What is Easter Vigil?

Easter morning sunrise services have their roots in an ancient celebration known as Easter Vigil. The service happens between sundown on Saturday (which is traditionally the beginning of the next day) and sunrise on Sunday. It is the first service of Easter Sunday, and since it starts in the darkness some churches light a fire outside and carry lit candles into the sanctuary.

Candles lit for an Easter Vigil at an abbey in Austria

Easter Vigil was the time when the ancient church would baptize new Christians. After spending a significant period of time learning about the scriptures - sometimes for the period of 40 days we call Lent, sometimes for a year or longer - these new initiates would be introduced to the church's sacraments during the Vigil. They would be baptized and then receive Communion for the first time. In some cases they were told nothing about either ritual beforehand but were meant to experience each as a newborn would, symbolizing their new life in Christ.

Today's Easter Vigil services can remember each of these components by breaking the service into four parts:

1. The Service of Light
2. The Service of the Word
3. The Service of Baptism
4. The Service of the Table (Communion)

The Service of the Word narrates God's entire salvation history from creation to the resurrection of Jesus. This may consist of several scripture readings and songs to take the worshippers on this journey of God's work in the world. If you were being baptized on Easter, this would have been the culminating event of all the lessons that you had learned leading up to this day. Imagine how this might have worked in days when scripture portions were rare or not available: someone would have had to memorize the important stories -- such as the Hebrews' exodus from Egypt -- in order to tell them to the congregation.

These four parts can take place in one long service, or they can be broken up over two or three separate services from Saturday night until Easter morning. They took place at night for spiritual and practical reasons. It is true that Christ rose from the dead before dawn, but the first generations of his followers would have gone to work when the sun came up. Sunday was the first day of the week, not a day off.