"Baptizing into Community" by Wayne Lacson Forte

Tomorrow begins the Three Days (also known by its Latin, Triduum) of the Christian church year, the Three Days—Maundy (”Mandate”) Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday—when Christians around the world gather to remember the events that culminated the life of Jesus Christ. This year’s celebration is heightened by the fact that these days coincide with the first three full days of the Jewish celebration of Passover, which begins tonight.

The Triduum is climaxed by the Great Vigil of Easter, the Saturday night celebration when from early times the church baptizes catechumens, enacts the “salvation history” of God from the creation of the cosmos to the resurrection of Christ, unleashes the singing of “Alleluia!” (the word of praise that is not spoken during Lent), and eats and drinks together the meal of Eucharist.

Many churches have creatively revived the celebration of the Easter Vigil, incorporating families as participants,…

It has not been a good month for erstwhile Lutherans named John. First, Richard John Neuhaus. Now, John Updike.

Updike spoke often on topics religious and his own faith, including his contribution to NPR’s “This I Believe.” And the religious impulse in his own writing has been spoken of. By many. Often.

For what it’s worth, I submit to his memory this poem, one of my favorite Easter poems.

Seven Stanzas at Easter

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the…