The Great Vigil of Easter
It was the early morning
hours. Just after the sun had begun to
peek over the horizon. In the first
functional moments after the Sabbath: the first moments when the women could
return to the work that in the rush before the Sabbath had been left undone.
The words of the
messengers that greeted them seem sort of harsh: “Why do you look for the
living among the dead?” In the midst of
their mourning, they were being chided – teased, even.
The truth is, they
weren’t looking for the living among the dead.
They were looking for the dead.
They were looking for their friend, and teacher. They were looking for their brother, their
son, and their Lord. And they knew that
he was dead. They had seen him laid in
the tomb in the early evening.
But it was morning.
I’ve always experienced
the early morning hours as a kind of mystical time. There’s something soul feeding about watching
the night be overtaken by the day – watching the vulnerability of darkness give
way to light, watching the stillness begin to stir. Somehow God seems more accessible during
those times. Things that seemed
imperceptible in the night gain unexpected clarity in the morning.
That’s how it must have
felt for those women on that morning. In
the nighttime of their grief there were so many questions and so few
answers. The events of the week that had
preceded must have seemed like a flash as they recalled them.
It must have seemed to
come from out of nowhere. One day they
were following this wandering Galilean – following his teaching and his
miracles. The word had spread and his
celebrity had grown.
Then into Jerusalem. He was greeted as a king – hailed and
applauded. The people had come out to
cheer him.
But somehow there was a
shift. The crowds of admirers became
angry mobs. It had all happened so
fast. How could it have happened so
fast?
They must have been
filled with questions and bewilderment as they approached that tomb. But there would be still one more shift. The light would win out over the night. Perhaps there would be no answers. Perhaps there would be more questions and
confusion. But there would also be
life. Where they had expected to find
death, they would find life.
This is why we keep
vigil. This is why we sit up and wait
through the telling of our stories for the new fire to shed its light. We wait in the sure and certain hope that
through the darkness of death, a new light will begin to shine. We wait, not for answers, but for life. And it comes.
Amen.
(this sermon is edited from a previous version which appears here)
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