The Easter Vigil

There comes a time when someone dies who we love dearly.  It is devastating.  Family and friends surround us, bring food and support that is at least vaguely comforting.  The funeral and burial happen in a matter of such a short time.  Then we are left alone.  There are promises, some of them kept, of staying in touch.  But within a few days we are on our own.  People go about the business of living and so must we.  The silence and emptiness is unbelievable.  It is a time of being between two worlds.  Nothing seems real anymore and we reside in a state of unknowing.  Our relationship with life is being redefined.  This experience is played out in The Great Easter Vigil.

Only a part of Christianity observes The Easter Vigil.  I'm not sure why it isn't more universal because the ritual is quite powerful.  The church is stripped of all vestments and ornamentation on Thursday night and remains barren through Good Friday and all day Saturday.  The water is drained from the fonts.  Lights are extinguished.  It is dark, silent and empty.  This is that period of in-between that we suffer after the funeral when family and friends depart.  Visiting the church during this time prior to the Easter Vigil is somehow comforting.  It gives us a sense of the universal experience of grief.  Then the most wonderful thing happens at dusk.  People gather outside of the church where a fire is started.  The priest lights the Easter candle from the fire and then everyone lights their own candle from it.  The light is returned to the inside of the church.  It is the victory of light over the darkness, good over evil, love over hatred and joy over sorrow.  This is the promise of new beginnings.

The Easter Vigil

Penn Family Memorial at North Lawn Cemetery, Utica, Ohio

The morose truth that we learn to forget is that death is our common experience.  This forgetting is a kind of saving grace in our day to day life. But death is at the core of our being.  It is exposed at extreme intervals and faced when someone we love is taken from us.  The grief is not only overwhelming but contains a kind of personal expectation.

I remember my father's funeral.  The family was gathered in the little room adjacent to the casket and just out of sight from the other mourners.  It was quiet as we waited for the service to begin.  One of my aunts turned to her sister and whispered "I wonder who will be next."  The words, though quiet, echoed in my heart.  What an ominous thought!  She was referring to herself, her sisters and brother...my dear aunts and uncle.  Two had passed before my Dad.  Five remained.  Someone would be next.  One day they would all be gone.  And of course, it came to pass. The emptiness that follows death seems unbearable.  We have been left alone and abandoned.  The time that follows the ceremonies and burial are dark.  We are numbed and seem to be just going through the motions.  There is little consolation.

These are the experiences of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil.  The church enters into death.  We stop our rush to the future and sit in collective sorrow.  We can the imagine the grief, fear and hopelessness of Jesus' family, friends and followers.  We can do this because we too have experienced the death of a loved one.  No one is spared.

It is, however, at the darkest hour on Holy Saturday that the unexpected happens and continues to happen.