Holy Saturday

This sermon was preached at St. John’s Church, St. Eleanors during the 2023 Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday.

Yesterday morning on Good Friday our guest preacher, Josh, spoke in a moving away about the presence of love in what is the darkest moment in human history, how love – a profound and otherworldly, even unimaginable for us – love is manifested not in spite of the murder of the Son of God, but through it.

He quoted the Song of Solomon, a strange book of the Hebrew scriptures, really an erotic poem, and one that is still read around this time of year, the Passover, for Jews. He told us how it is written as a Bridegroom (God) to the Bride (the church; us), and how it speaks of the Father’s tender yet immense love for us, the way a lover might write to their beloved. He said that the bride speaks ill of herself, as we often do, doubting her beauty, her worth, and her desirability, her belovedness, but that the Bridegroom, God, responds as God does to us in such moments and says no, ‘you are bright’, that is, ‘you are loved.’

Amusingly, the Song of Solomon is also a good repository of lines to use with your spouse. What wife, perhaps, won’t go weak at the knees when they’re told, “I liken you, my darling, to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots,” or that their teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn, or their hair like a flock of goats descending a mountain. Different times, I guess.

But all of these charming pick-up lines are seated amidst what is a profound and moving expression of love and desire. So much so that a portion of the 2nd chapter is actually used quite frequently at weddings and is perhaps the most familiar verse from the whole book, “The Voice of my beloved!” cries the Bride, “he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills…my beloved spake, and said unto me, ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing bird is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.”

It’s a call from lover to beloved to be with, to be near, to leave behind whatever is dark and unpleasant and move towards something new and teeming with life– a sentiment handily reflected this time of year on PEI as we wait for the winter to pass and flowers to appear upon the earth.

And though betrayal doesn’t figure very much into the Song of Solomon, I found that this portion of the book reminds me of another Garden and of a betrayal, but not the one we’ve been hearing about all week. The first betrayal took place in the Garden of Eden, which we hear about tonight, when humanity took that first step towards fixating ourselves on ourselves and our desires, when we made the first idol and believed that we could be like God. And beautifully, even then, even in that betrayal what did God, the lover of our souls, first do? He looked for us.

God wanted us, missed us, longed for us, looked for us, “Where are you?” God called out, like a lost child seeking their parent, distressed, but because of our shame we hid from God, and we’ve hid from God ever since. This is why I said the other night that the movement of this week is less, perhaps, about us moving towards God and more about God moving towards us, looking for us, it’s why Josh reminded us that we don’t choose God, but God chooses us. God never stopped looking after the Garden, and God is still looking for us.

And this week there’s been no shortage of darkness and betrayal, as we’ve been hearing each day: Peter, Judas, Pilate, the people, in each – hopefully – we have been able to recognize the betrayals of the world, and betrayals that we’ve committed.

This is, partly, why our service begins in darkness tonight. It has been a dark end to the week. The movement, as I said on Palm Sunday would go from jubilance and cheering to repeated, and bloodthirsty shouts for the death of an innocent man. The darkness of the first half of this service is the darkness of the betrayal – the darkness of a time in which Christ is dead and not yet risen, the darkness of the confusion of the disciples and all who loved him.

And for 1600 years Christians have lit fire on this night.

It’s why we do not gather in the early evening, anticipating the setting of the sun, but at night, as we anticipate its rising. The flame we lit in the fire, and in the Paschal candle represent to us Jesus – the light that rises in our darkness. The darkness of our disappointments, our betrayals, those negative and impinging thoughts of unworthiness that plague us, the things we do not have and wish we did, and the things we have and wish didn’t, the darkness of our shame, our guilt, regret, and disappointment, our loneliness and our fear.

The fire that is really the focal point of the first half of our liturgy this evening is Jesus’ response to our darkness and our death, a reminder – as we know – that, as the Psalmist says, “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,” that the sun (taken both ways) is rising.

This liturgy, strange and perhaps long as it is, is meant to take us somewhere, to move us in heart and mind outside of this world and of ourselves to the eternal motions of God and what God is doing for us. We come tonight, more plainly than ever, to a wedding feast as the things of heaven are wed to those of earth, as the Exsultet said, and we come to have our darkness turned to light, our fasting to feasting (as we’ll do after) and our mourning to joy. It is the night upon which our Lord, the Lover of our souls says to us, “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”

Just about 1624 years ago, a preacher preached what might be one of the greatest sermons of all time since it is still being preached at many Easter Vigils.

St. John Chrysostom in this sermon proclaims the hope that Jesus has come to give us this Easter, and always, and I quote from it here as I do every year:

If any have toiled from the first hour, let them receive their due reward; if any have come after the third hour, let him with gratitude join in the Feast!” writes Chrysostom, “and he that arrived in the sixth hour, let him not doubt; for he shall sustain no loss…For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first. He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, as well as to him that toiled from the first.

First and last alike receive your reward; rich and poor, rejoice together! Sober and slothful, celebrate the day! You that have kept the fast, and you that have not, rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!

Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith. Enjoy all the riches of His goodness! Let no one grieve at his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the death of our saviour has set us free. He has destroyed it by enduring it.

Hell took a body and discovered God. It took earth and encountered heaven. It took what it saw and was overcome by what it did not see. O Death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!

Christ is risen, and the evil ones are cast down!

Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!

Christ is risen, and life is liberated!

Christ is risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;

For Christ having risen from the dead,

Is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power and dominion unto ages of ages.

Amen