We gather once again on this Holiest Night of the Christian year. It seems like all other Easter Vigil nights of yesteryear in this church. And yet at previous Easter Vigils, the tabernacle would be open and empty- a gaping hole. This time, the Lord is present and yet the gaping hole is all around us. How do you explain the shuttering of not just one country but the entire world? How do you explain the holiest time of the year being live streamed only and churches shuttered? Our attention is on flattening the curve but what about the 17 million and counting, many who live from paycheck to paycheck and now are out of work. If we sense a menace out there, we are in good company – here is Henry Kissinger in an opinion piece in the WSJ – ‘The surreal atmosphere of the COVID-19 pandemic calls to mind how I felt as a young man in the 8th infantry division during the Battle of the Bulge. Now as in late 1944, there was a sense of inchoate danger, aimed not at any particular person but striking randomly and with devastating effect’ If there is a time when we celebrate Easter with either the greatest cynicism or with an almost avid and desperate hope – then it is surely this Easter night.
And yes, what is Easter in the face of all this? I speak as one who like you walks the razor edge of faith. We are not dispensed from the onrush of chaos and pandemonium and hideous death. If there is even one dark corner on the globe, we own it. It is happening to our flesh and blood. Is there a real, more real than the present of irredeemable gloom? Is there a real that can defang the present panic stricken narrative filling up all the spaces of our attention? I was pondering our Gospel in the light of all this.
This particular narrative has always intrigued me because it runs counter to my expectations…