Easter Vigil 2016
It’s been REAL! For 27 years I have had the great privilege of being the
“conductor” for this third movement of the Symphony that began on Holy
Thursday. And what a Symphony of Hopes and Dreams, of Heartbreak and
Drama, of Harmony and Discord it is! It is the ultimate act of the Creator,
the divine musician, who has composed the score of the life, death and
Resurrection with the Holy Spirit sounding the beauty, the pathos, the
exaltation of the Paschal Mystery. And each of you, your hopes and dreams,
your heartbreak and harmony is part of the score that’s played tonight.
Celebrating the Easter Vigil for 27 years with this community has been one
of my favorite things. This is the night when it all comes together. There is
something about this night that is “different” from any other. Because this is
the night “when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death”. There is so much I
love about this night. The Easter light spreading throughout the Church with
your beautiful faces reflected in this light. The Exultet sung so stunningly.
The Creation reading with Jamie’s monkey. The liturgy of the word retelling
the story of Salvation, of our deliverance from sin and slavery, of God’s
invitation to come to the water, the image of God as mother who embraces
us in her love. The ancient chant “Alleluia” rising each time, the surprise at
the tomb. The litany with simple gestures. The plunging into baptismal
water. I could go on. What’s not to love!
So as the conductor of this Symphony of Love, I ask your indulgence in
sharing some of the leit motifs from 27 years of preaching: (No, not every
year!)
1993:
Lovers and Madman have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies that
comprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover
and the poet are of all imagination. (Shakespeare/ Midsummer)
Fire and rain, sitting in the dark, singing be not afraid, telling stories of an
empty tomb of a church by the light of a single candle and then explosions
of color, light, and sound, the soul’s music, flowers from stone walls, a
garden growing from stone walls. Have we lost our minds? Are we lunatics?
Or poets? Or Lovers?
2000:
Who do we think we are? Claiming life’s victory over death when death is
all around us. Death claims the lives of loved ones. Death claims millions of
lives by violence, war, famine disease and natural disaster. Death can come
suddenly. Unexpectedly. And we claim life!
Who do we think we are? Proclaiming peace, joy and love when there is so
much violence, despair and hatred in our world.
Who do we think we are? We are a people who have known the presence of
the risen Christ. In our brokenness Christ has healed us. In our human
weakness, Christ has forgiven us. In our hunger, Christ has fed us. In our
darkness, Christ has been our light.
Easter Vigil 2005
Amazed, bewildered, cautious, doubtful, expectant, fearful, grateful, humble,
incredulous, joyful, keen, luminous, mystified, nervous, overwhelmed,
panicked, questioning, resistant, skeptical, tentative, uplifted, vulnerable,
wonderful, yearing, zealous! Why I am listing this alphabet of emotions
from A to Z? Because from Alpha to Omega from A to Z, these must have
been the emotions that those first disciples felt as they grappled with the
story that first “seemed like nonsense”. And I imagine these are the
emotions that we all fell tonight, especially our elect.
You may have noticed that I left out one letter in my alphabet. The letter X.
X is the Chi. The Chi is the Greek symbol for Christ. And Christ is the key.
Christ is the one who opens up for us the mystery of death and rising. And
Christ is the one who invites you to meet him in the waters of baptism. He
says to each of you: Rejoice and Do not be afraid!
2008
How dare we speak of life when we are surrounded by so much death in our
world?
How dare we speak of peace when our world is always at war and innocent
lives are being lost every day?
Sometimes we dare when deep down we really are afraid of what’s out
there.
We call it “bravado”. We pretend to be “daredevils” because really we are
scared to death or scared of death.
Perhaps we dare because deep down we are afraid that what we claim to
have happened in the living and dying and rising of Jesus really doesn’t
make a difference in our world and in our lives. Perhaps we dare because
we are afraid that the radical disintegration of a community’s hopes and
dreams of which JA spoke on Holy Thursday cannot possibly be
“Reintegrated”,“renewed”, “reborn”, “resurrected”.
Or perhaps we dare because deep down we are not afraid. We dare to speak
of life’s victory over death in Jesus because we have been to the empty tomb
and heard the words that dare the devil, dare death itself. He is risen. He is
not here. And somewhere, somehow deep down we know, we know, we
know and we can echo the woman’s words who discovered the empty tomb,
We Have Seen the lord.
Easter Vigil 2012:
Ah! (gasp) That’s it. It’s finished. That’s my homily for Easter. Ah! (gasp) A
sound, not even a word. Ah! A sound that takes your breath away.
Breathtaking! A sound that startles, even the speaker. Ah! Does that sound
capture the moment when three women enter an empty tomb, looking for the
body of Jesus and discover “Ah!”
2014
There’s a whole lot of shaking going on! A whole lot of quaking going on!
Goodness, Gracious! In Matthew’s gospel the exquisite Good News of the
Resurrection is announced with earthquaking and guards at the tomb shaking
in their boots. Matthew is into shaking and quaking. Oh Well.
Easter Vigil 2015
The days of our lives are lived somewhere between trauma and ecstasy.
There are days when our fears and anxieties about the future create a barrier
between us and God, when the senselessness of human suffering is a
scandal, a stumbling block, a gigantic stone that will not budge. Until
someone rolls away the stone and all obstacles to faith in the Risen one
crumble before our eyes and all there is the Ecstasy that comes from
knowing that Love is more powerful than death. What wondrous love is this
that says: You have nothing to fear. I AM here with you. I AM.
Easter Vigil 2016
And here we are tonight. What might I add tonight on my final Vigil homily
with you? Simple. I wish life was not made up of winners and losers. Every
time I hear the Exodus reading with the victory of the Israelites and want to
cheer on the victors I can’t help but think of the losers, the bodies of the
Egyptians strewn all over. So much of life is about winning and losing. But
that’s the wonder of the Jesus symphony. In losing his life, in his dying the
death of a Loser there is the great reversal, the tables are turned on death, the
stone, the stumbling block is removed and we are swept away into the
Divine lover’s embrace. LOSING IS WINNING AND WINNING IS
LOSING!
It’s been real! Or has it all been an illusion like a midsummer night’s dream?
JA quoting Einstein on Thursday: Reality is an illusion! Albeit a persistent
one. And there’s my final word. We are meant to be persistent. Keep telling
the story, singing the songs, dancing the dances, breaking the bread and
pouring the wine, plunging into waters of life. The Eternal Symphony of
Love must be played over and over again in your lives, in this community.
Conductors will change. But Christ is Always the Same, Yesterday, Today
and Forever! Amen! Ah! Ah Le Lu IA