Paschal Vigil

Risen from the dead, Christ dies no more

 

# The Easter Vigil is the liturgical ceremony that precedes the feast of Easter. It closes the Easter Triduum. It marks the beginning of the Easter season when the fast of Lent and Holy Week is broken. Historically, it is during this service that baptisms are performed and catechumens receive their first communion. The Vigil is held at night, between sunset on Holy Saturday and sunrise on Easter.

In the Western Churches – Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran – the Easter Vigil is one of the most important worship events of the liturgical year. It is at the Easter Vigil that, for the first time since the beginning of Lent, the exclamation of « Alleluia! « which is the hallmark of the Easter season. In the Eastern Churches – Orthodox Churches and Catholic Churches of the Byzantine rite and other traditions – the festive ceremonies of the Canonical Hours and the Divine Liturgy celebrated during the Easter Vigil are the most elaborate and important of the liturgical year. Many believers who only go to church once a year do so for the Easter Midnight Office.

From the letter of St. Paul the Apostle to the Romans

Brothers, all of us who have been united in baptism to Christ Jesus have been united in baptism to his death. So then, if we were buried with him in baptism, which unites us to his death, it is so that we too might live a new life, like Christ, who by the power of the Father rose from the dead.
For if we have been united to him by a death like his, we shall also be united to him by a resurrection like his. We know that the old man in us was fixed on the cross with him so that the body of sin might be reduced to nothing, and so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died is set free from sin.

And if we have passed through death with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ, having risen from the dead, dies no more; death has no power over him. For he who died, died to sin once and for all; he who lives, lives to God. In the same way, you too must remember that you are dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. « (Rom 6, 3b-11)

Crucified with Christ

What in us was crucified with Christ is the natural man as he is born, grows and lives before he is regenerated by the Spirit of God and renewed in fellowship with Christ. The new man develops in proportion as the old man perishes.

Paul saw it as a fait accompli: our old man was crucified with Christ. It was crucified in the death of Christ, in which the believer participates; but it was crucified only virtually, in principle.

By a constantly renewed act of faith, the believer must transform this virtuality into a reality. The crucifixion of the old man does not take place in the believer in a sudden and somehow magical way, placing him once and for all in a moral condition where sin would be completely destroyed and would no longer make its effects felt.

The death to sin of which the apostle speaks is a state, no doubt, but a state of the will, which subsists only as long as it keeps itself under the influence of the fact which produced it and produces it constantly, the death of Jesus. (Godet)

The purpose of crucifying the old man is the destruction of the body of sin. The body of sin does not mean only the body of sinful man, for Paul did not see the body as the source or even the sole seat of sin. He recognised that the spirit also has its ‘defilements’; he declared that the life of Jesus is manifested in our body ‘carrying with us always in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.  » (2 C0 4, 10).

The body of sin is the totality of sin seen as forming an organism, as having various members: ‘Put to death therefore the members that are on the earth, fornication, uncleanness, passions, evil desires, and covetousness, which is idolatry’ (Cor 3:5). Paul was led to use this metaphor by the image of the old man nailed to the cross. Perhaps also the thought that it is in the body that sin establishes its main empire and exercises its most terrible ravages.

Once our old man was crucified, sin can still remain in us, it no longer reigns. The believer no longer serves it, he is no longer its slave. If he struggles, if he suffers, if he bleeds, if he sometimes suffers shameful defeats and receives bitter wounds, he no longer languishes helplessly under the slavery of sin and death. He is more and more victorious in the struggle; and this very struggle, however fierce and painful it may be, is a proof that the new life triumphs over the fallen nature.

The Christian believes that he will share in the life of Christ; his faith rests on a fact which is not in doubt for him: knowing well that Christ, risen from the dead, dies no more; death has no more power over him. The new life of Christ belongs to God. The only begotten and beloved Son lives with the Father in a communion of eternal glory, and all his activity tends to create and maintain in the hearts of men a similar holy and imperishable life: « He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. For all live for him.  « (Lk 20:38)

The more intimate and living this fellowship is, the more we see that we are truly dead to sin, for we see its power gradually diminishing over us; and we are assured that we are alive to God in Christ Jesus, for we feel the divine life unfolding with power in our hearts. Christ is thus made unto us of God sanctification as well as righteousness: « Through him you are in Christ Jesus, who by the will of God has become our wisdom, our righteousness, the source of our holiness, and our deliverer, » (1 Cor. 1:30)

Whoever does not attribute to the death of Jesus the role that Paul assigned to it, whoever considers the resurrection of Christ as a doubtful or unimportant fact, has not yet grasped the essential truth of the Gospel and ignores the principle of the Christian life. For it is the very morality of the Gospel that Paul showed how the life of the Christian is rooted in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Deacon Michel Houyoux

Links to other Christian websites

◊ Seedbed : click here to read the paper → Paschal Vigil Design : The What, Why, and How

◊ Got Questions : click here to read the paper → What is an Easter Vigil ?

♥    Liturgy of the Paschal Vigil