Sermon for April 11, 2020 - Easter Vigil - Year A - The Rev’d Jeffrey W. Mello
Easter Vigil
April 11, 2020 Year A (COVID-19)
Preached at St. Paul’s Brookline Brookline, MA
The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello
Matthew 28:1—10
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
“So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.” (MT28:8)
Fear and great joy. The experience at the tomb of Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, the mixing of fear and joy in one, is an experience many of us know well. Great joy is often the partner of intense fear. We ride roller coasters for the joy borne of fear. New parents live with intense joy and boundless fear as they navigate their responsibility for a life.
Moving to a new city can be filled with joy and fear, as can be starting a new job or vocation, or falling in love.
I’ve experienced all of those. But I’ve never considered approaching Easter in the same way. With joy, absolutely. With joy and fear? Not until this year.
So I’m thankful for these women who remind me that transformation is often the product of seeking joy through facing fear.
These women, who were the first disciples, they felt joy and fear upon hearing the news that their greatest hopes had come true;
their deepest prayers had been answered.
That they felt joy tells us of their faith, their trust that it was true. The resurrection was what they had been told to expect.
Their joy is their heart’s response to the fulfillment of a promise from God.
That they felt fear tells us of their uncertainty of what it would look like, when they would get proof, what it would look like and what it would mean for the rest of their lives.
I join you at this Easter celebration with a fair amount of my own joy, and my own fear.
I know resurrection and new will happen. And I am uncertain of when, how I will know, when I will get proof and what it will mean.
At this moment in the pandemic, all I can hear is the earthquake that the women heard. I do not yet see that the stone has been rolled away. I do not know how this death-dealer of a virus will ultimately be overcome and I do not know at all what the world will look like on the other side of it all. I do not know what I will look like on the other side of it all.
Right now, I hear the earthquake the women heard and, like them approaching the tomb, I don’t yet know what it means.
There are tectonic plates shifting under our feet. Priorities have been shifted, focus has been narrowed, injustices have been highlighted and relationships have been strengthened and they have been strained. There are many things this earthquake of COVID-19 is rearranging. There are moments my heart feels like a fault line.
I know that some of the grumblings from beneath my feet that I hear are actually shifts that will bring new life into the world. There are rumblings that will show, ultimately, that death did not win, that love did, just as love always does.
Day by day there are reports of the giant stone being rolled away, bit by bit. The ground shakes as the stone is pushed aside by a million hands who are treating, and researching, and caring, and serving and sewing and feeding and loving.
This stone, too large for any one person to roll away, is meeting its match with a love that is bigger and stronger. It is a love that was there all the time, though all too dormant, until fear woke it up like the spring flowers that have pushed their way back up through the earth once again.
I hope this love never goes back to sleep. This love brings me great joy. It’s receding into complacency gives me reason to fear.
There are some who say that they can’t wait for things to go back to the way they were before. I’m not one of them. I want things to be better.
We are sacrificing too much to learn hard lessons, for those lessons to be forgotten when a trip to the grocery store becomes again simply an errand that needs doing.
We are learning what our priorities must be, and what they have been.
But what do we want them to be when how we spend our time returns to being a choice we make, rather than a choice made for us?
The thought of the world being more loving, more just, filled with more mercy and reconciliation fills me with joy, and fear.
My joy tells me I believe it could be true. My fear tells me I don’t yet know what it will look like or what it will mean for me.
For the two women leaving the tomb, and for the disciples who come to believe later, everything has changed. The power of the Roman oppressor now pales in comparison of the power of their God. They will move from this moment knowing just what God can do in their lives. What else might God do in their lives? It’s enough to fill one with joy and with fear.
I can’t ever remember a time when we, as a global community, were challenged to celebrate Easter while we were still unsure when the stone would roll away. Sure, some of us have been. Sadness and grief does not submit to the liturgical calendar. But this is a first for me in my life. We are celebrating Easter not as the disciples walking, eating, and talking with the risen Christ, but as the women who approach the tomb, knowing only that there has been certain death, holding onto a hope for certain life.
We celebrate this Easter with the women as they leave the tomb, certain that death did not get the last word, yet uncertain of what life would look like, even mean, from this time forward.
Joy and fear.
This scary time will end. Joy. We do not yet know when. Fear.
This pandemic will leave us as a global community changed forever. We do not yet know how. Joy and fear.
This experience will change us and our children in ways that could make us more of who God made us to be, or less. Joy and fear.
How would you like to be different on the otherside of COVID-19? How might you like your family to be different? Your community? Your church? What might our lives look like on the other side if we allow God to shape it?
Can you, right now, imagine a day on the other side?
On the other side of the empty tomb, on the other side of this pandemic, my priorities are aligned with God’s desires for me and my life.
On the other side, I am paying more attention to what really matters. I am remembering that I was never alone, though there were times I felt like I was.
On the other side, the homeless are beloved. People of color are treated, in every corner of life, as the beloved children of God they are. People are saying hi to one another on the street, and waiting patiently in line at the grocery store, simply grateful for a shopping cart full of the groceries they came in to get.
On the other side, I am thankful everyday for the love I have in my life from my family, my friends, my community and my God.
On the other side, there is a new life waiting for me. Waiting for you.
My faith assures me that is true, and I am joyful. I don’t yet know how or when, and that makes my heart beat just a little faster.
I am on the roller coaster. I am, in many ways, starting a new job, I am, emotionally and spiritually, moving to a new town. Most certainly, I am falling in love.
Right now, the ground shakes, the stone in front of the empty tomb resists easy removal. But it is moving. Jesus is not held captive. He is risen, just as he said he would be.
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
AMEN.
© 2020 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello