What is the Easter Vigil?

Help Us Get Ready for the Easter Vigil!

The Easter what? Is that the 24-hour prayer thing? No?
No, this is new.
And ancient.

The Easter Vigil is a service that originates in the early church, included in the oldest liturgical records we have post-Bible. The service was originally an allnight service the night before Easter, starting after dark and going until they celebrated communion at Easter sunrise (the origin of the “sunrise service”). But don’t worry, we’re not going all night. Worship will be about 1.5 hours.

This service will take place
Saturday, March 30th
7pm

It will be an active, participatory, joyful service remembering the ancient stories and celebrating our baptisms. It will involve fire, skits, singing, dancing, delicious food, and more. It’s like what is dreamed of in that Christmas song, “There'll be water for splashing, champagne for toasting, and new fires all burning aglow. There'll be fiery furnace stories and tales of the glories of God’s work long, long ago. It's the most wonderful service of the year!"

But we need your help.

One of the important parts of the Vigil is to tell the old stories – the ones from the Old Testament. But we don’t simply read The Flood story from start to finish; no, this is a night for drama! And to do that, we need you.

Each year we try to tell 4 to 7 stories, and we need families, groups, teams, individuals who will help us tell those stories. For example, one time a family of 6 did the fiery furnace story where the mother served as narrator and children had simple lines like calling out their names. Another time, an artist worked with a musician, and the artist projected drawings they did of the days of creation while the musician sang a song about creation. Another time, a ballerina did an interpretive dance while someone narrated a psalm. There are many ways to tell every story.

If you would like to help by doing a skit or telling a story in a creative way, please contact Pastor. Even if you don’t have a skit to use, Pastor has tons of resources he can provide to help.

The stories can be any of your favorites from the Old Testament, but the traditional stories are: Creation (Genesis 1:1-2:4a), Flood (Genesis 7-9, in parts), Testing of Abraham (Genesis 22:1-18), Deliverance at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:10-31), Valley of the Dry Bones (Ezekiel 37:1-14), Deliverance of Jonah (Jonah 1:1-2:1), Fiery Furnace (Daniel 3:1-29), along with some other poetic texts great for dramatic interpretations.

But even if you can’t help with the drama, please put the Vigil on your calendar.

As Pastor would tell you: “The Easter Vigil is truly the best service of the whole year.” If you haven’t been to a vigil before, you’re missing out!