Easter Day
2021.04.04
One of the Easter hymns enjoying perhaps the most widespread use in English-
The tune associated with this English text first appeared with it in the first publication of the text’s original version, in the 1708 collection Lyra Davidica. The full title of the collection goes on to note that its contents are ‘set to easy and pleasant tunes, for more General Use’, and the editor of that collection states that these tunes were intended to provide ‘a little freer air than the grave movement of the Psalm-
The use of the anthem(s) Pascha nostrum (‘Christ our Passover’) in the Prayer Book has its roots in later medieval tradition. It was the custom after the Good Friday liturgy for the cross, and later the Blessed Sacrament, to be laid in an ‘Easter sepulchre’, which took various forms. The liturgical procession before the first Mass of Easter went first to that sepulchre, whence the Sacrament and cross were returned to their usual place of honor; the procession was accompanied by a chant consisting in part of Romans 6.9–10.
In the first Book of Common Prayer (1549) of the reformed Church of England, Romans 6.9–11 with Alleluias, with I Corinthians 15.20–22 and a collect that is now the first Collect for Easter Day, were thus appointed to be ‘solemnly sung or said’ before Morning Prayer on Easter Day. In subsequent Prayer Books, these ‘Easter anthems’ (later preceded by I Corinthians 5.7–8) were appointed to replace the Invitatory Psalm (Venite, Psalm 95) at Morning Prayer on Easter Day; our current Prayer Book retains this custom, as well as suggesting this text for use, as an alternative to the Gloria in excelsis, at the beginning of the Easter Vigil Mass.
It is by analogy with this latter usage that we sing a much abridged metrical paraphrase of ‘Pascha nostrum’ this Easter Day. Found in one of the supplements to the Hymnal published by Church Publishing, Wonder, Love, and Praise, this text by Episcopal priest-
The text is set to (and was surely written for) Vaughan Williams’s tune ‘Sine Nomine’. The familiarity of the tune, its festal connotations and character, and the expectation of Alleluias at the end of each stanza all would seem to make it an appropriate choice for a paraphrase of the otherwise probably rarely used Pascha nostrum (which in bcp1979 has an Alleluia antiphon). ‘Sine Nomine’ was, however, written for processional use – here the Alleluias function responsorially rather than antiphonally, and of course the style of the music practically begs for a march – whereas ‘Christ our Passover’ is appointed or suggested for stationary use, whether at Office or Mass. I also suggest that, whereas the original text – like Hebrew poetry – gains much of its power through repetition and parallel constructions, a three-
Our Sequence hymn, ‘At break of day three women came’, comes from another Hymnal supplement, Voices Found: Women in the Church’s Song. A paraphrase of selections from the Orthodox liturgy for the Third Sunday of Easter, which honors the ‘Myrrh-
It is also worth noting that, while most English-
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Perhaps intentionally, more full rhymes are found at the end of the final stanza:
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Much of this text draws upon Isaiah 60; Psalm 107.3 is another likely source, and there are probably still others. The portions of the Orthodox text which most immediately inform stanzas 2 and 3 of this hymn are as follows:
Shine, shine, O new Jerusalem, for the glory of the Lord hath arisen upon thee; dance now and be glad, O Zion, and do thou exult, O pure Theotokos, in the arising of him whom thou didst bear.
Come from the vision, O ye women, bearers of good tidings, and say ye unto Zion: Receive from us the good tidings of the Resurrection of Christ; adorn thyself, exult, and rejoice, O Jerusalem, for thou hast seen Christ the King, like a bridegroom come forth from the tomb.
We celebrate the death of death, the destruction of Hades, the beginning of another life eternal, and leaping for joy, we hymn the Cause, the only blessed and supremely glorious God of our fathers.
O thou who hast crushed the might of death and hast opened the gates of Paradise unto mankind, glory be to thee.
Truly sacred and all-festive is...this shining, light- bearing day, the harbinger of the Resurrection, whereon the Timeless Light bodily from the tomb upon all hath shined.
Come from the vision, O ye women, bearers of good tidings, and say ye unto Zion: Receive from us the good tidings of the Resurrection of Christ; adorn thyself, exult, and rejoice, O Jerusalem, for thou hast seen Christ the King, like a bridegroom come forth from the tomb.
We celebrate the death of death, the destruction of Hades, the beginning of another life eternal, and leaping for joy, we hymn the Cause, the only blessed and supremely glorious God of our fathers.
O thou who hast crushed the might of death and hast opened the gates of Paradise unto mankind, glory be to thee.
Truly sacred and all-festive is...this shining, light-
* Verb tense and aspect can fail when we speak of things that happen or are the case in divine or liturgical time, but, whatever the Eucharistic theology of the Episcopal Church today, it is clear, from the version of the text appointed at the Breaking of the Bread in the first Prayer Book, that the framers of that book understood Christ’s sacrifice as a past event, and stated so explicitly in opposition to any sense that it was being repeated in the Eucharist:
Christ our Pascall lambe is offred up for us, once for al, when he bare our sinnes on hys body upon the crosse, for he is the very lambe of God, that taketh away the sines of the worlde: wherfore let us kepe a joyfull and holy feast with the Lorde.