The Holy Triduum THE PASCHAL TRIDUUM

The word “triduum” means three days, and the Paschal Triduum, counted from sunset to sunset, marks the time from Holy Thursday evening through Easter Sunday evening. It is a time when Christians fast, pray, and keep watch for the Passover (pascha) of the Lord, when Christ passes over from death to life.

The three days reflect the special meaning of this number. It calls to mind Jesus’ telling his disciples three times of his suffering, death, and his resurrection on the third day (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34). On the third day, God appeared to Moses at Mount Sinai in the midst of fire and smoke (Exodus 19:16-19). The number also recalls the days that the plague of darkness afflicted the Egyptians (Exodus 10:22), the days Moses and the Israelites wandered in the desert before finding water at Marah (Exodus 15:22), and the days Jonah was entombed in the belly of a fish (Jonah 1:17).

John’s Gospel introduces Jesus as the paschal lamb (1:29, 36). When Jesus is condemned to death by Pilate (19:14), the sentencing occurs at noon on the day before Passover, the same time that the Passover lambs are being slaughtered in the temple. Jesus dies on a Friday – the day to prepare for the Sabbath and also Passover (19:31). Jesus is the sacrifice who takes away humankind’s sin once and for all (Hebrews 9:26).

The Paschal Triduum, or the three days of Passover, are days of death, rest, and resurrection. From sunset on Holy Thursday to sunset on Good Friday, the focus is on Christ’s suffering and death on the cross. Christians are encouraged to fast and to begin their spiritual climb to Mount Golgotha (Mark 15:22). The second day, from sunset on Good Friday to sunset on Saturday, is the Sabbath, a time for rest and continued fasting.

Beginning with sunset on Saturday, the third day of the Triduum, light overcomes darkness (John 1:5). Death is defeated (1 Corinthians 15:54, 55), and the slaughtered Paschal Lamb rises to become the Good Shepherd (John 10). Night shines like the day! The tradition of the Easter Vigil (traditionally beginning at sunset on Saturday and lasting until sunrise on Easter Sunday) includes Old Testament Scripture readings that recall creation, God’s promises to Noah and Abraham, the exodus from Egypt, and God’s instructions for the Passover. As the darkness of night passes over into dawn, sorrow gives way to joy and the readings conclude with a resurrection text from one of the gospels. For those who have been preparing for baptism throughout the forty days of Lent, they now become newborn children of God. Others renew their baptismal covenant, remembering that sin and death are drowned in the waters of baptism and that, rising from the waters, they are reborn to new life in the Spirit.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Romans 6:3-5 (English Standard Version)



I just returned home from Good Friday Vespers, earlier today was the Tre Ore service. The Tre Ore Service derives its name from the last three hours of our Lord's Passion. It is a semi-continuous service divided into six half hour segments. I stayed through the whole thing. It was a very moving way to recall the Lord's death on the cross. Good Friday Vespers took place after sunset and thus actually is part of the second day, the day of rest. When God created the world he was finished on the sixth day and rested on the seventh. In Holy Week Jesus was finished with our redemption on the sixth day and on the seventh day he rested in the grave.

Pastor Ledic pointed out to us tonight that in 2005, Good Friday falls on March 25th, which is ordinarily the Feast of the Annunciation, nine months before Christmas, the announcement of the angel to Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus. This symbolically rich concurrence is relatively rare, occurring only three times in the 20th century (1910, 1921, and 1932), and twice in the 21st century (2005 and 2016). After 2016, it will not occur again for more than a century. Pastor Ledic read us this poem written by John Donne in 1608 on another day like this:

Upon the Annunciation and
Passion Falling upon One Day.
1608

Tamely, frail body, abstain today; today
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.
She sees Him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came and went away;
She sees Him nothing twice at once, who’s all;
She sees a Cedar plant itself and fall,
Her Maker put to making, and the head
Of life at once not yet alive yet dead;
She sees at once the virgin mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha;
Sad and rejoiced she’s seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty and at scarce fifteen;
At once a Son is promised her, and gone;
Gabriel gives Christ to her, He her to John;
Not fully a mother, she’s in orbity,
At once receiver and the legacy;
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
The abridgement of Christ’s story, which makes one
(As in plain maps, the furthest west is east)
Of the Angels’ Ave and Consummatum est.
How well the Church, God’s court of faculties,
Deals in some times and seldom joining these!
As by the self-fixed Pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which shows where the other is and which we say
(Because it strays not far) doth never stray,
So God by His Church, nearest to Him, we know
And stand firm, if we by her motion go;
His Spirit, as His fiery pillar doth
Lead, and His Church, as cloud, to one end both.
This Church, by letting these days join, hath shown
Death and conception in mankind is one:
Or ‘twas in Him the same humility
That He would be a man and leave to be:
Or as creation He had made, as God,
With the last judgment but one period,
His imitating Spouse would join in one
Manhood’s extremes: He shall come, He is gone:
Or as though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,
Would busy a life, she all this day affords;
This treasure then, in gross, my soul uplay,
And in my life retail it every day.

– John Donne

Ah, what a very special day this was.

Tonight, near the end of the service there was an instrumental interlude. I heard the melody of the song "The Old Rugged Cross" woven through it. Hearing this song triggered a memory of my Dad singing this song as a soloist at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Novato California, probably 40 years ago. I remember that I thought it was the most wonderful thing I had ever heard, I still think so. I miss Dad and look forward to seeing him again one day with the Lord.

This has been a day of memory and mourning, a day of gratitude and a day of joy too. I look forward to the Feast of the Resurrection on Sunday with great anticipation!  ¶ 3/25/2005 09:25:00 PM