“This is the Night”

This homily was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA at the Great Easter Vigil Service on April 16, 2022.

This is the night. This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave. How holy and blessed is this night. This is the night we’ve been waiting for throughout these 40 days of Lent. And this is the night I know that I’ve been waiting for throughout these last 783 days of living under the shadow of pandemic. It was 783 days ago that we prepared for Lent in 2020; and we prepared, as we had done the previous year, by giving each congregant a little card that had written upon it the letters A-L-L-E-L-U-I-A, a word that we Episcopalians fast from saying during the season of Lent. During Communion, on the last Sunday before Lent in 2020, each congregant placed that card in a chest as a symbolic way of letting go of that word temporarily. At the end of the service, we all processed into the Heritage Room as I descended the stairs into the church basement which I call our “catacombs” and placed the chest at the bottom of the steps as a way of burying the words. The plan was to do what we had done the previous year in 2019. I was going to retrieve and unbury those words at the Great Vigil service two years ago and then throw them like confetti after the Easter Proclamation. But in 2020, we didn’t offer a Great Vigil service because we were all in our separate homes, worshipping online through zoom. The next year (2021), we pre-recorded this Great Vigil service and so it still did not make sense to throw the A-L-L-E-L-U-I-A words like confetti in an empty church. And so that chest of “A” words is still in our basement. They’ve been there for 783 days, waiting for this night. This is the night.

            In a few moments, I’m going to do what I’ve been waiting to do for almost 800 days (almost three years!). I will descend into the basement and finally retrieve the chest and unbury the “A” words and then throw them like confetti after I say, “A-L-L-E-L-U-I-A! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! A-L-L-E-L-U-I-A!” Several parishioners who placed their cards into that chest 783 days ago are no longer with us. Some have moved away, and several have passed away. The cards have remained untouched, including those that were last touched by our friends who have passed on during this long season of pandemic: Irene Hannaford, Jeanne Fish, Jim Diebold, Judy Rex, Josie Toy, and Brenda Glyn-Williams, and others. May these cards remind us of the truth we proclaim in our Burial Rite, that even “even at the grave we make our song: A-L-L-E-L-U-I-A.”   

            I was wondering what sermon was preached here on that day when we buried the “A” words, almost three years ago. I looked through my files and realized that I did not preach on that Sunday. I thought maybe it was my clergy coach (the Rev. Dr. Mark Anschutz) who visited us from Massachusetts, but it wasn’t him. It turns out that the sermon that day was preached by a friend of ours who has only preached here once so far. She’s been away for many months, but she has just returned in time for Holy Week, and I am so glad she’s with us on this night: Pastor Karen Stanley.

            None of us knew what we were about to face in a matter of days as a city, as a country, as a global community when Pastor Karen preached these words: “We are invited to… be awestruck….by the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus- to be rescued from fear and emboldened to trust that it is the Voice of the Beloved inviting us to follow him…on the road to Jerusalem, to learn new lessons of faithfulness and discover in deeper ways the God of Light who walks with us through every challenge, disappointment, heartbreak and failure, [like all the challenges described in tonight’s readings, which the people of God faced, like all the challenges, disappointments, heartbreaks, and failures that we have faced during these last 783 days. Through all of this, God has been walking with us], walking us home, where eternal light will be OUR reality, too.” Pastor Karen concluded saying, “Let’s praise God [which is the English translation of that Hebrew word: ALLELUIA] for the glimpses of that Light.” This is the night we praise God for that eternal light. Amen.