Times of Living In-between

On this Holy Saturday evening, when I know MSP blog-readers probably won’t see this until after Easter, if at all.  I am writing as a way to reflect on my thoughts of today. I have long experienced this day between the anguish of Good Friday and the joy of Easter Sunday as a kind of disturbing void. This morning I finally finished Philip Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew, and was struck by his closing comments about the meaning of this day:

…in a real sense we live on Saturday, the day with no name. What the disciples experienced in small scale—three days, in grief over one man who had died on a cross – we now live through on cosmic scale. Human history grinds on, between the time of promise and fulfillment. Can we trust that God can make something holy out of a world that includes (Yancey, who wrote in 1995, says Bosnia and Rwanda; I’d now substitute Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Nigeria, among others) and inner-city ghettos and jammed prisons in the richest nation on earth? It’s Saturday on planet earth; will Sunday ever come? ...It is a good thing to remember that in the cosmic drama, we live out our days on Saturday, the in-between day with no name.

This afternoon I received an email from a former rector, retired bishop and beloved friend of almost 40 years, updating friends on the condition of his wife, Barbara, also a beloved friend, who experienced a brain aneurysm last Palm Sunday afternoon and has been hospitalized in intensive care since then. While Barbara’s doctors consider her to be in danger for several more days, her spirit is incredibly strong and she has made amazing progress. Her husband wrote today:

So for all your prayers and/or fervent hopes, we thank you from some place in our souls that has been bountifully fed. You are helping us walk the tightrope between anxiety and hope. It is a Holy Saturday kind of reality that we are in right now. Our Holy Saturday will be extended this year. We believe that we are past the worst of Good-Friday-like dread, but we are not yet ready to sing Alleluia. In our good time, we trust we will echo the Alleluias that many of you will be singing this Sunday.

And so today I have come at last to glimpse the meaning of Holy Saturday, at least for me. It is a metaphor for the in-between time, not only between Jesus’ death and resurrection or other specific events in our lives, but as the time in which we all live out our lives, in-between what happened, what is promised, and what we hope is to come.

Nancy Warren

It Will Be Alright

It is probably scandalous to admit, especially on Easter, that  I have always struggled with the likelihood of resurrection.  I have never been able to "just believe" it.  While I was in seminary, I had a professor who insisted that Jesus' resurrection was not a historic event.  Dr.Joseph Weber would point to the four Gospel accounts to back up his assertion that no one is reported seeing or in any way experiencing the actual resurrection.   If there are no personal accounts of what happened when the dead body of Jesus became alive, then it is not a part of recorded history.

As I continue in my Lent discipline of following Kathy Staudt's challenge What if it's All True, I again face my doubts.  I must insist that I see doubt as the refiners fire for faith, and I am in no way disparaging doubt.  But what if it is true, which is not about if the events are factual, but as Kathy notes, "(w)hat if the whole thing is a whole lot bigger than we thought?"

Mark Harris, an Episcopal priest in Lewes, Delaware and blogger at Preludium, describes a recent dream in his post: A dream: It will all be alright.  In his dream, he found himself in a room with anxious people, and realized he was in a gathering of people perplexed by the death of Jesus.

The feeling is that of a funeral parlor where a person had died unexpectedly or out of order. There is the anxious and questioning presence of a doubt – the doubt that there was meaning in this life and if in this life, in ours as well.  Very quickly, and without much contact with others in the room, I took on their anxious questioning.

And then someone entered the room who seemed to absorb all that anxiety, and without addressing the group as a whole,  and without even being a person of note ( I don’t have any sense of what he or she looked like, although I knew the presence of the person, as did everyone else), the person spoke and said,

“It will all be alright. Just as I said. It will be alright and what I promised will be true.”

I was positive it was Jesus, and that I was one of his friends and a follower and that I was meant to be there.

(I recommend reading the whole article and look at the block print that he created after the dream.)

Rev. Harris' description of a presence, a person, who absorbed the anxiety, spoke of reassurance and pointed them to the future seems very right to me.  As he notes, "At the same time I didn't see Jesus, or at least not to recognize him. But I knew he was there." 

That kind of knowing something is true, that kind of shift in perspective to seeing something or someone not previously seen or understood makes more sense to me than magical appearances and disappearances.  I have experienced times when a Presence has calmed my fears and released me from doubt. But those kinds of experiences are also impossible to describe or explain to someone else. 

So maybe in telling that story of people's experience of the resurrected Christ, as we all do when telling a story, the actual facts were rearranged, some dropped and a few bits added to make it better?  So, the story we have may not describe exactly the events, but does carry the essential truth of the experience?  That sounds like truth to me. 

As we sing together "Christ the Lord is risen to today!" this Sunday morning, I will be able to accept my doubt while also knowing that it is true:

Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!

Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia!

 Bruce Calvin

 

The Great Vigil of Easter

The Great Vigil of Easter was celebrated as early the 2nd century as recorded in the Apostolic Traditions of Hippolytus. Marion Hatchett writes in his commentary on the American Prayer Book,

In the Great Vigil of Easter we celebrate and make present the pivotal events of the Old and New Testament heritage, the Passover of the Hebrews from the bondage of slavery in Egypt to the freedom of the Promised Land, the Passover of our Lord Jesus Christ from death, and our own Passover from the bondage of sin and death to the glorious liberty of new life in Jesus Christ.

The vigil opens with the kindling of a new fire and the blessing of the fire. From the new fire the Paschal Candle is lit and taken into the church to the chant “The light of Christ, thanks be to God." From the light of the Paschal Candle other candles are lit, before it is placed by the reading stand. A deacon or member of the congregation then sings the Exsultet, a poetic prayer for light which celebrates the victory of our mighty King. Symbolically, this light of Christ is how the lessons are then read. This year, the traditional nine lessons will be read. Between each lesson, canticles, psalms, or anthems are interspersed, which amplify the meaning of the lesson.

For many centuries the Great Vigil was the one time each year when new members, known as Catechumens, were baptized and received into the complete fellowship of the church. Our vigil service this year will have a time for renewal of our Baptismal Vows, followed by the Eucharist.

The Eucharist at the vigil is considered the first Easter Day service of Holy Communion. Once again, the celebrant will proclaim Alleluia. Christ is risen!  This is the first time since the beginning of Lent that we have heard the word "Alleluia."  It is followed by the people's response, The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia! Later in the Eucharistic prayer is the proclamation, Alleluia! Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. The congregation responds, Therefore let us keep the feast, Alleluia! It is during the singing of the Gloria in Excelsis when the chapel is transformed from its Lenten bareness into full Easter glory as the lilies are brought in and candles on the altar are lit.

In some parishes, following the Easter Blessing and final dismissal, the congregation throws a party to celebrate the resurrection, complete with lots of food, libations, and dancing.

Fr. Showers