Let Us Keep the Feast: Reflections on the Pascha Nostrum
The world God made is a world of rhythm and rhyme. Seasons change and come again before leaving us once more. There is a predictable stability in the constant diversity that God has made, something C.S. Lewis once brought out in his masterpiece The Screwtape Letters. As his fictional demon once put it, God has built a world full of the ordinary that changes just enough to keep us delighted without giving the quick fix of novelty.
The Prayer Book tradition reflects this truth. Indeed, the rhythm of Morning and Evening Prayer changes slightly with the Church Calendar, not enough to disrupt or distract us but just enough to give us a little extra truth to reflect on.
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A notable change happens in the Morning Prayer office, especially during Eastertide. The office’s invitatory features the Venite for most of the year, with the Jubilate as the primary alternative to this, being especially appropriate on feast days and Sundays. However, the 2019 Book of Common Prayer also features the Pascha Nostrum as an option, especially prescribing this canticle in place of theVenite during Eastertide (and, of course, we may use it at other times in private devotions). While originally designated for Easter Day in the 1662 Prayer Book, Anglicans eventually used the Pascha Nostrum throughout Eastertide. It is a beautiful compilation of passages from St. Paul that lifts our hearts to the heavenly places as we contemplate the mystery of Christ crucified for us.
A Canticle of Alleluias
Before we look at the canticle in its sections, let’s consider the recurring use of the word Alleluia throughout. This marvelous Easter word repeats four times: once at the beginning, once at the end, and twice in the middle. This is a canticle of alleluias.
And what is alleluia? Hallelujah. Praise Yahweh. This language is the only appropriate response to what has occurred: Christ, the Messiah, has been sacrificed for us. The long-awaited redeemer has come, and he has come for us. He died in our place as a victor, a conqueror, a lamb, and a lion all rolled into one. We do this by looking both backward and forwards: we look backward to the ancient celebration of Passover in the Exodus and take this forward into the New Covenant Age. The same feast is there in its essence.
Stanza 1: 1 Corinthians 5:7-8
Alleluia. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us; *
therefore let us keep the feast,
Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, *
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Alleluia.
This first stanza orients us to the proper way of looking at all of Scripture: the focus of all is Christ and him crucified. We see Christ as the lamb slain at Passover, there in the bloody shadow of Egypt. We see him broken for us in the unleavened, spotless bread that was broken that night. That bread we now partake of, truly and weekly, as we partake of the Eucharist. We even often quote the first line of this stanza as part of that liturgy. We enact the Eucharist looking at its true intention: we eat our Passover in sincerity and truth as the redeemed New Covenant people of God who see their old self crucified and slain with Christ who lived and died for us.
Our old self, the self that is selfish, greedy, complaining, ambitious to the point of sinfulness, and comparing to the point of self-deprecating, all of those things are dead with Christ. They no longer have a hold on us. We keep the feast of our Lord, saying with the Angles, “Alleluia.”
Stanza 2: Romans 6:9-11
Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; *
death no longer has dominion over him.
The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all; *
but the life he lives, he lives to God.
So also consider yourselves dead to sin, *
and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Alleluia.
The middle stanza sees us turn to what may arguably be the greatest book in the New Testament: St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Here, we see the apostle’s beautiful and practical Christology. Christ has risen from the dead. He has gone into the very bowels of the enemy and returned victorious. The Messiah’s victory over death is final. Christ died once for all time, and in so doing, he removed sin’s power; he now forever lives before God, displaying his victory for all the world to see.
This theology weds itself beautifully to practice, as Paul draws on our union with Christ to show us how his death was our death. When Christ died, we died to sin’s power. It no longer has a right over us. It can no longer claim us as its servants and subjects. Beyond that, Christ’s resurrected life becomes ours, and just as he now lives before the face of God the Father, he calls us to live a life coram deo (before God’s face).
How often do we ignore this truth due to our lack of feeling? We feel enslaved to sin; we feel like we must continue exaggerating our business adventures; we feel tired, so we must snap at our spouse. Christ’s claims are otherwise. Our feelings are irrelevant: they are not our masters. They enslave us no longer. We have died to those emotions: they are not what provides us with a controlling life principle anymore. Our new life is Christ; our new principal is his resurrection. We have died with him, and now we live with him, whether we feel it or not. We are not fated to follow our whims. We may obey Christ instead.
1 Corinthians 15:20-22
Christ has been raised from the dead, *
the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
For since by a man came death, *
by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, *
so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Alleluia.
Our eyes now turn toward the future in the final stanza. It is drawn from an apt text. Paul argues to the Corinthians that our future hope ties back to Christ-like every other aspect of the Christian life. We see in him our firstfruits: he is the first apple plucked from the tree that promises an abundant harvest to come. This directly relates to our human history, according to the apostle. After all, it only makes sense that a man would undue what a previous man did. In other words, we need another leader, another Adam, who will be the covenant head of a redeemed humanity.
This is the grounds for our hope in the Resurrection. We died in Adam, sinning there with him in the garden despite our physical absence. But, as Paul says, the grace went above and beyond the sin: as we died in Adam, we now live in Christ. We disobeyed with the First Man, and we obeyed with the Second Man. What more excellent source of praise can there be than this fact? Christ died, and I died with him; Christ was raised, and I was raised with him. And one day, I will be raised to eternal life.
In response to this, as the Pascha Nostrum reminds us, the people of God say, “Alleluia.”
Photo by m.kucova, courtesy of Canva.
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