The Great Vigil of Easter-Rev Melanie Lemburg

 Easter Vigil 2021

 

        My dad is a gifted storyteller, so my memories of my childhood are woven through with stories.  In the daytime, he’d tell stories to entertain, creating imaginary characters who would do ridiculous things, and he’d also share humorous anecdotes from his daily life and his past.  (His most famous story hales from his early teenage years (1965), and it is the tale of how Lamar Gene Fortenberry wrestled the monkey at the Marion County fair in Columbia, MS.)

        At night after we’d read books before we’d say our prayers, he’d turn off the lights and tell me stories of his childhood-stories with lessons he had learned.

        But my favorite story would happen once a year.  On the eve of my birthday, my dad would tell me the story of the day I was born.  He’d put all of his storytelling gifts and flair to work, so that even to this day, I can picture the events of the day I was born, even though I can’t authentically remember them for myself.  It became an annual event, this holy remembering accomplished through story. 

        In the church, we have a fancy liturgical word for this holy remembering.  It is anamnesis, and it means that we remember and in that remembering we also, in some mysterious way, participate in the events of the past in this present moment.  It is at the heart of what we do as we gather on this holiest of nights.  We retell the stories that have been told thousands of times, passed down through the centuries from those who witnessed them first-hand to those of us who now participate in the events as if we had been there. 

        We hear the proclamation of God at creation—so good!  We feel the fear of the former slaves as their oppressors are bearing down on them and then the guilty relief as we see the walls of water crashing down upon those who would seek to enslave us.  We feel the rattling of the dry bones of Ezekiel’s graveyard in our very bones and breathe in the breath of God that gives us all life.  And we participate with the women in the shock and awe and joy and confusion of the resurrection, still to this day, wondering what it means for us.

        My dad’s annual retelling of the story of my birth would help me reconnect with the events and people from my past, and it would also help me be reconnected to my own identity.  So our gathering here tonight recalls us, who have been scattered throughout time and distance, and re-members us as the resurrected body of the Christ, the people whom God has chosen to create, protect and defend, reconstitute, redeem, and resurrect from sin and death.  As we tell these stories this night, we reconnect with our own identity as beloved children of God as we reaffirm our baptismal covenant and feel the splatter of holy water upon us once again to remember our baptism.  Tonight, the past and the future collapse into only the present, and we’ll greet the Lord’s resurrection as participants in this very real present.

        The good news of tonight is that the story continues, and we have our part in it.