounts the climax of Jesus’ ministry takes place in Jerusalem, the holy city. Up till this point, Jesus has been carrying out his ministry predominantly in Galilee, but Jerusalem, during the Passover, was the most fitting place for the completion of the work for which he had been sent. Pilgrims from far and wide flocked to the city for the greatest festival of the Jewish liturgical year, commemorating the liberation of God’s chosen people from slavery in Egypt.

During Lent we are also been journeying metaphorically to Jerusalem, sharing not only in Jesus’ time of preparation in the wilderness, but also looking forward to the great climax of his ministry in Jerusalem. We begin Palm Sunday by celebrating Jesus’ entry into the great city, and this Sunday also marks our ‘entry’ into this week of high drama.

To help us get a sense of the drama and excitement and also the significance of Jesus’ entry into the city, lets watch a clip from the BBC’s production The Passion shown last year.

[Dialogue with disciples - Arrival of Pilate - High Priest - Jesus’ entry]

When we read the gospels, we may have an image in our mind of a rather stately procession through wide streets lined with crowds waving their branches, rather like the flag-waving crowds that might line the streets as a royal procession makes its way past. I suspect the BBC version is closer to how it was.

News about this preacher from Galilee may have got around, but it wasn’t like a celebrity being mobbed by his fans when he makes an appearance. Jesus chose this means of entry into Jerusalem quite deliberately because it was highly significant. Coming from the Mount of Olives Jesus would have entered by the East Gate - significant because several texts refer to the Lord coming from the east. Jesus’ mode of transport clearly fulfils the prophecy of Zechariah (9.9) “Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass”.

Jesus is therefore making a deliberate statement, identifying himself as the one fulfilling this and other prophecies: the Messiah. The significance of this would not have been lost on the Temple authorities when they heard about it. Jesus enters as a king, but one, as he will explain to Pilate, whose kingship is not of this world. He rides on a humble beast of burden, and the BBC adaptation cleverly contrasts this with Pilate’s arrival in the comfort of a carriage flanked by soldiers.

Our Palm Sunday liturgy begins with a kind of re-enactment of this event. I say ‘kind of’ because its important to distinguish what we do in the liturgy from, say, a re-enactment of a historic battle, when all the participants get dressed up, or a play or film, when great attention is paid to getting the details right, and we are just onlookers.

In the Holy Week liturgies we recreate elements of what happened during that first Holy Week, not just to retell the story, but to make it real for us her and now, so that we can be drawn in.

So we begin in another location, the Chapel Ruins. Everyone is given a symbolic palm leaf, often folded into the shape of a cross, and these palms are blessed first of all by the priest with holy water. Things are blessed as a way of setting them apart, as something holy, and with these palms, not only are they to be used in our worship, they will also be taken home, and placed somewhere where they can be a reminder to us of what Jesus did for us.

After the palms are blessed we hear the gospel account of Our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem. Then we all go on a journey. The destination, our Church, represents the temple in Jerusalem, the place where we meet with God. We all carry our palms and sing God’s praise as we go to meet Jesus in the sacrament of the mass. The mood is joyful and exuberant. But when we reach our destination, there is a shift - and this changing of moods is a distinctive feature of all the Holy Week liturgies.

In church, the old and new testament readings follow as normal. But then we have the other element that is special to Palm Sunday, the reading of the Passion.

The word ‘Passion’ comes from the Latin passus, to suffer, and refers of course to the suffering of Jesus and also to the gospel accounts of that suffering. So we talk about St Matthew’s Passion, famously set to music by Bach, as well as Mel Gibsons The Passion of the Christ and the BBC’s The Passion.

Palm Sunday is also known as Passion Sunday, or sometimes by a longer name ‘Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion’ - because, as I hinted at earlier, we are not just commemorating the entry into Jerusalem, but also the start of this great week of tumultuous events leading up to Our Lord’s suffering and death. This is hinted at by the use of red, the colour of blood, as the liturgical colour for Palm Sunday, rather than the purple we have been accustomed to during Lent.

The Passion narrative is read to remind us what this week is all about. It is a long reading - much longer than the gospel at mass normally is - and it is sometimes read by more than one voice. Sometimes the congregation takes the part of the crowd, and so we find ourselves shouting ‘crucify him’ - a powerful reminder of the fact that it was for our sins that he died on the cross. We are in the same position of many of those in Jerusalem, who perhaps came along to see what the fuss was about when this preacher from Galilee arrived and joined in with the shouts of ‘Hosanna to the King of David’, then a few days later went along to Pilate’s house and joined with the others shouting for him to be crucified.

This great week is traditionally marked by fasting and prayer. In the early part of the week the gospel readings at mass recall events such as the clearing of the temple, the plotting of the authorities and the betrayal by Jesus. Then on Thursday we step up a gear, with the last supper and the arrest of Jesus. That is where we pick things up next week.

A new commandment

When we reach Thursday evening our observance of Holy Week moves into a new phase. That afternoon, we enter into the last 24 hours of Our Lord’s life. Liturgically, the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Thursday evening begins the Easter Triduum - which means ‘three days’.

If you recall last week I said that for the earliest Christians the Easter celebration begin with a fast on Holy Saturday and an all-night vigil of readings leading up to the eucharist at dawn. The fast was subsequently extended backwards to take in Friday. With the liturgical day, following Jewish practice, beginning at nightfall the previous day, we have a three-day period starting on Thursday evening in which the whole paschal mystery is celebrated. ‘Paschal’ is an important word for us to be familiar with: it comes from the latinisation of the Hebrew word for Passover, pesach, and is used in the Christian church to refer to the Easter celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus, which is our Passover, our liberation from slavery to death.

The Passover provides an important background to all our holy week liturgies, not least the Maundy Thursday liturgy, when we commemorate the last supper.

However it is not enough to say that the last supper was the Passover meal, and leave it at that. Although the Passover meal, or seder, is the focus of modern Jewish celebrations of the Passover, in Jesus’ time the focus was the sacrifice. Every family, or group of small families, was required to offer a lamb for sacrifice in the temple, which would then be consumed during the seder that evening.

It is not clear from the gospels whether the last supper was a Passover seder or simply a meal shared by Jesus and his friends before the Passover. In Matthew, Mark and Luke it does appear to be the seder - Jesus is asked by his disciples ‘where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?’. But in John’s gospel we are told that when Jesus was crucified it was the day of preparation for the Passover - in other words Jesus, who is identified early on in John’s gospel as the lamb of God, was crucified at about the time the lambs where being slaughtered in the temple.

Maundy Thursday is therefore not so much about the Passover meal, but about the institution of the Passover sacrifice, of Jesus on the cross of calvary.

We should really think of the Easter Triduum as a celebration of the great Paschal mystery which begins in the upper room and ends at the empty tomb, and not think of it as three services marking three distinct events. At its centre is the sacrifice of the cross. We think about the institution of the sacrifice on Thursday, the offering of the sacrifice on Friday, and the consummation of the sacrifice on Saturday night. The three liturgies really form one whole. It is noticeable that there the liturgies for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday lack the blessing and dismissal that we normally have at the end mass, and Good Friday and the Easter Vigil lack the greeting we normally have at the beginning of mass.

Having set Maundy Thursday in its proper context as the beginning of the great drama, lets think about what takes place during this, the first of the Triduum liturgies. First, lets consider the name itself. We call the Thursday of Holy Week ‘Maundy Thursday’. This is an Anglicisation of the Latin word mandatum, commandment, which refers to the new commandment Our Lord gives the disciples in John’s account of the last supper: Love one another as I have loved you.

This theme of love links together the various other themes in the liturgy but it is given a particular expression in the washing of feet. It is also customary on Maundy Thursday to receive an offering of gifts for the poor, another expression of this commandment. The custom of the Queen giving Maundy money at a service in a cathedral is of course related to this, though we no longer have the monarch washing the feet of his or her subjects as happened at one time.

The evening liturgy on Maundy Thursday is properly called the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, because it is of course that last supper with his disciples in the upper room which we recall and enter into during this liturgy.

During that supper, Jesus washed his disciples feet; something highly unusual that took the disciples, especially Peter, by surprise. He then went on to give them the new commandment and to teach them at some length according to John’s account. Later on during the meal Jesus did something else that was even more surprising. HE took some bread, said a prayer - nothing unusual so far - but hten he told his disciples ;This is my body’. Then he broke the bread and gave it to them. At the end of the meal he gave a cup of wine to his disciples saying ‘This is my blood’.

In these words Jesus was giving himself to the disciples in a mysterious way - for flesh and blood is what we are made of. The breaking of bread and poruing of wine are a powerful sign of Jesus body broken and his blood outpoured on the cross. Jessu is giving his disciples the key to understand that what is going to happen the next day is also an act of self-giving. And this is what I meant when I spoke earlier of Jesus instituting the sacrifice of Good Friday on Maundy Thursday. More than just telling the disciples about it, he has begun the sacrifice by giving himself to them in a real and profound way in the form of bread and wine. As well as insituting the paschal sacrifice of the cross, Jesus also institutes the memorial of this sacrifice in the eucharist.

Recall last supper every eucharist. Jesus words and actions repeated. But the eucharist is not simply a memorial of that supper. Jesus said ‘do this in remembrance of me’, not ‘do this in remembrance of what happened here this evening’. Jesus institutes the sacrifice which is offered on Good Friday and consummated in his resurrection, and it is the whole Paschal sacrifice which we make memorial of whenever we celebrate the eucharist. In what sense it is a memorial of that sacrifice is hotly debated. It could be interpreted as the retelling of a narrative, with some actions to make it clearer. However the Greek word anamnesis which is translated as memorial carries a rather stronger sense of making present. Each and every eucharist is a sacrifice - not a new sacrifice, but rather the one perfect sacrifice of Calvary made present in a new moment for us to participate in and receive the benefits of. So the eucharist is not merely a re-enactment of the last supper, and nor was the last supper strictly speaking the first eucharist - arguably that took place at Emmaus when the risen Lord made himself known in the breaking of bread to the two disciples.

If at the last supper Jesus institutes the eucharist as the memorial - anamnesis - of the Paschal sacrifice, he also institutes the priesthood that will celebrate it. The law required a sacrifice to be offered by a priest appointed by God. Since the sacrifices of the old law were really a prophetic type of the sacrifice of the cross, so the old covenant priesthood is also a type of the priesthood of the new covenant. In the new covenant there is only one priest - Christ himself - who offers himself as the once-and-for-all sacrifice that seals that covenant. But in instructing his chosen apostles to ‘do this in remembrance of me’ he is giving them a share in the task of offering the re-presentation of that sacrifice in the eucharist. And so he has given those who will offer the bread and wine and speak his words a particular sharing in his priesthood.

Because of this connection between priesthood and the last supper, there is traditionally another celebration proper to Maundy Thursday, though it is often celebrated earlier in the week: namely the Chrism Mass. The Chrism Mass is a celebration for the whole diocese, in which the Bishop gathers his priests around him to celebrate the eucharist, consecrate the holy oils and renew their commitment to priestly service. The concelebration is a powerful expression of the priests relationship to the bishop who is the successor of the apostles in the upper room, to whom the eucharist was entrusted. Whenever a priest celebrates the eucharist, he is actually celebrating it on behalf of the bishop.

The oils consecrated at the Chrism Mass are presented at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. This may appear at first as an intrusion in an already crowded liturgy but it is really another reminder of the theme of priesthood, because these oils are really the tools of the priests trade, used in their sacramental ministry.

I’ve darted around a bit to try and set out the key themes of love - our love for each other, in imitation of the love of the Servant King who knelt to wash his disciples feet then offered himself on the cross out of love for us - and also the eucharist and the priesthood instituted by Christ on that night.

It’s time now to actually look at the liturgy as it will be celebrated here, as when we get to the end we will see that there is one other important theme, that of betrayal.

We begin the Mass of the Lord’s Supper with a hymn - hardly remarkable except you may notice that it is a hymn which refers to the passion rather than the last supper, for reasons which by now should be clear. However the liturgical colour for this celebration is white - Christ’s blood has not yet been spilt and while the bridegroom is still with us we rejoice, giving thanks for the wonderful gift Christ has given to his church by instituting the eucharist as a means of making himself present to us.

We have the presentation of the oils which I mentioned. Then we sing the Gloria - something we have not done since the beginning of Lent, except on the few great feasts that occurred during the season. As with the white vestments we are not pre-empting the celebration of Easter, but recognising the significance of what happens this evening. Bells are rung at the start of the Gloria to heighten the celebration then they remain silent until the Gloria at the Easter Vigil - a reminder that the cross still stands before us.

The liturgy of the word takes place as usual, then after the sermon the washing of feet takes place. The celebrant, who shares Christ’s priesthood, does as Christ did at the last supper and washes the feet of twelve members of the congregation.

We move on to the liturgy of the sacrament which is the same as at every eucharist but carries a special poignancy on this occasion.

After communion we recall what happened at the end of the last supper. Singing hymns, the disciples made there way to the Mount of Olives. And so, liturgically, do we. We process to the Garden of Gethsemane - actually, the Lady Chapel, where the altar will be decorated with flowers. Jesus - present in the sacrament - goes with us on this journey, and like the disciples we watch and pray with him. Hopefully those who watch through the night in shifts will not fall asleep, but if they do they will be in good company. The sacrament which is carried to the Lady Chapel altar, which has become what is called the ‘Altar of Repose’ - will remain there until the liturgy of Good Friday, when it will be given to the faithful. During the Triduum the Blessed Sacrament is not reserved in the usual place in the Lady Chapel, and after the Good Friday liturgy the sacrament will not be reserved in church at all, though some is reserved in a secret place so that communion may be taken to the sick and dying in an emergency.

There is one final reminder of the desolation that is about to take place: whilst we pray in the Garden of Gethsemane the servers will be quietly getting on with the task of stripping the altars - removing candles, clothes and everything from the sanctuary that can be removed. When we return on Good Friday the church is as bare as it can be. The holy water stoups will also have been emptied, to underline the link between baptism and the Easter vigil.During the stripping of the altars Psalm 22, with its many prophetic references to the passion, is sung by a member of the choir. The people may stay awhile in prayer or leave in silence, perhaps to return later, as the ‘watch of the passsion’ continues until midnight.

Last week I spoke of the emotional changes we experience during the Holy Week liturgies and this is surely the most profound. We began with a joyful celebration - white vestments, Gloria, bells - and now that joy has given way to uncertainty, fear and trembling. We know what comes next - Jesus is betrayed by Judas and arrested, taken to the High Priest’s house to be tried by the Jewish authorities before being handed over to the Roman authorities in the morning. The disciples didn’t know what was about to unfold, but they were afraid, and most of them fled. And so a dark night has begun that will not end until Saturday night.

It is finished

Maundy Thursday’s liturgy of the Lord’s Supper began in the upper room and ended in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus had given the disciples both a commandment and an example of love, then he gave himself to them in the bread and wine broken and outpoured, beginning in a very real way the sacrifice which he knew was about to be offered, and giving his disciples a means of recalling and representing that sacrifice until his return in glory. Then in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus entered into a spiritual battle, knowing that his ‘hour’ had finally come. Having been betrayed by one of his inner circle, Jesus is arrested by the temple police and without resisting, accepting that his Father’s will must be done, he is taken first to the high priests house then to the praetorium, the official residence of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. The final episode in Jesus life has begun, and the disciples have abandoned him.

The mood at the end of Maundy Thursday is a sombre one, which only intensifies as we reach Good Friday. It is a day set apart to honour the one who suffered the most appalling agony for us. It is a day of paradoxes: our sorrow at the death of Christ is reflected in the liturgy, but we do not mourn in the conventional sense as we know that he is risen. This is the bleakest of all days, and yet we call it ‘Good’, because we know that Christ’s suffering brought about our salvation. Death itself is put to death on this day.

Before I explore a bit of the theology of the Cross, I want to comment briefly on two things we do on Good Friday before the main liturgy in the afternoon.

First we have the Stations of the Cross. Stations of the Cross is a devotion which evolved in the middle ages as a way of enabling those who couldn’t make the pilgrimage to the holy land to participate in the way of the cross, in which pilgrims retraced Jesus’ last journey to Calvary. A common series of 14 stations emerged, each reflecting on an episode on this journey, some scriptural, some based on other traditions. Images for the 14 stations are often permanently erected in churches so that we physically go on a journey round the church in this service. We have been doing this throughout Lent, and on Good Friday this service is aimed especially at children.

After that there is the ecumenical Walk of Witness, something which takes place in many towns nowadays, both to celebrate Good Friday with other Christians and to bear witness to all that the cross means to us by processing through the town carrying a large wooden cross.

Both of these take place in the morning, but the real focus is on the afternoon. The gospels tell us that Jesus hung on the cross from about the third hour, 9am, to the ninth hour, 3pm, and that there was darkness over the whole land from midday. So we come to the ninth hour.

I’ve entitled this session ‘It is finished’ - but what is finished at the point when Jesus dies on the cross? His life has come to an end, and his suffering is over - at least in the physical sense; but these words indicate something greater than that. There is a sense of accomplishment, triumph even. On the cross Jesus finally accomplishes the work for which he was sent: the redemption of mankind.

The cross is God’s supreme revelation of God’s love for us. But if that is all it is, then that suggests that the only way we can be saved is to work hard at copying Christ’s example. Then we can hardly talk of being saved by the cross. The Cross is also part of God’s answer to human suffering: on the cross God comes alongside us and shares our suffering as man in the person of Jesus Christ. It is true compassion - suffering with. If God remained aloof from human suffering, then something would be missing. However this too is only part of the answer. Our hope comes not from Christ’s suffering but from suffering transformed into new life.

The Cross must achieve something concrete - but attempts to explain how it works all fall short in some way. The Cross is a mystery, in the proper sense of the word. On Good Friday we stand before the Cross in awe, love and gratitude, and sorrow for our part Christ’s death, as sinners. Nevertheless acknowledging a divine mystery is not an excuse for not trying to gain a deeper understanding, so before we turn to the liturgy, I want to explore some of the main themes.

The purpose of Christ’s mission is to reconcile humanity to God, and so it must in some way address humanity’s turning away from God: namely sin. We talk of Christ being punished for our sins - death is the just punishment and Christ has died instead of us. But it is hard to see this as ‘just’ and it is easy to have a distorted picture of the Trinity - the Father demands blood, and is only satisfied with the death of his Son. In truth, the Trinity acts together in the redemption of mankind as in all things. The Father and the Son are not in opposition. On the other hand it does seem significant that Christ dies as an innocent but condemned man. If we keep in mind that the cross involves the whole Trinity acting in perfect unity we can see God’s justice and mercy in a new light. God needs to take sin seriously, otherwise we can never become the people God wants us to be. Cross demonstrates just how seriously God takes sin, as well as how far he is prepared to god in order to save us.

Then there is the language of ransom or redemption - a slightly different notion from punishment. For some, this has raised the question of who this ransom is paid to, and there have been various answers to this over the centuries, typically involving the devil in some way, but these tend to raise more questions than they answer and viewing it as a transaction in this way does seem to miss the real point of this image, that of the freedom from slavery to sin and death won for us on the cross.

I have used the language of sacrifice a lot - and this is a very important way of understanding the cross. It is the sacrifice that seals the new covenant, pointed to by the sacrifices which sealed the old covenanting. What is less helpful is thinking in terms of a sin offering which appeases an angry God. Once again we must remember that it is God who provides the sacrifice as well as receives it.

Another way of thinking about the cross is that Christ is the new Adam, whose obedience to the point of death, even death on a cross, restores what was lost by the first Adam’s disobedience. Again we should avoid a one-sided view of the Father making unreasonable demands of the Son, heaping the burden of human sin upon him: rather we should think of Christ freely accepting the burden, transforming (to paraphrase Von Balthasar) humanity’s response to God from a ‘No’ into a ‘Yes’.

None of these images stand alone. Together they illuminate different aspects of what Christ has done for us and they correct some of the misunderstandings each image might lead to. The key to all this is I think the key Jesus gave his disciples at the last suffer. God gives himself to us, to do what we cannot do by ourselves, namely to restore our relationship with him. Only God-as-man, Jesus Christ, could bridge the chasm which had opened up between us.

So, that’s the theology, perhaps the heaviest bit of theology in these four sessions. I hope it helps to have some sense of what is going on and how great theologians have approached it, but we don’t need to be theologians to appreciate what Christ did for us: we only need to look at the cross. That is, essentially, Good Friday is about. Knowing that Christ is risen, we could easily decide to skip straight to Easter and not dwell too much on the cross. In many Christian traditions the empty cross is preferred to the crucifix because the resurrection is the good news which we proclaim. But I think it is wrong to skip straight to Easter (and I’m not trying to suggest other churches do). After all, St Paul wrote ‘we preach Christ crucified’. We should spend a day in sorrow: not sorrow because Christ is dead - we know he is alive - but sorrow for our sin. Again we know we are forgiven - but true and sincere repentance comes first, and only by understanding the great cost of that forgiveness can we begin to love God as we should.

We are an Easter people, we know Christ is risen - and we call this day ‘Good Friday’ - but it is still a day of darkness and desolation, which is reflected in the starkness of the liturgy, as we acknowledge the historical reality and the awfulness of the crucifixion.

The church is as bare as it can be when we arrive: images removed or veiled, no clothes on the altar, no candles anywhere.

This liturgy follows its own distinctive pattern and consists of three main parts: the liturgy of the word, the veneration of the cross, and communion.

The clergy and servers enter in silence and all kneel while the clergy prostrate themselves, and all spend a period of time in silent prayer and reflection on all that has occurred up to this point. There is no greeting or penitential rite, for we are continuing the celebration which began last night and the whole liturgy is penitential. So we begin with the opening prayer, then the readings: the ‘suffering servant’ passage from Isaiah, and a passage from the letter to the Hebrews, with a psalm in between as usual. Then, like on Palm Sunday, we have the full reading of the passion from John’s gospel, read by several people taking on different parts. We recall and reflect on the whole story, from start to finish, and we kneel at the moment of Our Lord’s death. After the sermon, we have the general intercessions - ‘general’ because they follow a particular pattern used throughout the church, praying for the whole world, because it was for the whole world that Christ died. We pray for the church, for the unity of Christians, for the Jewish people, for those who reject Christ and those who do not believe in God, for those in authority, and for those in special need. Each time we have a bidding, a time of silence, and then a prayer.

This concludes the liturgy of the word. Then we move onto the next part of the liturgy, the veneration of the cross.

A cross is brought in procession from the back of the church, accompanied by lights (up until know there have been no candles at all). The cross is gradually unveiled and lifted high with the proclamation “This is the wood of the cross” to which we reply, kneeling “come let us worship”. This happens three times, then the cross is held by servers of the priest for all to venerate it. This is our opportunity to show our gratitude individually. Traditionally we come up one by one, genuflect then kiss the cross or the feet of Christ, or we may touch the cross, or simply stand in front of it and bow. Whilst this is going on, a number of things are sung, honouring the crucified Christ and the cross on which he hung, then the reproaches, a particularly moving series of questions from God to us asking what he has done to offend us, that we have turned against him.

At the end of the veneration, the cross is carried up to the high altar and place there with candles burning beside it.

We now move onto the third part of the service, holy communion distributed from the sacrament consecrated at the mass of the Lord’s Supper and reserved on the Altar of Repose.

Sacraments are not celebrated on Good Friday or Holy Saturday except for those administered to the sick and dying, because these are days of darkness and desolation. Christ is in heaven, but we recall that for two days he lay in the darkness of the earth, really and truly dead. Nevertheless, it is our sharing in communion which makes us one body, and by receiving the bread consecrated on Maundy Thursday - only the bread is reserved, but Christ is fully present, body and blood, in that consecrated bread - the connection between the gift of himself in the bread and wine, and the gift of himself on the cross, is underlined.

And so the bare altar is covered with a linen cloth, and the blessed sacrament is brought from the altar of repose, accompanied by candles which are placed beside the altar. After saying the Lord’s Prayer, we receive communion.

Then the liturgy ends, very simply, with a prayer over the people. The clergy and servers leave the sanctuary without a formal procession, and all depart in silence.

Rejoice, heavenly powers!

The third part of our Easter Triduum is the most ancient part: I have already mentioned the all-night vigil of readings, culminating in a mass at dawn, which was the pattern of the earliest Easter celebrations. Since earliest times a celebration of baptism would also have been a feature of the Easter vigil.

Like Good Friday and Maundy Thursday we a celebrating an event that really happened in human history. But the resurrection was a hidden event. We cannot re-enact it, in the way that we re-enact the washing of feet or the sharing of bread and wine at the last supper, and we cannot tell the story of the event itself or venerate an image of it as we can with the crucifixion. The events which we celebrate on those days - an act of service, a meal, and a death - are essentially human events, albeit given a new significance as the means of God’s grace and reconciling work in Christ. They are events which can be described, depicted and re-enacted. The resurrection is different. It is truly a unique event with no parallel. Only God can raise up the dead. We can only depict or describe the aftermath of the resurrection: the empty tomb, the folded grave clothes, the appearances of the risen Christ. On Easter Day and in the days following we hear the gospel accounts of the discovery of the empty tomb and Christ appearing to his disciples. In many churches there will be an Easter garden with a representation of the empty tomb. But neither the empty tomb nor pictures or statues of the risen Christ have quite the same symbolic impact as the cross, with or without the crucified Christ on it: because that is an unambiguous depiction of the saving work of Christ, whilst the other images can only hint at what happened.

The Easter Vigil itself takes a different approach, by using other symbols which point to the completion of the paschal mystery, rather than simply describing an event which is indescribable, and by placing the resurrection in context as the culmination of God’s saving work. The gospel reading telling of the discovery of the empty tomb, is the climax of a much longer story: the story of God’s saving plan for his people, unfolded from the first moment of creation. We are reminded that the Son of God existed even before that moment – there never was a time when he was not – and that Christ’s resurrection from the dead is a unique event in the history of creation no less significant than the act of creation itself. Through the resurrection of one man - not a temporary resuscitation as in the case of Lazarus or other miraculous resurrections but a resurrection to a new life no longer constrained by death - the very nature of death is changed from being the end of life to being the doorway to eternal life.

There is another theme that runs through the whole liturgy, alongside that of creation: the exodus of God’s chosen people from captivity in Egypt. Of all God’s dealings with his chosen people, this event is the most significant, both for the Jewish people’s self-understanding, and for a Christian understanding of the way God’s plan of salvation unfolded in such a way as to point to its fulfilment in Christ. The story of the passage through the Red Sea, the point at which the Israelites are truly able to escape the Egyptians and the power of God’s hand is shown to all, is always included among the readings at the vigil.

The Easter Vigil takes its name from that ancient all-night vigil of readings, now reduced in length somewhat, though still one of the longest liturgies of the church’s year, because this story cannot be rushed. However the vigil of readings is only one part of the liturgy.

We begin with another very ancient rite which has acquired a new meaning by its association with the Easter Vigil - the service of light or lucinarium. The lucinarium was a ceremony observed in Christian homes as darkness fell and lamps were lit, giving thanks to God for the gift of light. This practice has both Jewish and pagan roots, and by the fourth century it was incorporated into the daily prayer of the church each evening, a practice retained in the Eastern churches until the present day, though it fell out of use in the West except at the Easter Vigil.

The appropriateness of a light as a symbol of the resurrection is clear: Christ is the light which could not be overcome by the darkness of death. With this added significance, the lucinarium developed to heighten the sense of celebrating a unique event.

The position of the service of light in the Easter liturgy has varied. In the East it later moved from the beginning of the vigil to become the climax. The logic is clear: the story of salvation leads up to the resurrection, symbolised by the lighting of the candle. However the Western Church retained its more ancient position at the beginning, and this seems to allow for a much deeper symbolism: the scriptures are read in the light of Christ who existed before creation. The scriptures are not rejected as belonging to darkness, rather they reveal God’s work in creation and point towards the light that was to come into the world, hints of which can be seen in the various encounters between God and his people, and his word spoken through the prophets. The Church of England allows both orders, and it has been done both ways at St Thomas’, but this year we shall once again follow the Western, and more ancient practice.

So we begin outside, ideally after nightfall though it doesn’t always work. A fire has been prepared and lit before hand. The fire signifies God’s power at work both in creation and in the resurrection. And as the prayer used to bless the new fire suggests, it also signifies the Christian heart burning with love for God, and purified of all that is sinful. The fire scatters the darkness of the night, and so also reminds us of the light of Christ, though the primary symbol of the risen Christ is not the fire, but the Paschal candle that will be lit from it.

Once the fire has been blessed, the candle is prepared. The paschal candle is new each year because what we commemorate was a new event in human history. It is a large candle, to serve as a substantial and powerful sign of the risen Christ. Before it is lit, a number of things are inscribed on it as the celebrant recites a prayer. The cross, to remind us of Christ crucified; an alpha and an omega to remind us of the one who is the beginning and the end of all things, and finally the year, to remind us that “all times belongs to him” and that the significance of that one event reaches through all human history, as a once-for-all event. Next, five brass studs containing grains of incense are inserted into the candle, signifying the wounds of Christ - his pierced hands and feet and side - for the risen Christ bears the marks of his passion. The candle is lit, and the procession into the dark church begins.

During the procession the celebrant or deacon carrying the cross proclaims three times “The light of Christ”, mirroring the proclamation of the cross in the good Friday liturgy. Although we cannot, as I mentioned, have a direct image of the resurrection, the paschal candle shining in the darkness is the most powerful symbol of that event, and is the focal point for this liturgy in the same way that the cross was the focal point of the Good Friday liturgy. Light from this candle spreads throughout the church, as the candles carried by the people are also lit, as a sign that the light of the risen Christ is shared with all God’s people.

The candle is placed in its holder and honoured with incense. Then the deacon or priest begins the great Easter proclamation, the Exsultet, whose opening provides the title for this talk. It begins by calling all of creation, in heaven and on the earth, to rejoice in Christ’s resurrection. After this opening we have the same three response that occur at the beginning of the Eucharistic prayer. In a similar way to the Eucharistic prayer, this hymn praises God for his mighty acts, but the focus is on this one great act. Links between the Passover/Exodus and the resurrection are drawn out. This night itself is praised because of the event which hallowed it. The candle itself is praised as the pillar of fire in another reference to the Exodus, and finally Christ is praised as the Morning Star which never sets.

Following the Exsultet we begin the vigil of readings, which I have already spoken about. Anywhere between 3 and 7 readings from the Old Testament are used, with a psalm or canticle following each one then a prayer.

The vigil of old testament readings completed, we move into the liturgy of the word which takes the same form it usually does at mass. We sing the Gloria and during the Gloria bells are rung for the first time since Maundy Thursday, to signify that our joy is now complete. Also during the Gloria, the candles on the altar are lit, and other lights are turned on. The collect, new testament reading and gospel follow. But before the gospel there is another first: the first alleluias since the beginning of Lent. This word comes from the Hebrew ‘praise God’, and it is not used liturgically at all during Lent, unlike the Gloria which is still used on festivals that occur during Lent. This Hebrew word was preserved by the earliest Christians as the greatest expression of praise and thanksgiving. It is particularly associated with Easter - although it is used for most of the year, it appears in additional places in the liturgy and the prayer of the church during the season of Easter, and appears frequently in Easter hymns. Its absence during Lent heightens the sense of joy at Easter, and its first use in the Easter Vigil is one of the many special moments in that liturgy.

Following the liturgy of the word, we have the baptismal liturgy. From early on Easter was the time to be baptism, following a period of preparation in Lent and a number of preparatory ceremonies. Certainly by the fourth century baptisms were a regular feature of the Easter Vigil. Baptism is the sacrament through which we a reborn to new life, sharing in Christ’s death as we go down into the water, so that we may also share in his resurrection. Easter is clearly a fitting time to celebrate this sacrament, but even if no baptisms are to take place, the liturgy still includes a procession to the font to bless the water, and a renewal of baptismal promises. Here again we recall the great event of the Exodus which points to the Christian Passover: led by the pillar of fire, Christ our light, we pass through the waters of baptism to begin a new life free from slavery to sin and death, as we journey onwards to the promised land of heaven. As a reminder of this, the paschal candle is carried in the procession to the font, and it should be plunged into the water, though we can’t do that at St Thomas’ because the font cover is too low. During the procession the litany of saints is sung, invoking the prayers of those who now share Christ’s glory, having carried their crosses faithfully in their earthly lives - and this serves as another reminder that on this holy night we are united to Christians in every place and every generation.

After the baptismal rite, the liturgy of the sacrament proceeds as normal, and we recall the whole saving event and re-present the paschal sacrifice, as we do at every mass.

This first mass of easter, and the whole Easter Triduum liturgy that began on Maundy Thursday, concludes as every mass does with a blessing and dismissal, with a double alleluia appended to the dismissal to mark out once again the queen of festivals.

As Holy Week comes to an end, we begin the greatest of all seasons, the fifty days of Easter. Throughout this season the paschal candle will stand near the sanctuary and will be lit at every mass, before returning to its usual place by the font, to be lit at baptisms and also at funerals.