We so easily repeat these words two millennia after the event that we take for granted how they radically changed the universe and human nature itself.
Yesterday I wrote about his descent to Sheol, and how Christ changed what happened when human beings die. Today is a time to focus on the change to how we live. Genesis tells us that we are created in the image and likeness of God. Genesis tells of how original sin marred the image, but we celebrate that Christ not only repaired the damage but elevated our human nature beyond its original state.
The new text from last nights proclamation say it beautifully
…This is the night that even now, throughout the world, sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices and from the gloom of sin, leading them to grace and joining them to his holy ones.
This is the night, when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld. our birth would have been no gain, had we not been redeemed.
O wonder of your humble care for us! o love, o charity beyond all telling, to ransom a slave you gave away your son!
O truly necessary sin of adam, destroyed completely by the Death of Christ! o happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!
O truly blessed night, worthy alone to know the time and hour when Christ rose from the underworld!
This is the night of which it is written: The night shall be as bright as day, dazzling is the night for me, and full of gladness. The sanctifying power of this night dispels wickedness, washes faults away, restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners, drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty.…
