Easter Vigil

A Reflection for Easter Eve Vigil       All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC 

March 31, 2018                                   Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Easter Vigils 1982 Through 2018

Thirty six years ago I participated in my first real Easter Vigil. It was during my first year in Seminary and we had been involved in church services since Palm Sunday to learn how to do Holy Week. Saturday night came, and we went to bed and took a nap. At about 1:30 AM we woke up, gathered my daughter out of bed, and went over to St. Luke's Chapel where we joined the other seminarians and their families. My daughter carried her pillow and found a space at the end of a pew where she could continue to nap, leaning her head and pillow against the wall. The families came in by flashlight from the married students’ housing and other places on the Domain. The unmarried students came from their dormitory, getting rid of their last beers of the evening. Mothers carried their very young, fathers had their toddlers slung over their shoulders, and teenagers were evenly divided between grumbling sleepy zombies and supercharged extroverts connecting with friends whispering in the semidarkness of the chapel. Many of the families had noise makers, horns, drums, and the like.

Outside the chapel some of the seminarians gathered, and those on the Chapel Rota had their tasks to do while the rest of us were taking it all in. Some of the aged Boy Scouts swapped opinions about the best way to start a fire without a match, if we were to really be authentic; the partisans for the efficacy of flint and steel outnumbered the friction-based procedure of rubbing sticks together. The female seminarians just rolled their eyes about the constant ways we men tried to compete against each other as part of the manhood stuff. So much of what we do is tied up into our ego concerns.

We waited in the dark and in that dark I, and maybe others, faced the shadows of our lives which we were so anxious to deny because we all wanted to be seen as especially “Holy” by our faculty. Passing the courses was going to be hard enough as we had found out that first semester, and if we worked and studied hard enough, we could get a degree, but we also needed to get a faculty vote recommending ordination and that was based not on academics but if they felt as if we might be the kind of Priest they could go to. Many of us, with the exception of the insufferable, arrogant ones with dreams of being a Bishop (which whom I wanted to belong) had feelings that we could be “holy enough” people. We knew the darknesses of our own hearts and secretly wondered if we could ever live into the vows of our Baptism and Ordination.

The darkness was not our enemy but our friend in that we could let go of those ego needs and realize that we were not alone; it was not all up to us. We had come here because we loved Jesus, and we kept the small flame in our soul that God was not in a tomb somewhere out there, but alive and loving us, even if we failed as the disciples had all done. In that love, while we knew that there would be many new opportunities to fail in the future, we also knew that all things are redeemed. We may not end up being Priests but maybe we might be better followers of the Resurrected Christ.

It was now time to start, and the fire was kindled and came to life. The Paschal candle was lit and the procession torches sheltered to keep the wind from blowing them out. The prayers began, the one holding the Paschal Candle started off down the center aisle, the cantor started the singing of the Exsultet, and the acolytes carried the procession torches. The acolytes stopped at every pew to light the candles, the flame passing from one candle to another until the chapel was a sea of small flames. The torches were placed at the lectern, but the Altar Candles were not lit. The lessons began, nine of them each followed by a canticle or psalm sung. There was a sermon followed by the renewal of the Baptismal Vows and then some silence, as our handheld candles were getting dangerously close to burning our fingers.

Then the first light of sunrise would hit the stained glass windows of the Disciples and Apostles. I seem to remember that it lit the face of the window of the Beloved disciple, a soft-faced, long-haired, rather hermaphroditic John, which I thought sent a wonderfully subconscious message that the Ordained leadership of the church ought to be both male and female. If not, it should have because it told me that I didn’t need to waste time trying to impress others. The Resurrection was proclaimed, the bells and noisemakers exploded, the sleeping babies screamed, the lights went on, the candles were extinguished, and we all shouted, “The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!” We then began the second part of the service as the sunlight, or as the Liturgy said “the Morning Star that knows no setting” flooded our souls. We would then have breakfast or head off to the field places of our churches.

After I was ordained I found that there was not that much enthusiasm for waking up at 2:30 AM in any parish I worked. The students at the colleges liked a midnight service, and the regular parishes wanted something earlier, around 8:00PM after it got dark. Sometimes we would do a much shorter sunrise service, but I have always missed the darkness where our lover Jesus whispers to our souls.

May God speak to you by word or dream, in the night that is still to come, so you can begin a new day living into the Divine promises and leave the past behind.

Easter Vigil 1982

A few glimmering lights show the way to empty pews,

sleeping toddlers slumped over the father shoulders,

blanketed mother arms act as swaddled infant holders,

few whispering words as one last pre-service schmooze.

The lights are dimmed further to dark as river Styx

as outside the grown up boy scouts try to remember

how flint and stone jump a spark to light the tinder

racing to be the first competing with rubbing sticks.

Finally, it all comes together kindling a Vigil light Fire,

the new big candle is processed to the ancient sound

of time past, lighting the small candles passed around

till it reaches a place where angels sing with the choir.

The Morning Star that knows no setting is set to shine

after the lessons of promises are heard one more time.