Nostalgia for Simplicity
Essay Posted June 10, 2008 by James E. Nelson
A few weeks ago I received an email from my sister. She told me about the Ascension service at the Lutheran church where she and her husband are members. It was a simple affair of prayers and hymns. But one of the main features of the service—the one that she was writing to me about—was the Paschal Candle. It had been burning for 40 days since Easter. But now the Paschal season is over and the Feast of Ascension is beginning, so the Paschal Candle was extinguished as part of the Ascension service.
I love the powerful simplicity of this liturgical act. Ascension is a bittersweet feast. Jesus had to return to the Father, where he is even now interceding for us at the right hand of God. But Jesus also promised to send the Holy Spirit (a flame of different magnitude), through whom we would receive a fullness of salvation that was not possible when the resurrected Jesus was still on earth. So at his Ascension, Jesus told the disciples, “Don’t be afraid,” and “Wait.” Why? Because the Holy Spirit was going to come in fullness, an event that occurred ten days later at Pentecost.
Yes, Ascension is a bittersweet feast. The disciples stood in wonder, gazing up as their living Savior was taken into heaven. Even if you know the end of the story, that is a sad separation. But the Ascension makes way for something far greater—the coming of the Holy Spirit. And in my opinion, the liturgical act of extinguishing the Paschal Candle embodies this sensibility perfectly.
I mention my sister’s email now because Ascension on the Orthodox calendar occurred last Thursday and Pentecost will be next Sunday. And in the Orthodox Church, Ascension is celebrated with a full blown Divine Liturgy preceded by Great Vespers the night before. It’s a wonderful service. The prayers and hymns are full of fabulous theology that not only pictures Ascension itself, but ties it in with the whole story of salvation. It is both deep and thought-expanding.
But sometimes, when faced with words piled upon words—which is the nature of most Orthodox services, after all—I miss the simple rites that sum up profound theology in a simple act.
On Sunday Fr. Paul made a reference to Garrison Keilor’s Lake Wobegon (from the NPR show The Prairie Home Companion. Keilor typically begins saying, “Well, it’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon.” Fr. Paul’s observation was that if those people, rather than Norwegians, had been Lebanese, Syrian, Balkan, or Central European, things wouldn’t have been so quiet around town. Keilor himself makes occasional reference to this when he talks about the Catholics. His people—the Scandinavian Lutherans—are quiet and withdrawn, while the Catholics (what he longed to be) were loud and expressive, with lots of food and lots of “excess” (according to the Scandinavian standard).
And this loud and brash culture of the Levant, Balkans, and Central Europe is expressed perfectly in Byzantine liturgy. There is nothing subtle. It’s wordy, it’s busy. It’s so wordy and busy that there often two completely separate things going on, the priest and chanter offering up seemingly competing prayers, so that you can’t completely pay attention even if you wanted to. A Byzantine liturgy is a lot like a preacher. When the preacher says, “And now, in conclusion ...” you may as well sit back because you know you’ve got another ten or fifteen minutes to go. Similarly, when the deacon says, “Let us complete our prayer unto the Lord,” don’t get anxious, because there’s still another ten minutes of talking, talking, talking before those prayers are actually completed.
Reformed worship is not necessarily any shorter, but classic Reformed worship (in contrast to “contemporary worship” and its older counterpart that grew out of the 18th century New Light movement, which are both more entertainment oriented) is more paced. Rather than talking endlessly, there’s space to breathe. This is particularly true of the daily prayer cycle as presented in the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship (or the Lutheran equivalent—both which harken back to classic Reformed worship). Simple liturgical acts done in silence often carry great theological weight. When approached with Byzantine sensibility, prayers are repeated many times, sometimes in a row, and sometimes throughout the service. When approached with a northern European sensibility, if a prayer is said once, it is considered adequate. When approached with a Byzantine sensibility, a great deal of courtly pomp is performed, but when approached with a northern European sensibility, honor, glory, and servitude are demonstrated with far more simple and direct sensibilities.
A person with whom I’ve been corresponding said she recently attended a Presbyterian church while visiting friends. She found the service to be “full of God’s goodness and reality,” but she also sensed a “thinness” compared to the Orthodox Church. And there’s the rub, while the Orthodox are open on the issue of style (there are both the Byzantine and Western rites after all) on a practical level, when living in Sioux City, one has to take the bathwater with the baby. Once you’re committed to the fullness and richness of Orthodox life and worship, you inevitably get that noisy, brash, and busy Byzantine sensibility that comes along with it.
This is not to say I’m having second thoughts about Orthodoxy. This is simply a lover’s quarrel having to do with style. It’s like the quiet and introverted academic who finds the love of his life, but she turns out to be an athletic social butterfly with an extremely full social calendar, and who never stops talking. But some things are worth putting up with after you find the love of your life.
So I’ll continue courting this noisy and athletic social butterfly called Orthodoxy. But it doesn’t mean that I won’t get nostalgic for the simpler and more austere worship, for a quiet week of prayers simply said and liturgical acts done without fanfare. Yep, all I ask is a hymn, a prayer, and a candle extinguished without much ado as we now await the roaring flame of Pentecost.
And now, in conclusion, let us complete our prayer unto the Lord.
(No really … no long final fanfare … this really is the end … you can get up and go.)
Amen.
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