Mowed.  Fainted.

Showered.  Fell.

SIGH.


~~~~
What is a vigil?  Simply put, a time of  waiting.  Tonight, waiting on Christ.  Pastor P wrote a beautiful post about why we wait.

The Psalmist says "Wait on the Lord..." and if you check a concordance, you find these words echoed throughout the Scriptures.  But we do not like waiting.  Though it is awkward for us, it was terrible for the disciples who waited that first Holy Saturday.  What they had seen on Good Friday etched in their minds and hearts a picture of death so powerful they forgot what Jesus had told them.  In the grip of loss, they gathered together a few, hid in the homes for some others, and did what all of us so much of our lives.  They waited.

Our waiting is far different.  We wait not as those who do not know the outcome of the story but as those who do not want to wait to celebrate what we already know to be true.  And for too many Christians, there is no waiting at all.  They drive by the cross with a nod and buzz off to the party without so much as a moment of somber reflection and hopeful waiting.  I am sorry for them.  They are too busy to wait on the Lord for this awkward day between the Friday we call Good and the Sunday that transforms our view of life.  They are too busy for the Lord.  Period.

This waiting is good.  This waiting is the needful time to connect the death that pays sin's terrible cost and the life that death cannot overcome.  It is not that Easter makes up for or balances out Good Friday.  They go together.  This time of waiting allows us the time to connect this death the innocent dies for the guilty with the life He gives to the dying.  Wait on the Lord and you find the surprise of grace!  Always .


The service was glorious, even if I spent most of it using my nebulizer again.  We started by candlelight and ended in the bright light of an empty tomb.  The bulk of the service was readings of creation (Genesis 1:1-2:3), the flood (Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18; 8:6-18; 9:8-13), Israel's deliverance at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:10-15:1), the promise of salvation offered freely to all (Isaiah 55:1-11), a new heart and a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:24-28), the valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37:1-14), and the fiery furnace (Daniel 3:1-30)...all in all 115 verses following how our Creator has saved us, provided for us, planned for us since the beginning. 


Then came this most magnificent hymn All You Works of the Lord (LSB 931).

All you works of the Lord, bless the Lord;
Praise Him and magnify Him forever!
You angels of the Lord, bless the Lord;

Praise Him and magnify Him forever!

You heavens, bless the Lord;

All you waters above the heavens, bless the Lord;

All you powers of the Lord, bless the Lord;
Praise Him and magnify Him forever!

You sun and moon, bless the Lord;
You stars of heaven, bless the Lord;
You showers and dews, bless the Lord;
Praise Him and magnify Him forever!

You winds of God, bless the Lord;
You fire and heat, bless the Lord;
You winter and summer, bless the Lord;
Praise Him and magnify Him forever!

You dews and frost, bless the Lord;
You frost and cold, bless the Lord;
You ice and snow, bless the Lord;
Praise Him and magnify Him forever!

You nights and days, bless the Lord;
You light and darkness, bless the Lord;
You lightning and clouds, bless the Lord;
Praise Him and magnify Him forever!

Let the earth bless the Lord;
You mountains and hills, bless the Lord;
All you green things that grow on the earth, bless the Lord;
Praise Him and magnify Him forever!

You wells and springs, bless the Lord;
You rivers and seas, bless the Lord;
You whales and all who move in the waters, bless the Lord;
Praise Him and magnify Him forever!

All you birds of the air, bless the Lord;
All you beasts and cattle, bless the Lord;
All you children of mortals, bless the Lord;
Praise Him and magnify Him forever!

You people of God, bless the Lord;
You priests of the Lord, bless the Lord;
You servants of the Lord, bless the Lord;
Praise Him and magnify Him forever!

You spirits and souls of the righteous, bless the Lord;
You pure and humble of heart, bless the Lord;
Let us bless the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
Praise Him and magnify Him forever!

After that was the remembrance of Holy Baptism, prayers and responses that walk us through the gift given in baptism.  I savored speaking that part of the liturgy again since I missed so much of my own baptism.  A part of this was our confession of faith, the Apostle's Creed.  Each time I speak this with brothers and sisters in Christ the experience becomes more precious to me.


Next was the service of prayer with the Litany of the Resurrection, a glorious prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ and His work in our lives.  This was followed by the first Gospel of Easter (John 20:1-18).

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia! 


All those weeks without alleluias, leading up this moment...the reason we wait.


Matins and Divine service tomorrow morning, Resurrection of Our Lord Sunday.  One last Divine Service Monday evening.  Five opportunities for the Lord's Supper in nine days.  I am thankful for each one, each one a time of forgiveness, healing, and sustenance for this life in a wretched, fallen world.


What I keep thinking about, walking through these Passiontide services is that my experience in the Protestant church taught that Easter was mostly a holiday.  The egg hunts, the Easter baskets, the chocolate, the flowers, the pretty clothes...and somewhere in there is a celebration that we have a risen Savior.  The latter a part of the day, not the whole of the day.


Spending the four days of Passion week has been illuminating for me.  I cannot help but wonder if what Krauth wrote about how Reformation Day ought to be taught to our children, to each other, so that we never forget the importance of that day, what it represents for the Church ought really to be applied to the days of our Savior's passion.

Imagine being raised in a home with parents leading you through the fullness of this time, teaching you the wonder of that first Lord's Supper, the road Christ walked for us, the dying with Him in our baptism, waiting on His resurrection, and welcoming the victory of that empty tomb.  This is not another story of the bible, it is THE story of the bible.  Children ought to be given the opportunity to walk through it, take it in, so that they, too, might understand the depth and breadth of that Work?

If nothing else, there's the promise that God's Word does not return void...I have had several hundred verses poured out over me during these services.  Such riches! How thankful am I to have joined a confession that savors each moment of Christ's passion and leads us to revel in the grace and mercy of that time.


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!