With all the light drained from the world, we gathered at the foot of the cross, just a day ago on Good Friday, looking up at our Savior gazing down lovingly at us. And in the terrible darkness and emptiness of the aftermath of that moment, when our Lord’s body was resting in a tomb, we came to the church this night, to keep vigil. Since we lingered in this silent emptiness a year ago, so much has changed. There are some, dear to us, who aren’t here with us. We came here to the tomb tonight to keep vigil, sad and bereft at their absence, and we remember.
Over the past year, others have joined us in the uncomfortable silence of waiting at the empty tomb. Some of them have been through the valley of the shadow of death more than any of us could imagine. Many of us have grieved painful losses in our own lives. Perhaps we’ve left a past sense of security for a present feeling of deep uncertainty. But all of us, no matter what our life story is, have lost something. We’ve lost minutes of our lives, hairs on our heads, friends, and perhaps our hope. We’ve all done things we wished we hadn’t done and left others undone. We’ve lost more of our innocence. In some sense, we were all grieving as we entered the church doors this evening and sat in the darkness, although some of us may have been more willing to admit it. We were all in Egypt, slaves to sin, anxiety, and fear. We were all victims of a cruel world giving us more work to do each day but also telling us to gather more bricks to do the work while we were at it. We were all on one side of a vast expanse of water looking across, wondering how we’d ever get to the other side.
But then, something happened in the dark emptiness before the tomb, both expected and unexpected. With one flick of flint against stone, light was kindled. God said, “Let there be light!” And there was light. And we began to see each other’s faces, dimly at first. We saw the face of a fellow parishioner across the church who had had a particularly horrible year. We saw the face of a newcomer to the church, seeking community in a life of loneliness. We saw another who knows deeply the cost of speaking the truth and yearning for freedom. We saw the faces of the sick, the youthful, and the aged all searching for something deep in a shallow world. And we realized that we were hardly alone. This spark of light, lighting our world and the faces of our friends in Christ, was really kindled at the foot of the cross yesterday as our Lord looked down on us in love. We forgot about it as the emptiness of loss overwhelmed us.
And then, that tiny pinprick of light moved slowly through our midst, our pillar of fire by night, leading us through the darkness and wilderness of our lives. And the Red Sea parted, and we left death and sin behind, and we crossed over into the Promised Land. By that same tiny dot of light, we remembered. We remembered that from empty nothingness, God created all that is good. From slavery, God brought us to freedom. From sinful anarchy, God renewed the face of the earth and called us again to goodness. From dry bones of apathy and malaise, God gave energy and a Spirit of newness to humanity. From the despair of exile, God gave us the hope of bringing us home once again.
Hearing all this, we remembered on the other shore, by the light kindled by a God of love. Our hope was also rekindled, because it was shaky when we entered the church tonight. Of course, we remembered that our Lord had once said that “he must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified.” Because we remembered that, we had fallen into despair. That’s all we remembered in our despondency and sorrow and hopelessness. But when the light was kindled, on the other side of the water, standing at an empty tomb, we remembered that other part, which had been drowned out by living in a world oriented towards death. Our Lord also said, on the third day, I will rise.
And now, it all makes sense. Why are we looking for the living among the dead? Why are we moping in the graveyard? Why are we hanging onto that anger and those resentments? Why do we refuse forgiveness? Why are we giving up on our future? Why are we looking backwards instead of forwards?
When the women who had followed Jesus from Galilee to the cross returned to the tomb on this day, the eighth day of a new creation, they were living in a world of death. They brought spices to anoint a dead body. They were fully prepared for the stench of a decaying corpse and the sadness of looking at the inert face of the one they had known and loved.
But upon arriving, they were reminded of our Lord’s complete teaching, the full proclamation of the Easter Gospel. Why do you seek the living among the dead? And then they, like us this evening, remembered. They remembered the brutal execution of their friend on the cross, which they witnessed with their own eyes. They remembered how his cold body was laid in a tomb and sealed with a stone. But they also remembered that he said he would rise, and now, looking at the absence of a body in an empty tomb, it all made sense. And they ran and told the good news.
But they ran and told it to a world like ours, a world that resembles creation in reverse. It’s a world in which fear is choking the life out of all its inhabitants. It’s a world without hope, without a recognizable future. And so, the words of those first women apostles, whose voices were routinely ignored and stifled, seemed like an idle tale.
To powerful government officials whose power was and is built on the trampled souls of the poor, those words were and are an idle tale. To a nascent group of disciples thinking it had put its trust in the wrong person, those words were an idle tale. To a cowardly group of men who presumably hadn’t followed Jesus to the foot of the cross like the women, the brave women’s words seemed like an idle tale.
To everyone this night who will not have the courage to recall their own losses, their own sin, their own daily deaths, their own suffering, the Easter Gospel will seem like an idle tale. To the complacent and the powerful and the privileged who fail to recognize their own poverty, the words could seem like an idle tale. At least, until we look back across the empty tomb and Red Sea and see by a newly kindled light, a past that isn’t forgotten but is now redeemed.
The Easter Gospel was first preached by those women disciples not by an accident of history but because they had been with Jesus all the way to the cross. They had seen his torture, suffered it inside their souls. They had achingly watched his helpless body removed from the cross and sealed in a tomb, presumably forever. But they also went back, to remember what had happened. And when they returned to the tomb, they remembered what they’d forgotten. He would rise again, and he had. This story was only just beginning.
This is the night to remember. We remember not with maudlin sadness but with the desire for our memory to be reformed and redeemed by God. We remember because in remembering, the good news of Easter can never be just an idle tale. It’s those of us who have been face to face with death, those of us who have been persecuted or tortured, those of us who have held the hands of loved ones who are dying, those of us who have seen what’s dearest to us, even our very own parish, stand at the brink of the grave, who can be the most effective conveyors of the Easter proclamation. Like the women at the tomb, those of us who have known death run, unbidden, to tell the good news. On the other side of the Red Sea and the Jordan River and the waters of baptism, there is another story to tell.
So, we run. We hurry from the empty tomb and tell all those who need to remember, too. We proclaim that our haunted past is not eradicated but transfigured by the rising from the dead of Jesus, who gives us life. We announce to a world turned towards death that it, too, should look for hope among the living not among the dead, that a tomb of death is not permanently sealed by a stone. It’s indeed open to a new future. We announce to an enervated Church that every moment in Christ is a new creation. We tell each other, through the sharing of our own stories of loss and pain, that at the door to the empty tomb, we’re not looking for the dead but for the living, and all because Jesus, the one who died for the life of the world has risen as he said.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Great Vigil and First Mass of Easter
April 19, 2025