Continued happy Easter to all of you! It isn’t always easy for faith communities to come anywhere near in matching the eternal gravity on Easter Sunday and all. We can’t exactly transport people to the actual tomb, in attempting to understand the shock and awe and even fear of it all. Many have done the Resurrection of Our Lord worship experience for quite a few years, singing the often-selected hymns and hearing some of the same Scripture passages, and yet it somehow still manages to unleash contagious joy and hope over and over again.
Now, one of the recent developing traditions for congregations that are a bit more technologically…with it, is showing “highlights” from their Easter worships or other celebrations (which we are thankful for Mandi Apathy in continuously doing so for us on our social media platforms). One that caught me off-guard was from the Portsmouth Cathedral in the United Kingdom.
The video reel posted on their respective Facebook page appears to be from their Easter Vigil service, as families are standing with candles behind the altar (as is the tradition to have baptisms incorporated for that evening’s proceedings), with the choir in the foreground. Now, for some faith communities, the Vigil is held later at night, perhaps culminating at midnight of Easter morning, when the Resurrection can be first celebrated with all the energy that can be possibly mustered…in the middle of the night, at least. The Portsmouth Cathedral managed to pull it off, and then some.
The hymn sung by the choir and the assembly is the same tune as our cherished Easter hymn “Thine Is the Glory,” but this one not only includes emphatic timpani and crashing cymbals, it also comes with confetti blasts. This may not be expected for the majority of Roman Catholic churches, but perhaps that’s part of the point. And it appears that even for members of the choir who knew it was planned for ahead of time, some still respond with shock and awe over what flies down from the sanctuary heights.
Is it cheesy? Maybe. Is it simply for social media hits? Perhaps. But it will be a story to tell for those who were in that space (not that I’m planning on it for next year necessarily), including for the choral leaders who were called to make a memorable impact on the celebration. Is it over the top for some? Certainly, but maybe that’s part of the Resurrection reality that we often take for granted. It was and is God’s ultimate over-the-top with completely going against biological reality, not to mention ensuring that God’s love and grace and hope will always win out, including for all those who gathered at the Portsmouth Cathedral and throughout the world. It is incredibly over the top with how much God not only insists on everlasting life for us, but that God will insist we do our part (whether in an over-the-top style or not) in sharing that Greatest News of all with whoever we meet. Thanks be to God, indeed!
In Christ,
Pastor Brad
To view the reel from Facebook, please visit:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/933989786029006