Easter vigil: 2017

Our Savior, Rock Hill, SC

This is the night

Some of you may have heard me, at the beginning of our service tonight, repeat the refrain: “This is the night …”

Most of the time over the last 40 years or so, as I have heard the words of the exsultet proclaimed, I have heard 2 voices. Sometimes 1 is stronger. Sometimes the other. One of them is the person doing the singing or the saying. The other voice is from somewhere else. It is a heavenly sort of voice. In fact, trying to think about it, I’m pretty sure it has been an angel of some sort.

This is the night

This is the night, when you brought our fathers, the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land.

This is the night, when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness of life.

This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.

How holy is this night, when wickedness is put to flight, and sin is washed away. It restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to those who mourn. It casts out pride and hatred, and brings peace and concord.

How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and man is reconciled to God.

Wow! Really? All that happened tonight?

I look around me, and I know there’s something else going on in these words. In this night.

Wait! What? I thought I was just quietly following the “service” you say?

For 40 years I’ve been trying to pay attention to my own perception that something extraordinary is, in fact, going on when we proclaim these words.

Later connection

It was some years after I first heard the refrain “This is the night” that I realized it must be connected in some way to a key element in a passover meal, called “The 4 questions” – or rather “1 questions with 4 answers.” The question is ``Why is this night different from all other nights? These are questions that are asked by the youngest child at the meal.

The questions in the Seder have to do with particulars of a Passover meal: bread/matza, bitter herbs, dipping vegetables in salt water, eating upright or eating reclining.

Now you may notice when you’ve heard those questions and their answers that the 1st and most important point of the Passover meal is to re-member the deliverance from slavery in Egypt – to tell the story in such a way that the past flows into the presence and all future generations will remember and know that God has delivered us from bondage.

You may notice, then, that that is where the Easter exsultet “This is the night” begins: This is the night, when you brought our fathers, the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land.

Each of these “songs” about night are a commentary on Our God delivers!

Commencement speech last year

A year ago the dean of Harvard Graduate School of Education delivered a commencement speech. It was filmed and shared on YouTube where it came to be viewed by millions of people – going viral I guess it’s called.¹

Reviewing the events of our lives, he charges his listeners to cultivate asking good questions. “Resist the temptation to have good answers.”

I recall the old rabbinic story about the young man running down the main street of his village shouting, “I’ve got the answer! I’ve got the answer! Please, quick, someone tell me the question!”

He proceeds to argue – or suggest – that being a good teacher is about teaching the art of asking good questions, not so much about passing on the right answers.

These are his words: {#excerpts}

“My final suggestion is that there are five truly essential questions that you should regularly ask yourself and others. My claim is that, if you get in the habit of asking these questions, you have a very good chance of being both successful and happy, and you will be in a good position to answer “I did” to the bonus question at the end.”

The first is a question my own kids are fond of asking, and it’s one you may have heard other teenagers pose — or maybe you still pose it yourself. The question is “Wait, what?” My kids typically pose this question when I get to the point in a conversation where I’m asking them to do a chore or two. From their perspective, they hear me saying something like: “blah, blah, blah, blah, and then I’d like you to clean your room.” And at that precise moment, the question inevitably comes: “Wait, what? Clean what?”

I agree with him that this question is the heart of all questions that amount to anything. Wait! What? It brings an awareness that at any moment we are going to be surprised and our presuppositions will be exposed as barriers to one of God’s fundamental characteristics.

It turns out God loves serendipity.

The second question the dean says is essential is “I wonder” which can be followed by “why” or “if.”

The third question is: “Couldn’t we at least…?”

The fourth question is: “How can I help?”

The fifth question, bringing these 5 nicely to a close, is this: “What truly matters?”

If we have lived our life asking those questions, the dean says, we will have found the path to asking what he called The Bonus question:

“And did you get what you wanted out of life, even so?”

He says:

The “even so” part of this, to me, captures perfectly the recognition of the pain and disappointment that inevitably make up a full life, but also the hope that life, even so, offers the possibility of joy and contentment.

The “even so” points to the fundamental grace and deliverance that is the point of this night.

Why is this night special

We should ask that question with our Jewish brothers and sisters as they ask it at their Passover meals: Why is this night special?

The angels –if we can hear them – give us the answers: If we can hear them over the voices of the people we are paying attention to while the angels sing around us.

This night is special because on it we remember the time that the women entered the tomb and discovered the first inkling of our ultimate deliverance. The women looked at the empty tomb and they went, “Wait! What?” This is not at all what they expected.

This night is blessed because we remember and make present before our very eyes, the wonder and innocence of children, seeing not just a bright shining star but the promise of the approaching day.

This night is holy because it gives us permission to wonder if the impossible is not just possible but present before our very eyes.

This night is like no other because it allows us to look at our neighbor, no matter the color, no matter the financial standing, whether they are responsible or not, the fallen, the vulnerable, even the rich and the successful – it allows us to look at our neighbor and ask: How can I help?

The answers we give to the question about this night are the answer to the question: What truly matters? The answer we give might be pleasing to God. It might not be to our liking. We most certainly will have fallen short even of the expectations we place on ourselves.

But however our answers go, no matter how well we hear the angels sing, what we proclaim tonight provides all the evidence we need to end our days, saying – in response to the question, “Did you get what you wanted out of life, even so?” – Yes! The Lord is Risen! Indeed!

By James Ryan on May 26, 2016 3:50 PM
Dean James Ryan’s prepared remarks at the 2016 HGSE Presentation of Diplomas and Certificates ↩

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