Easter Vigil

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

Tonight marked my first Easter Vigil service and my first Easter in Davis. From the fire in the front lawn, we began the service by entering into the darkened sanctuary. A solitary candle led the way, from which we lit our own. Then through liturgy, scripture, and hymn, the development of God’s covenant relationship with his people was laid out – from Genesis all the way through Isaiah. The high point of the service was the baptism of baby Eddie, at which point we entered into the resurrection of Christ. The first (official) statement of ‘alleluia’ of the Lenten season was proclaimed, and we rejoiced in the new covenant available through Christ. [And here’s to communal rejoicing over a shared plate of pork dumplings afterward!]

In the course of this service, I was struck by the continuity of the Old Testament covenant relationship with the new covenant. Putting Christ in context has been something of a mission for me since I came here to Davis. The more I’ve found out about what his actions might have meant to his contemporaries, the more challenging and inspiring I have found Christ. So often I think that I get sucked into solely thinking of the ‘cosmic Christ’ with the mental gymnastics that inevitably follow. While I do believe that this aspect of Christ is absolutely amazing in its implications for life, the universe and everything, the person of Jesus and the life that he lived seem to give so much insight into figuring out the walk that I want to follow in the here and now.

I believe that we are called to emulate the example that Christ gave us, as an ideal of how to redeem the surroundings that we find ourselves in as we make our way through this life. Back to the question of context, though, how can we actually get at this issue of understanding Christ? I guess that the main impression that I am left with is a healthy dissatisfaction for my understanding of Christ. I know that I will always be able to seek out new insight into the way we are to walk following him, much as we followed that first candle into the sanctuary this evening.

Bible study at Steve’s this week should be a good time to get into that a bit – I’m hoping that we can start a good conversation about the personhood of Christ (and its implications) as we wind our way through Hebrews.

Happy Easter, all!