The Easter Vigil

Easter Vigil 1

Episcopal Church of the Messiah California

“Dear friends in Christ: On this most holy night, in which our Lord Jesus passed over from death to life, the Church invites her members, dispersed throughout the world, to gather in vigil and prayer.” —Book of Common Prayer (Church Publishing, 1979), p. 285.

The Easter Vigil is one of the church's most intricate and beautiful services of the year. The challenge is that it happens only once a year, making it hard to remember all the small details each time. As a result, there can sometimes be more chaos than the church would like on this evening. However, this also adds to its beauty: light and creation emerging from chaos. The service begins with lighting the Paschal candle from a fire, usually outdoors. The large, lit candle then enters the church into total darkness. 

The deacon carries the Paschal candle as they light the congregation’s candles while singing “The Light of Christ” three times in a slightly higher pitch. The deacon then chants the beautiful Exsultet.

It is time for me to pass the Exsultet to someone else. I have loved singing the Exsultet for over seventeen years. It has been a privilege. Our former deacon at St. Mark’s, Susan, sang the Exsultet for three years. I enjoyed listening to her practice and beautifully singing it from her heart. Michael, one of our priests, chanted it the following year, and our rector, Barkley, now chants the Exsultet. 

Old Testament readings about God’s history with His people follow the Exsultet. Next come baptisms, crying babies, and curious toddlers escaping from their parents, all still in the dark. Finally, the cacophony of the loud noise from bells of every size announces that Christ has risen indeed. The lights come on, and we see all the flowers of Easter decorating the inside of the church. Then, we celebrate the first new Eucharist of the Easter season. 

The service might be like what the women carrying spices experienced when they arrived at the empty tomb on that early Easter morning. They saw one or two angels in dazzling white, telling them they were the first to learn that Jesus had risen from the dead!

This is the Easter message: Jesus defeated death and rose from the dead. We will rise from the dead. We also have the promise that we will find resurrection amid all the suffering and unnecessary deaths caused by a virus and the social and racial injustice in our world. This year, we especially pray for peace and resurrection for the people of Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan, and the people in our state still suffering from previous tornadoes.

Joanna. joannaseibert.com   https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Good Friday and the Women Who Weep

Good Friday

“The courageous women who weep…”—John 18:1-19:42.

“On Good Friday, so much focus is rightfully on Jesus’ suffering on the cross. But let’s look down below him and see the courageous women of John’s story. In memory of them, let us pray for women who today will weep for their children, refusing to be comforted. And let us hold in prayer the women in today’s Golgothas who, in the face of horrible suffering, somehow find the strength to hold each other up.”—Eileen D. Crowley, “Sunday’s Coming” in The Christian Century (4/11/2017).

In Arkansas, starting on Easter Monday, 2017, eight executions were scheduled over ten days because one drug had an expiration date at the end of that month. There had been no executions for twelve years. I remember that earlier execution well, because I was a deacon at our cathedral, which is close to the governor’s mansion. Eric Nance was executed for the death of 18-year-old Julie Heath. We held an ecumenical prayer service for both the person to be executed and the person he killed. I played the harp at the service, probably the African American spiritual, “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.” Afterwards, we went to the governor’s mansion and sang and prayed by candlelight until after the execution.

All the men on death row had killed young women. I wonder what these girls are praying for now in eternal life, and if they are lighting candles. Some stories about the men reveal that they had terrible lives with a lack of love from women, like those who followed Jesus.

My prayers today are that governors across our country will halt executions, and ultimately, this state will abolish the death penalty.

My third prayer is that we will do our best to raise strong and loving women, like the ones at the cross with Jesus, so their children will understand love and avoid violence against others, especially women.

Meditate on this image from the Chapel of Joseph or Arimathea at the National Cathedral. Reflect on the wrongful death of Jesus today. Also, pray for the many people around the world who are unjustly suffering and dying. Remember those who are ill or have died because of the recent epidemic. Keep in your thoughts those still enduring the effects of the tornadoes. Pray for the families, women, and children in Ukraine, Gaza, Israel, the Middle East, and Sudan.

I share with you a Good Friday poem by my childhood friend, Zane Baker, a loving and strong woman from Winston-Salem.

Think of the many crosses we live

The Thrills/ and Tough Times

The Tall Trees/ Torn Trunks

The Terrifying Tempest/or Tender Tranquil

The Tiny/ the Tremendous

The unTouchable Twinkles alofT

All Tended with love.

Joanna. joannaseibert.com https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Buechner: Remembering Maundy Thursday

Buechner: Remembering Maundy Thursday

“WHAT YOU ARE GOING to do,’ Jesus says, ‘do quickly.’ … Jesus tells them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death,’ and then asks the disciples to stay and watch for him while he goes off to pray. … His prayer is, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will but what thou wilt,’—this tormented muddle of a prayer which Luke says made [Jesus] sweat until it ‘became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.”

He went back to find some solace in the company of his friends, but when he arrived, he found them all asleep. ‘The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak,’ he said, and you get the sense he was speaking to himself as well as to them.”—Frederick Buechner, “Last Supper” in The Faces of Jesus: A Life Story (Paraclete Press, 1974).

We constantly grapple with our own humanity. Many spiritual friends I meet, including myself, spend a lifetime striving for perfection. Holy Week is a time to reflect on Jesus’ struggle with his humanity, as best depicted in the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke at the Passion Gospel readings on Palm Sunday.

 On Maundy Thursday in these Gospels, Jesus reveals how complex the human condition is. As he asks for this cup to pass, he sweats “blood.” On Good Friday, we read from John as Jesus cries out as he dies of thirst.

A large painting of Jesus praying at Gethsemane hangs at the front of the sanctuary inside the Methodist Church where I grew up in Virginia. The image of Jesus praying in the Garden differs from other depictions of his prayer in the Gospels. A thorn bush is beside him, and the sleeping disciples in the distance are barely visible. This time, Scripture shows us Jesus’ human side. This image is a reminder to hold onto when we pray through tough situations and feel alone. 

We can relate to and identify with Jesus and others who have experienced similar struggles. I observe this in grief recovery groups, where people listen because they understand the pain others are going through. I see this in twelve-step groups, where alcoholics, addicts, and co-dependents hear from others walking a similar path. 

It's amazing that our God loves us so much that God chose to be among us and suffer. This week, we especially remember that God has experienced and understands what it's like to suffer and be human. There is no greater love. 

dan abrams

I picture each of us praying, sometimes in distress, beside Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Unlike the disciples, we have some understanding of the danger ahead. I see each of us praying with Jesus in the garden, asking that “this cup will pass.” He is right there with us, fully aware and experiencing exactly what we are going through. There is no greater love than His Presence in our times of great stress.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com. https://www.joannaseibert.com/