Easter Vigil: Connecting the Two Faces of Fire

Addressing the question from Psalm 137––“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” asked by a people in exile––Philip Pfatteicher uses the Lenten image of fire to claim the rites from Ash Wednesday through Pentecost as an answer to injustices of all kinds. As people of faith, we sing in the place of ashes, in the light of Christ.

Fire is lit to burn the palms of victory for ashes of death used on Ash Wednesday at the beginning of Lent, and fire is lit at the Vigil of Easter when it becomes the light of Christ, the new life for all.

Holy Week is built on these images of power whose paradox is the bedrock of our comprehension. Let it be so.

Lent began in the destructive fire that consumed the dried palm branches and reduced them to the ashes with which our foreheads were marked on Ash Wednesday. To the world, it is a strange ritual showing only decay, destruction, and death, a gloomy and unwelcome reminder of what lies in the future for us all. But the ashes of the first day of Lent are not just the forlorn remnants of a conflagration, the powdery ruins of what once were green and living leaves. The ashes were a sign also, most of all, of repentance, cleansing, and renewal. They are the proclamation of the total destruction of our sinful past and the promise of a shining future with God. In the ashes of Ash Wednesday we see the two faces of fire: destruction and purgation, death and renewal. 

 The Sacred Triduum [the Three Days] reaches its climax in the striking of a new fire that recalls creation and brings light into the darkness. This is no ordinary fire, and the ritual of the Easter Vigil makes that clear. The fire becomes for us “the light of Christ,” and this light, rising in brightness like the sun, unlike the sun “knows no setting.” The frail light of a spark ignites a small fire that is carried by the Paschal Candle into the darkened church as into a tomb, and it is then spread to all the other candles in the church—the candles of the ministers, the congregation, the chancel, the altar—and no matter how often it is divided, this fire is not diminished. Indeed, as it spreads, it increases in intensity until the whole church is aglow with its light, bright with the glory of the resurrection, a splendid promise of the final victory of the resurrected Christ when all the world will be bathed in pure and holy light. 

 The proclamation of the resurrection is the declaration of a reality larger than this world, larger even than God’s enemies. We learn during Lent of the fearsome cosmic battle, and in Holy Week we watch the culmination of that warfare. It comes at huge cost, the life of the Son of God, but that awful price bought life for the world.

We can sing the Lord’s resurrection in a world ravaged by war and torn by violence because it was precisely in such a world that the crucifixion and resurrection took place. It was indeed for such a world that the crucifixion and resurrection were accomplished. As at the Red Sea, so on Golgotha, and now in our time, the power of God takes the forces of destruction and turns them, even against their will, into instruments of life and wholeness. It may not be visible from our limited perspective in this time and place, but the resurrection is the declaration that our salvation has been accomplished and that God’s will of remaking the world is being carried out. That is why the crucifix is not a repulsive representation to Christians, and that is why the blood of the young warrior dying on the cross, in descriptions from Fortunatus to Watts and beyond, takes on a strange and compelling beauty.   

 At the conclusion of the Great Fifty Days of Easter, fire breaks out again. It is the fire of Pentecost, the appearance of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. Now, at the culmination of Easter, the destructive properties of fire are gone altogether, and this fire is wholly good and pure and life-giving. The fire of the resurrected Christ descends into the hearts of Jesus’ disciples and warms them with an energy and love that cannot be contained. With gladness we pray the ancient prayer, “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your love.” And with the fulfillment of that prayer we, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, join the “company of the burning heart” who are suddenly aware of the power of God that has been at work in us since Ash Wednesday and that has been at work in the world since the beginning of creation. 

 

Philip H. Pfatteicher served as a Professor of English at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania. A widely respected liturgical historian and scholar, he is author of many books, including Commentary on the Lutheran Book of Worship (Fortress, 1991) and Commentary on the Occasional Services (Fortress, 1983).

Philip Pfatteicher, “The Two Faces of Fire,” Liturgy 18, no. 2 (2003):5-7.

Remember Dust –– Ash Wednesday, Year A –– 1 March 2017

Ash Wednesday with its reminder that we are made of dust, adam, and will once again become dust when we die means to set the stage for deepened faith so that together with the three admonitions––fast, pray, give alms––we will really know the profundity of God’s life in our lives.

Three basic religious practices are to be done “in secret.” Charitable giving, prayer and fasting are all assumed to be standard, normative acts of piety. Jesus wants to make sure they are done for the right reasons and not for social approval.

The repetition of “in secret” is an exaggerated way to stress that God is the real audience, the one to whom such acts are really directed. . .

Jesus came from a world in which just about everything happened in public, where persons were rarely alone, and where religious life centered around what groups and families did together. There was a prophetic tradition of “rend your hearts, not your garments,” but even this depended upon a set of group mourning practices. Hearts were hung on sleeves for all to see. What people did and said in public was what they meant in private, simply because most of the time “private” did not exist.

Within that very public world, Jesus stakes out space for it. Private prayer, in “your room”? . . . This would be seen by no one but God? What a weird idea! ––Lucy Bregman 

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

 In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, prayer, fasting and almsgiving are considered practices of the faith. In this pericope, Jesus describes deplorable and ideal ways in which one can engage in these practices. . . He describes how each has been done while the doers are calling attention to their activities to other people. He then counsels the appropriate strategy to avoid attracting attention and the praise of other people.

A word must also be said about the fact that two of the three examples of hypocrites are associated with synagogues. There is no doubt that this reference has served to reinforce contempt for Jews on the part of Christians. Thus, it is essential to call attention to the fact that the gospel setting is first-century Palestine and the narrative presents an account of a teaching of the Jewish Jesus to his Jewish contemporaries, all of whom were associated with synagogues. The application of the story for Christians is to those who would be known in the churches for their philanthropy or who call attention to their ascetic practices. –– Regina Boisclair 

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

The [reading] opens. . . with the prophet's call to sound the shofar from Zion as warning of the impending darkness of day of the Lord's judgment. While this selection continues with the Lord's call to return, the reading ends without clear assurance. Although the selection eliminates the details of impending devastation (2:3–11), with the inclusion of 2:1–2, this reading retains an apocalyptic fervor (see Isaiah 13). –– Regina Boisclair

2 Corinthians 5:20b––6:10

Paul speaks of the. . . soteriological significance of the incarnation and death of Jesus—the sinless one who suffered so that through him sinners are enabled to enter a right relationship with God (5:21). Recognizing that his efforts work together with that of God, Paul begs his readers not to trivialize the beneficence they have received from God. –– Regina Boisclair

Lucy Bregman, professor of religion at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, is the author of several books including Beyond Silence and Denial: Death and Dying Reconsidered (WJK, 1999) and Preaching Death (Baylor Univ., 2011).

Regina Boisclair, a Roman Catholic biblical scholar, teaches at Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage, Alaska.

Homily Service 41, no. 2 (2007): 4-14.