Easter Vigil Year B 2024

Title

The once for all and never ending story

Outline

There is a never ending story of God

There is a four page prayer in the Divine Liturgy of St Basil that covers our readings, the story that begins with creation, continues with fall, follows the narrative of redemption through patriarch and prophet and ends with the New Testament, with our Epistle and Gospel. It is a story without an end, for it continues down the corridors of history and beyond the end of this creation only to get lost in the final timeless union with our beloved. that is what we see in our readings. We are baptized into Christ’s death and we will be united with him in a resurrection like his, walking into the light in newness of life. We are living for God in Christ Jesus, now and beyond time.

But much of what we know takes place in very concrete time.

Jesus was crucified under Pontius PIlate, a governor known from history. He died outside the then-existing city of Jerusalem during the Highpriesthood of Caiaphas. And the total degradation ritual of crucifixion is witnessed to in Roman sources, although rarely, because “cross” was a vulgar word to Romans.

At least two, and perhaps all three of the women who witnessed the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, knowing that the burial has hasty, bring spices prepared over the sabbath, presumably to “do it right” as burial preparations were usually women’s work. This was normal enough.

Then it gets abnormal, for the stone that had been worked into place like a cork in a bottle was rolled to the side. Inside is a young man in a white robe (unusual in that end of the Mediterranean). Somebody notices a detail: he was sitting on the right side (of the tomb? of the doorway? or the bench archisoleum where the body had lain?).

He speaks: “Don’t be surprised, for I know you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. But he is raised to life again and is not here. Look (perhaps gesturing); there is the place where they laid him [36 hours ago].”

But then they are entrusted with a message. “[No need for anointing now so] go and tell his disciples and Peter [he tactfully does not say why Peter is singled out].” What are they to say? “He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.” They are apostles to the apostles.

Yes, I am aware that the other accounts differ, but of course they would if this really happened. First, different gospel writers were interested in different aspects. Second, different witnesses remembered different details. If they all agreed we would suspect the story was false news.

Once on is willing to accept the idea of a transcendent divine or spiritual world or power, thought, the different narratives make sense, the one in Mark being that of Peter himself. They are all concrete, culturally and physically correct, and emotionally believable.

And they all have the same point (found in a verse left out of our reading): the women rushed off immediately, overcome by shock and awe, so awed and so in fear of not delivering the message right were they that they neither greeted people on the way nor broadcast the message, delaying their getting to the disciples. They were focused on doing what they had been told.

Blessed are we if our response to our experience of the resurrected Jesus and his message to us is the same.