Easter Vigil - TONIGHT is THE night!

 Tonight is THE night!

Tonight is the night!

It is a chorus we hear echoed throughout the Easter Vigil,

And Easter Vigil is a special service indeed.

It is rare we get an opportunity to share in this kind of a service.

It’s an ancient rite that can be traced back to the earliest generations of the church.

It’s a service that took place at night and in darkness,

Not only for the symbolism that surrounds it,

But because many from the early church worshipped in secret.

It is a service that takes place as darkness closes in outside, and the light from within brightens.

It is a service that reminds us that death still lurks outside the door,

But in the promise of an empty tomb, we no longer fear that death.

In fact, we celebrate the promise in the face of death and darkness.

That is the beauty of the Easter Vigil,

Death closes in on Good Friday,

And we come back to find death still lingers, yet life has escaped its clutch,

And that light and life grows and grows in spite of death and darkness.

Therein lies the beauty of the Easter Vigil.

Yet I am sure many of us have never experienced it,

and even tonight our version is much abbreviated.

Traditionally it would last into the very early hours of the morning.

Having just come home from our deployment,

I wouldn’t have entertained this service at all

If not for C, and our experience in Norway together.

I won’t speak for C,

But I’ve never been North of the arctic circle.

Upon our arrival, we didn’t see much of the sun for the first month.

Even when daylight broke through the darkness, the sun rarely breached the mountain tops.

And even when it did, it was often so cold we would often escape to the warmth of a tent or a stove

Forsaking the light, for the sake of the warmth we found in the darkness.

And while it was a beautiful country, the dark and the cold was a constant reminder

That even in the midst of a training mission, we faced some very real risks.

Whether it was rewarming our bodies after plunging through the ice of a frozen lake,

Starting a fire with our hands exposed to the cold for the sake of handling matches and kindling,

Or melting snow and drying clothes by the fire to ensure we were managing liquid inside and outside of our bodies,

There was a threat around us at all times.

I believe we became accustomed to it.

As the days went by, we became more and more comfortable being in the midst of the harsh environment,

And we came to enjoy the unique nature of that land, the climate, the country, and the culture that surrounded us.

But we weren’t just surrounded by the cold and darkness of the weather while we were there,

Ironically, Lent began shortly after we’d arrived.

I marked many with an ash cross upon their foreheads, symbolizing our mortality and the promise of our baptisms,

I used the same bowl to hold the ash that I used to baptize you tonight, Caleb.

Another reminder of the connection between the life we are promised, and death, which still lingers amongst us all.

So, when C came to me to ask if he could be baptized, it broke my heart to inform him I could not.

You see, we don’t traditionally baptize anyone during lent.

We don’t do weddings either,

Because it is a season of penitential reflection.

But tonight,

Well… TONIGHT is the night!

And I truly love Easter Vigil, and I couldn’t think of a more appropriate time or way to celebrate C’s baptism,

And most of all the promise we find in that empty tomb!

Because as we gather here together around a fire,

We do it in defiance of the darkness that gathers.

We come into a church, darkened like a morgue,

Because that is exactly what the church was, is, and always will be.

It is the site of his death and burial, and it is upon his tomb we build the altar and celebrate that promise.

From the church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, to a snowmobile sled in Norway, to here and now; TONIGHT.

We gather in defiance of the darkness and death outside,

We taunt death and darkness as we bury our brother in Christ; C.

In the water, three times, just as Christ was buried for three days,

We eat of his body and blood, and then after we have revived this place from the death that has haunted it

-from the floorboards to the rafters-

We will receive the blessing of our Lord, and we will walk out into that darkness,

Carrying the light with us into that dark world.

THAT sisters and brothers, is the promise of THIS night!

In the book and the film, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

There are many horrible and disturbing scenes throughout the post-apocalyptic tale.

Cormac McCarthy was well known for the dark brutality of his stories,

But much of his storytelling loses sight of the beauty and light in the midst of his dark narratives.

One of the most beautiful examples was in that story; The Road.

At the ending of the story, the two protagonists; a father and son

Have said goodbye to one another, as the father breathes his last words of advice to his son,

In hopes his son can survive in the brutal post-apocalyptic world alone without his father’s protection.

Having been stalked and hunted by other groups trying to survive by preying on others,

the boy takes his father’s pistol and prepares to continue on the road.

At that moment, another survivor approaches the boy who points his father’s gun at the man’s chest.

Upon learning that the lifeless man at the boy’s feet was his father, the man tells the boy

“Maybe you should come with me?”

The boy points the pistol and asks “Are you one of the good guys?”

“Yeah, I’m one of the good guys, now why don’t you put that pistol away?” replies the man

After discussing the boys options, the boy again asks “How do I know you’re one of the good guys?”

To which the man honestly replies “You don’t, you’ll just have to take a shot.”

The boys continues to inquire about the man’s family, and what things he has or hasn’t done to survive in that harsh world, but his final question for the man is ironic and simple;

He asks, “Are you carrying the fire?”

“Am I what?” comes the man’s reply

“Carrying the fire” the boy repeats

“You’re kinda weirded out aren’t ya kid?” says the man

“Well, are you?” cautions the boy as he raises the pistol again

“Yeah, I’m carrying the fire” assures the man

“And I can come with you?” asks the boy

“Yes you can.” Replies the man as the story concludes

Tonight, we lit a new fire,

At the entrance of the sanctuary,

In the Paschal Candle that was lit from that fire,

In the hands of each and every one of you,

In your hearts as the words were read from our ancient stories of salvation,

In C as he took his place among all the saints in the church triumphant,

In this meal we are about to share,

And I hope and pray that TONIGHT, this very night,

We all,

Each and every one of us take at least a very small ember of that fire,

If not a blazing torch,

Out into the darkness of this world in defiance of the sin and death we have not yet fully escaped.

Reassuring others that we are carrying the fire.

A fire ignited on a cross,

A fire that we have lit together once again on this most holy of nights,

Just as Christ’s Church has done for over 2000 years.

Amen

Sources: 

McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

Disclaimer: My thoughts are my own and do not represent the Department of Defense, US Navy, USMC, or the Navy Chaplain Corps.