The Body of Christ Identified: 3 April, 2021 – Vigil of Easter
Vigil Readings –– Choose at least four (with special recommendation for #1, 4, 5, and 12).
1) Genesis 1:1—2:4a R/ Psalm 136:1–9, 23–26
2) Genesis 7:1–5, 11–18; 8:6–18; 9:8–13 R/ Psalm 46
3) Genesis 22:1–18 R/ Psalm 16
4) Exodus 14:10–31; 15:20–21 R/ Exodus 15:1b–13, 17–18
5) Isaiah 55:1–11 R/ Isaiah 12:2–6
6) Proverbs 8:1-8, 19-21; 9:4b-6 R/ Psalm 19
7) Ezekiel 37:1–14 R/ Psalm 143
9) Zephaniah 3:14–20 R/ Psalm 98
10) Jonah 1:1––2:1 R/ Jonah 2:2-9
11) Isaiah 61:1-4, 9-11 R/ Deut. 32:1-4, 7, 36a, 43a
12) Daniel 2:1-29 R/ Song of the Three
The readings from the Old Testament all speak of ways in which God has blessed or rescued his people. From the first act of creation through the restoration of Israel from exile, these pericopes represent some of the highest points in salvation history. Those who attend the vigil are self-selected Christians able to follow a long service. For many communities it is appropriate to proclaim all the readings assigned by their lectionary. Pastoral discretion, however, must deter- mine the number of readings to introduce in a particular community. Clergy who must continue through Easter Sunday may be inclined to abbreviate the vigil liturgy. Whatever readings are selected, they are to be read according to the assigned sequence, skipping those elided from the observance. The reading from Exodus is required in the vigil observance. –– Regina A. Boisclair
Mark 16:1-8
I long have been fascinated with Mark’s unsettling ending, which seems a good match for our kind of unsettlingly discordant world. I am grateful that the contemporary church under scholarly advisement has resisted the temptation to sanction the more soothing and “edifying” endings, as so often happens in the final editing process of our made-in-Hollywood movies, where various endings are field-tested among viewers before the final cut. Do not get me wrong. I think that Mark’s Easter story does end on a positive and future-oriented Gospel note insofar, as Don Juel suggests in his commentary, that it reminds us that “we walk by faith and not by sight” and that “we can only trust that God will one day finish the story, as God has promised” (Mark, [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990], 235). But it is an ending that redefines and transfigures the whole genre of comedy.
For Easter is not the easily anticipated natural outcome of Jesus’s passion and death. The resurrection is not just some eternally recurring truth of nature—like the return of the sun and the spring-time rebirth of nature. That’s the danger of using naturalistic metaphors as we found Jesus himself doing just a couple of weeks ago when he spoke of the seed that is sown in the earth that must die in order to sprout and grow, or as the butterfly bursts forth from the seeming death of the caterpillar’s dry cocoon. These natural images may be as close as we can come to imaging the resurrection. However, they all fall dangerously short of the absolutely new thing, the utterly shocking and surprising and even terrifying novelty, that the resurrection of Jesus betokens in Mark’s telling of the tale. –– John Rollefson
Romans 6:3-11
This magnificent passage speaks of one of Paul’s most profound insights on Christian reality. Joined to Christ’s death and burial in baptism, we are crucified with Christ, no longer slaves to sin. Called to live a new life, we are certain that we will be united and live with him in a resurrection like unto his. –– Regina A. Boisclair
Regina Boisclair, a Roman Catholic biblical scholar, teaches at Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage, Alaska.
John Rollefson, a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has served congregations in Los Angeles, Ann Arbor, Milwaukee, and San Francisco.
Homily Service 42, no. 2 (2008): 89-107