Ever heard a theorbo?

Dear Friends,

Lent is drawing to a close. We have one more Sunday morning in our Bless the Lent We Actually Have series. This week’s discussion groups and sermon (I think!) promise to be powerful and encouraging.

After this Sunday, as we head into April, we’re looking forward to Palm Sunday (with Hot Cross Buns this year) and then Holy Week and Easter.

This year, the first service of our Easter celebration will be the Easter Vigil on *Saturday* (yes, Saturday, that’s not a misprint) night at 8:00 pm. We haven’t done an Easter Vigil in years, so I thought a brief refresher might be in order.

The Easter Vigil is the ancient first service of Easter, and in prayer and liturgy it places Christ’s resurrections as the culminating act of God’s creative and salvific work throughout history.

There will not be any other service like this all year long. It begins in darkness, with fire — actual fire — and moves through candlelight to the renewal of baptismal vows and finally to the Easter story. Much of the liturgy will be sung (chanted). Most of the music will be medieval in style (and often in actual origin). We will have incense (don’t worry, if that’s not your thing it will be gone by morning). We will have theorbo to accompany us. What’s a theorbo? This thing:

Our theorbo player though will probably not look quite like that.

This won’t be for everyone. For example, toddlers. This is not a good service for toddlers. But it may be for you. The reason for doing something so “out of left field” is that the resurrection itself is absurdly “out of left field.” To approach Easter with an unusual (for us) sort of beauty and care is a way of approaching Easter new and powerfully. To experience the Easter Vigil with such a different sort of richness will give us a different and rich perspective on our prayers and praises.

In Christ,
Fr. Andrew