TRIDUUM 2020
Easter Vigil
Parish of Holy Cross—St. John the Baptist
Midtown Manhattan
Light amid the gloom of Night
Amid the brooding darkness rise the triumphant, majestic tones of Exultet:
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.
On this, your night of grace, O holy Father,
accept this candle, a solemn offering,
the work of bees and of your servants’ hands,
an evening sacrifice of praise,
this gift from your most holy Church.
But now we know the praises of this pillar,
which glowing fire ignites for God's honor,
a fire into many flames divided,
yet never dimmed by sharing of its light,
for it is fed by melting wax,
drawn out by mother bees
to build a torch so precious.
O truly blessed night,
when things of heaven are wed to those of earth,
and divine to the human.
Therefore, O Lord,
we pray you that this candle,
hallowed to the honor of your name,
may persevere undimmed,
to overcome the darkness of this night.
Receive it as a pleasing fragrance,
and let it mingle with the lights of heaven.
May this flame be found still burning
by the Morning Star:
the one Morning Star who never sets,
Christ your Son,
who, coming back from death's domain,
has shed his peaceful light on humanity,
and lives and reigns for ever and ever.
R. Amen.
Quickly, light the candle. Waste no time. Go and light the candle! Please. Read no further without a flame shimmering in the darkness of your home. Go. Comb through your dwelling and dig out the sturdiest candle stashed in your cabinets…OK, now light it. Good, now we can continue, our many flickering flames joining us to the one flame.
The gloom of night – a metaphor employed by a wide swath of human cultures to reference threatening, disorienting, oppressive experiences that befall human lives – is especially dense these days for people around the globe. Frightened, bewildered, mournful, desperate: this a mere, severely truncated list of emotions provoked by this careening contagion blind to borders, cultures, age or ethnicity. In a macabre way, this virus has forced upon us a commonality that eludes us in our usual patterns of division and rivalry based upon differences both real and imagined. However, it is cohesion none would willingly welcome. Nor ought we. Nor need we.
Christ our Light! Thanks be to G-D! Go ahead bellow it out loud. Sing it with verve. We may be apart but let your flaming candle join you to the glowing candles of fellow disciples here in our parish and believers throughout the world. All of us linked by the one flame blazing bright this night, the light of Christ, our communion and hope.
Jesus of Nazareth spent the entirety of his life, mission and message proclaiming the kingdom of G-D. A realm of being gathered in G-D’s power, a space where G-D reigns and humanity, along with all of creation, flourishes and is made whole. The power and authority exercised in this realm unlike any other we have known from our human history and personal experience.
Not the power of the bullet or bayonet. Not the power of the banker or broker. Not the power of the bully or tyrant. Not the power concealed in manipulative speech and coercive exploitation. Not the power wielded by fear-mongers and demagogues. Neither a power that distorts, diminishes, demeans or destroys. Nothing like the usual suspects who pose as potent in our day, or in any and every other age.
No. The G-D revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ reigns through the power of love. Divine love. Without beginning or end, a radical love that has power to persuade. The lure of G-D’s reign extends an invitation, an offer, a gift that awaits our free acceptance – or declination. Jesus wagered the entirety of his life and mission on the power of that love to succeed in changing hearts and communities. And on Good Friday, it appeared he was terribly mistaken, tragically wrong. And it was night.¹
Amid the gloom of this night, we find ourselves shadowed by death – yes. But by more than simply death itself. We are hunted by death-dealing rage. Haunted by forces of violence and strife that leave us estranged from one another, threatened to our core, thrashed in spirit. The specter of Jesus’ execution seemed to confirm our gnawing fears. The long-reigning powers of the world did indeed have the upper hand. They had the last word. Jesus just another hapless casualty. His kingdom a phantom and failure.
The good news, of course, is that G-D has the last word. And G-D’s last word is astonishingly like G-D’s first word. Live. Let there be Life. Let there be Light.
In raising Jesus from the dead, the One he called Abba endorsed the fullness of his life and message. Vanquished the forces of wanton power. Defeated death itself. Thundered delight in the unflinching, perfect fidelity of Jesus to the mission of freeing humanity from its death spiral. Gifted writers of the early church cherished the Resurrection as the laughter of G-D.
What pleases Jesus’ Abba is the faultless fidelity of Jesus to the saving will of Abba to recue humanity – not the shedding of the beloved’s blood, the annihilation of his flesh. Such carnage is the toil of a humanity yet in the grip of fear of death, searching for a scapegoat on which to hang the blame. A victim whose expulsion might ease the discord and give way to the mirage of shared purpose. Until the next frenzy.
Jesus, the innocent victim newly raised to life indestructible, once again comes among his own. Arriving in their midst, he does an astonishing thing. He greets them not with a word of reproach. Not a word of accusation or condemnation. This One who had been denied, betrayed, abandoned? Who had borne the insults, the vicious beatings, the public abuse and, at last, cruel execution? He greets them in love and forgiveness.
The Risen Jesus’ first word: shalom, peace. This victim become victor breathes out the Spirit he shares with his Abba. It is in the strength of this Spirit that we are freed from death, released from our chains, empowered to fashion a communion of genuine peace.
In the peace of the Risen One, we find our hope and our determination to live more fully in his name. We know ourselves this night to be under threat, surrounded by danger. At the same time, we know ourselves invited to abandon ourselves to the life indestructible of the Risen Jesus. In his Spirit, we renew our resolve to welcome the kingdom of G-D breaking into our midst and leading us to life in the embrace of our G-D.
The strains of the Exultet rise once more. One last suggestion for deep reflection, not only on this night, but in the days ahead:
a fire into many flames divided,
yet never dimmed by sharing of its light,
for it is fed by melting wax,
drawn out by mother bees
to build a torch so precious.
The light of Christ we celebrate this night is not dimmed in being divided among us, rather it intensifies. The light of the Risen One allows us to see more acutely, even with the gloom of night enveloping us. Let us not fail to glimpse that melting wax and those mother bees included in this ode. No mere quaint images, they herald the wider creation to which we are inextricably bound and in which we are unalterably enmeshed.
This pandemic now raging, emerged, at least in part, from our failures to tend the integrity of creation. This virus is an inter-species phenomenon. The light of the Risen One shines brightly on our splintered relationship with other creatures of G-D’s own making. Vanishing glaziers, roaring floods, ravaged ozone layers, dizzying rotations of drought and storm – these too are symptoms of a planet yet to be firmly ensconced in the healing balm of the Risen One, the invincible victory of the Cosmic Christ. On this truly blessed night we are heirs of the Spirit breathed out by the Risen One. Might we be found among those poised to cooperate with the passionate desire of the G-D who raised Jesus from the dead to bring all of creation to completion and perfection?
Light amid the gloom of Night.
¹ Gospel of John 13:30