Creative Ways To Proclaim The Easter Vigil Scripture Readings

The Easter Vigil readings span the history of salvation and recall for the worshiper the great acts of God's mercy. Sometimes the readings are not heard. The article below suggests how the readings may take on new life through dramatic forms of communication.

Our Episcopal parish values freedom for creative expression in its worship life, believing that, at its best, this expression can reflect the surprising and refreshing ways the living God encounters us. With the introduction of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, we were delighted to find the Great Vigil of Easter, one of the oldest of all liturgies, included for the first time. The service consists of four parts: the Service of Light; the Service of Lessons; Christian Initiation or the Renewal of Vows; and the Holy Eucharist with the administration of Easter Communion. The Service of Lessons is the record of God's saving acts in history and the witness of God's continued presence with God's people. The rubrics read, "It is customary for all the ordained ministers present, together with lay readers, singers, and other persons, to take active parts in the service" (p. 284). Our worship committee has taken these directions to heart. We work with the familiar stories in different ways to awaken the congregation into new awareness of God's life, as they are waking to another Easter through the pre-dawn darkness in which the Great Vigil begins. The service begins an hour before sunrise in the church yard around a bonfire from which the paschal candle is lit. The candle speaks to the heart as well as the mind as we follow the sub-deacon, priest, and cantor in a procession to the darkened church, responding to the cantor's "The Light of Christ" with our response, "Thanks be to God." At the door of the church we are given small, lighted candles. In the darkened church the smell of the lilies alerts our senses to our surroundings. As we become more accustomed to the candlelight, we can appreciate the Easter beauty of the sanctuary after the Lenten barrenness. One strength of the vigil is its appeal to all senses, and the readings for this service are always multimedia events. The singing of the Exultet sets the stage for the Service of Lessons. The Story of Creation (Gen. 1:1–2:2) We have used two approaches to the story from Genesis. We have accumulated a connoisseur's collection of slides, garnered from all over the world by members of our worship committee. We use them to visualize the creation as the story is read. We even have one slide of Halley's Comet on its last appearance, caught by the camera of a local astronomer-photographer. For many of us, this slide gives new meaning to the words, "Let there be lights in the firmament." This past Easter we discovered James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones, which contains "Creation Story." One member of our group, a dancer, created graceful mime movements that she performs as the story is read. Her portrayal of God as sculptor is vividly set forth as the reader recites this portion: This Great God, Like a mammy bending over her baby, Kneeled down in the dust Toiling over a lump of clay Til he shaped it in his own image. We used a background tape to enhance the dancer's actions. The sanctuary lights were gradually turned on as the reading suggested. At the line, "And flung it against the darkness, spangling the night with the moon and stars," the lights became full. The Flood (Gen. 7:1–5, 11–18; 8:6–18; 9:8–13) Our telling of the Flood has gone from the children in animals' masks parading during the reading to the reading of a riveting interpretation which we adapted from History, Herstory, Ourstory by Rev. David Steele. We have an eighty-two-year-old storyteller who gives a great deal of time and care to preparation. Everyone is with her as she brings this story to its final paragraph: "Now the story is of a lethal rain that wipes out all humanity. It is not within the mind of God but has emerged from human laboratories…." Fayetteville is a military town, and these words are not lost on the listeners. Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. 22:1–18) We took it upon ourselves to look at this reading and imagine what was going on with another principal in the drama, Sarah. After writing Sarah's part, we felt that her agonizing prayers to God gave life to the angel who intervened and stopped Abraham's knife. For that reason we also had Sarah speak the angel's part. The music which followed this reading was composed by our guitarist and was a song telling of his love for his own young son. Israel's Deliverance at the Red Sea (Exod. 14:10–15:1) We first did this reading with musical sound effects. We read it straight with background music in which you could hear chariots and horses. We have also rewritten the story in the style of rap music. A New Heart and a New Spirit (Ezek. 36:24–28) This reading uses two readers. One reader reads the lesson and the other responds to it. There are also two mimes. Both mimes wear black robes under which they wear identical, colorful outfits. Mime one wears a black mask. We used a large grocery bag painted with tempera black, with slits cut so the mime could see. This large bag worked well and did not smear the makeup which mime one had on underneath. Mime two wears white makeup only. The readers take places on each side of the altar. Mime two, with white face, comes in, walks to front of altar, faces the congregation, and stands at attention, frozen until reader two responds to reader one. Reader 1: Thus says the Lord God, "I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land." Reader 2: Me, God? You want me? Are you sure you want me? I have sure strayed a long way from home! (Mime two points to self while saying, "You want me?" then points skyward and back to self. At mention of straying, he (or she) puts both pointing fingers together under chin and, while moving them out from his (or her) body, separates them from each other. Mime one comes in and takes his place beside the baptismal font, which is in front of mime two.) Reader 1: I will sprinkle water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. (Mime one sprinkles water on mime two, who is frozen.) Reader 2: Gee, God, now I can give up all those things I have worshiped … my good looks, all my money … all those things I have given so much power to. (Both mimes look into imaginary mirrors, study themselves with admiration, and then throw the mirrors away over their shoulders; they pull out the pockets of their robes to show they are empty of money. Then they shrug shoulders at each other.) Reader 1: A new heart I will give you. (Mime one creates a pulsing heart in his hand and puts it to breast of mime two. He keeps it pulsing until mime two gets his hand there to take over the pulse movement.) Reader 2: With my new heart I learn to feel compassion for all the hurting people in the world. And I learn about tears. Tears are so important, aren't they, God? (Mime one uses a makeup pencil and puts tears on the face of mime two.) Reader 1: A new spirit I will put within you. Reader 2: You will change that innermost part of me. Red must be your most favorite color, God, for you use it for such important things: Sunsets. Santa's suits. Cherries. Rhubarb. Fire trucks. Blood. Blushes! It's a wonderful color for spirit. It's hot. It's cool. It's lively. It's shy. It's a delicious, sacred, sad, happy, brave kind of color! (Mime one uses a pallet with red makeup on it to put a red nose, red happy mouth, and round red dot on the cheek of mime two.) Reader 1: I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Reader 2: You will change me by loving me and I will become loving too … for how can I ever love another if I have never experienced love myself? (Mime one hugs mime two, who shows great delight in it. Mime two then hugs himself with great gusto. Then he goes back to hugging mime one, then hugging self, back and forth, as time allows.) Reader 1: And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and be careful to observe my ordinances. You shall dwell in the land which I gave your fathers. Reader 2: Does this mean we have a contract, God? You're going to love all of us into being new and changed people? I get it … and when I have tears or see that wonderful color red, I will be reminded of my new life and my new spirit! (Mimes slap hands as in "high five" and "low five," showing contract. Mime two removes robe with quite a flair to reveal colorful clown clothes. He then shows interest in mime one's mask and begins to study it. He removes the mask from mime one, revealing a face exactly like his own. He is delighted and begins to walk around mime one looking at the robe, up and down, studying it, peeking into the collar. He prayerfully asks mime one to take off robe, which mime one does. They face the congregation together, holding hands, identical in makeup and costume. They hold hands aloft and freeze.) Reader 1: You shall be my people and I will be your God. (Mimes turn and bow to each other and exit joyfully.) Reader 2: The Word of the Lord. The Valley of Dry Bones (Ezek. 37:1–14) During an arts conference at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in 1984, several of our members joined Doug Adams to visit George Segal's Holocaust memorial in Lincoln Park, San Francisco. The subject matter of the memorial is eleven corpses heaped upon one another in chaos and disorder. One lone, living figure stands in front of the bodies. He is a figure with eyes downcast, one hand holding a strand of the high-barbed wire fence that imprisons him. The stoop of his body portrays his weariness and the toll of horrors in his life. The figures are life-sized, cast in whitened bronze. Friends of the sculptor served as models. With the models' experience in mind, Doug asked us to duplicate the statuary with our bodies. The effect was very dramatic for each of us. From that experience arose the idea that the dry bones of Ezekiel must have shared something in common with these statues. We chose four people, dressed in black with simple mime faces. They entered the sanctuary in darkness and stretched out on the floor in front of the altar with their bodies related in some way, reminiscent of Segal's work. We used music as background, part from the soundtrack of the movie, Doctor Zhivago, and part from Prokofiev's "Alexander Nevsky." The music followed the reader, and as the bones were enlivened, so was the music. The mimes began to come alive very slowly, one at a time. They responded to the words of the reading, showing the breath coming into them and pushing open their graces until they exited in single file with their heads up and arms held aloft in praise. The Gathering of God's People (Zeph. 3:12–20) We are brooding over this reading now, along with our increasing experience of being lame and outcast as we live with AIDS, for offering on next Easter.