The Episcopal Church, USA

The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago




The Church of England

Easter Vigil 2002

Holy Innocents Episcopal Church

The Rev. Marion E. Kanour

“The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said….Go quickly and tell his disciples’….and so they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy.”

“Fear and great joy” would surely understate what the two women were experiencing as they ran out of the tomb to find the disciples.  Then they meet Jesus, himself, touch his feet and he speaks to them and instructs them to tell the disciples that he will appear to them in Galilee.  On the one hand, the two women are, no doubt, glad they have each other as a witness of what has occurred, since the appearances of the angel and of Jesus are so remarkable.  On the other hand, they may wonder if they will be believed when they find the disciples.  They will have to trust that Jesus will, in fact, appear to the disciples in Galilee, to attest to the fact of his resurrection, to prove to the disciples that what the two women said they had seen, they had, in fact, seen.  We know how the story ends…but just for tonight, imagine that we don't know. 

Imagine that we stand with the two women at the empty tomb.  Imagine that we see the angel, and flee with them from the tomb and then encounter the risen Lord and touch his feet.  We wouldn't have centuries of Christianity to help us make sense of our experience.  We wouldn't even have the certainty of the knowledge of Jesus’ appearance to his disciples.  We wouldn't yet know of Thomas placing his hand into the wounds of Jesus to prove to himself that this was really the man with whom he had eaten the Passover meal in the Upper Room, the man who died on the cross.  We only have the knowledge that the body is gone from the tomb—that much we can prove; and the appearances of the angel and of Jesus---which we can't prove, which must be taken on faith by those to whom we tell the story.  Do we tell the story?  Or do we wait, and let the risen Lord appear to others first? 

Why didn't he appear first to the disciples?  The disciples will wonder this themselves and question our credibility.  And yet, the disciples will have to face the awful truth:  Jesus appears to us because we go together to tend to the body in the tomb, unafraid to be seen by others as caring for the body of the man who was crucified.  The disciples have dispersed, are in hiding—we have to go find them, individually, to let them know of what we've seen, to tell them to go to Galilee.  Shall we tell the story or shall we wait until Jesus appears to others?   Shall we share our experience of hope, or must hope be experienced first-hand in order to be believed?  Is proclaiming “Alleluia, Christ is risen; the Lord is risen, indeed” sufficient or must we have an experience of the risen Lord for hope to replace despair? 

As you may know, I was a Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus for 2 years.  Though I left the order over 17 years ago, I remember still the summer I spent in Greenwich, Connecticut and the Convent of the Sacred Heart.  I had spent the previous year in Lake Forest, where I had taught at Woodlands Academy.  I was sent to Greenwich to serve as a counselor in a summer camp.  There were two sessions of the camp—the first for girls ages 8-10; the second for girls ages 12-14.  It was an outdoor camp on the 150 acre grounds of the convent.  We camped, had rudimentary showers, grew our own food and lived and worked without the aid of electricity.  It was a challenging summer in many ways.

Erin was one those challenges.  The staff was concerned about her from the very beginning of the second session.  Erin was 12.  She had long red hair that she wore in braids and freckles that only increased with her exposure to the sun; but even the sun couldn't brighten the sadness that seemed to fill her soul.  You could see it in her eyes on first meeting her.  We worried about her because of what appeared to be something like despair in her gaze.  She stayed busy with the work of being a camper, did her assigned chores and attended all the required meetings and events.  But during free time, she sought solitude and on returning to the group, always seemed sadder.  We encouraged her to spend her free time with others, and she would acquiesce for that given day….but the next day, she would return to her sad isolation. 

One afternoon we took the girls to the swimming hole on the property. We usually had general swim each day in the convent pool, but once or twice a session we took the campers to the hole, for the experience.  It was located on the rear of the property where a private quarry had been dug for the stone buildings and walls of the estate that was bequeathed to the convent.  There was a path that led through the woods to the hole---you had to take care of your footing, because the boulders surrounding the water were often moss-covered and slippery.  The water was icy-cold, but on a hot day it was fun to do cannon balls off the boulders into the water below.  When the boulders began to get too slippery to be safe from repeatedly tracking water onto them, our time at the hole was ended.  And so that hot July afternoon, we began the 20 minute walk back to camp. 

I was bringing up the rear and counting campers when suddenly I realized we were missing someone---I was one short---who was it—it didn't matter—someone was missing---they weren't missing when we left the hole, we had taken an initial count.  But being compulsive, I always recounted halfway back to camp.  I retraced my steps, returning to the hole to see who had wandered off.  I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised to find it was Erin, seeker of solitude that she was.  But I was horrified to find her where I did—standing on the highest rock—the one from which no one was allowed to dive because of the injury that could result.  As soon as I focused on her face I saw her resolve and knew she had decided to end her pain and sadness.  I tried to sound calm when I spoke to her, “Erin, honey, come down from there—it’s time to go back to camp.”  “I'm not going back,” she said. 

When someone has decided to take their own life and another person is present, time seems suspended as you watch.  Everything seems to happen in slow motion.  I saw her dive, head first, into the swimming hole.  I felt the icy cold water hit my face as I dove in after her.  The water was pitch black, making it impossible to see anything underwater.  I surfaced and looked for air bubbles and dove again on top of the site of the bubbles.  I found her hand and pulled her up to the surface.  I expected that she would dead or near dead or paralyzed, but she was uninjured.  Her face filled with rage as she tore at my arms to free herself.  “Let me go.  Let me die,” she screamed.  

I had passed my senior lifesaving course in high school when I was much younger and more physically fit.  I remembered the chest carry.  But when I “saved” my instructor to pass the test, the instructor wasn't biting my arm and pushing my head under water.  Erin, on the other hand, was fighting for all she was worth for the right to take her own life and I was fighting to save what she wanted to destroy.  At several points while in the water, I was also fighting to save my own life—gasping for air, struggling to stay afloat and to keep Erin’s head above water.  

As we made it to the edge of the boulders, another counselor ran to meet us, yelling for help over her shoulder.  My memories jumble together at that point---time left the slow motion effect and returned to normal speed.  There was blood---on my arm from where Erin had bitten me and on her head from scraping the rocks as we fought.  They took us both to the infirmary—neither of us needed stitches—but both of us spent the night in the infirmary, Erin under suicide watch, as the convent tried to reach her parents, who were vacationing in Europe. 

I was reading in a chair next to my bed when Erin said to me, “You had no right to stop me.”  I decided a discussion of in loco parentis was not what she needed at the moment and so simply said, “I wanted you to live---I wanted you to live long enough to experience the other side of your sadness.”  She was furious as she said, “How come you get to decide that for me?”  I responded without thinking, “Because I know there’s something beyond your sadness and right now you don't.”  “You can never know that for me,” she said. 

She was right, you know.  I could not ever know that for her.  She had to know it for herself in order for the truth of hope to redeem the power of despair.  She saw the empty tomb, but no risen Lord.  I wanted to buy her time to get to Galilee so that she, too, might have hope.  She saw no reason to go to Galilee, certain that hope was a fraud.  I don't know what happened to Erin. But there’s a part of Erin that lives in you and me—lives in all people. 

There are times in our lives when we stand before the empty tomb and believe that someone took the body.  We see no risen Lord; we see no reason to go to Galilee, because hope seems a fraud.  On Good Friday.  On September 11^th and on all the September 11ths of our lives.  It’s then that we need one another.  We cannot experience hope for another, but we can bear witness to its truth in our own lives, so that others might know that death has no dominion, that love can redeem, that love did not perish for all time on the Cross at Calvary, that the tomb is empty because love emptied it and rose again in your heart and mine.  Alleluia, Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia.  Live in hope that despair might not find a voice.  Dwell with hope that others might see the truth of the empty tomb.