Rector's Reflection: This is the Night, April 19, 2025

Beloved Members of St. Martin’s,

Today, for me, two events collide. First today is the 30 anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing. As someone who had countless elderly loved ones who went into that building all the time, it was especially frightening for me and my family in those first few hours. It was such a shock to me that it took me twenty years to go to the Memorial and Museum that now stands on the site.

And then, today is Holy Saturday.  This is the day that we remember Jesus in the tomb. Tradition says that he was not resting, but actually went to empty out the abode of the dead, sometimes called Hell, first, to welcome them to paradise. My remembrance of the Oklahoma City Bombing and the domestic terrorists who accomplished this terrible act has a very “Holy Saturday” feel to it.

But then there is the night. And this night provides a balm to my soul, and helps free me from my continued heartbreak over the violence and hatred this day represents.

Because tonight is the night of the Great Vigil of Easter. We celebrate it tonight because in Jewish custom, a new day began at sundown, and we are told in the Biblical witness in the gospels that, no matter how early the women who came to anoint Jesus’s body got to the tomb, even before dawn, Jesus was already risen.

Tonight we will light a new fire, and light the new paschal candle, and process into the nave of the church by candlelight as the Exsultet, an ancient hymn of rejoicing, is chanted. After we recount the saving history of God, we then celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. I hope many of you will be here, and bring some bells to ring---that’s another fun part of the tradition.

At several points in the Exsultet, we are reminded “This is the night.” This is the night of liberation— for deliverance from death and sin is indeed liberation, that frees us all to pull ourselves from the orbits that force some into oppression and entices some into the role of oppressor. This is the night when instead of being plunged into the waters up to our neck, we have laid before us instead the dry land of deliverance for the life of the world. And we shout Alleluia to God. This is the night we are delivered like a newborn, from sin to grace. This is the night we remember our baptism, and that that baptism was itself a resurrection for us from the shadow life we once lived into the life in Christ that fulfills the humanity God has consecrated and perfected in Jesus which we are all called to model by living for each other. And we shout Alleluia to God. This is the night when Love’s call transforms darkness into light, and that light beckons us to turn again to our proper course, our proper orbit around the one who is our All-in-All, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Shepherd. This is the night when Love repeatedly bids us not to be afraid, for through fear we close our hearts to keep prisoner the little we have, rather than open them to receive the abundance offered to us by a Savior who holds nothing back, not even himself, that we may have life by loving and serving the world. And we shout Alleluia to God.

Alleluia!

In Christ,

Mother Leslie+

(The image above is a panoramic photo I took of the Survivor Tree at the site of the Oklahoma City Bombing.)