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!” They are speechless, after all. For some
strange reason, the gospel we just heard is not finished in the lectionary. Let
me finish it for you. “The women made their way out and fled from the tomb
bewildered and trembling: and because of their great fear, they said nothing
to anyone. “ Speechless, bewildered, trembling, afraid” Ah! Finished? Not.
But if these women, the first witnesses of the resurrection, could find words
they might be. “What now?” (The words that began our triduum on
Thursday from Mary Oliver’s poem) Something has happened to the bread
and wine. They have been blessed. What now?
What now? What now? In a week, they had gone from Hosannas and palm
branches and dancing in the streets, to a meal that left them all bewildered
with Jesus’ claims of bread and wine, his body and blood, from arrest,
condemnation and crucifixion. And now this! An empty tomb and What
Now?
It is the question of this night when we proclaim God’s victory of the power
of death in Jesus Christ. It is the paradox we live as followers of Jesus. We
live in the “now” of Jesus, the Crucified and Risen One. But at the same
time we know we are not yet “finished”, despite what we have heard from
God’s lips to our ears. (I’m quoting myself)
Since on the seventh day God finished the work God had been doing, God
rested on the seventh day from all the work God had undertaken. You can
almost hear God’s voice saying “mmm good. It is finished”. But we know
that creation is not yet finished. And will it ever be? On a night like this all
we can say is “Ah!” before the beauty, the majesty, the glory of God’s
creation that continues to bewilder, startle, even frighten us with its power
when it is unleashed or delight us when the rainbow is seen after the storm.
No Creation is not yet finished.
And from Jesus’ lips to our ears, we hear the echo of God’s words, “It is
finished”. (Were you there when you heard Tom Burke sing those
hauntingly beautiful words of Jesus on the Cross last night?) Yes, like God
who rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken, Jesus
will rest in the tomb, having finished the work he had undertaken. But what
now? There’s that paradox again. We live in the now of Jesus’ dying and
rising but no, not yet. Not yet finished. The work is going on --- in our
bodies, in our lives, in our flesh and blood. And we are not yet finished. And
as long as there is a follower of Jesus who takes up his cross, the work will
not be finished.
And that’s why we are here tonight to accompany you Shana, Brandon and
Liberty. I’m sure you’ve been asking yourself the question “what now?”
What now? What now? Now is the time to walk with the women of the
gospel, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome to the
tomb, the baptismal font and plunge into the darkness of the tomb only to
say “Ah!”. And Now the “Ah” becomes “Ah-le-lu-ia”.