Fear not

Easter Vigil homily at the Monastery of St. Gertrude, 2026

Earlier, I was reflecting on this night, the readings, the fire, the waiting, how we start in the dark. What we do is such a contrast to how Easter has been domesticated in the wider culture. If you think about the images of Easter that we are likely to see—the chocolate bunnies, colored hard-boiled eggs, rabbits carrying little baskets. In popular culture Easter is cute, it’s nice, it involves chocolate (I have to say I like that part).

But we gather at night, in the dark. The Easter vigil is a reminder that this night is not safe, it’s not nice. We do not worship a domesticated God, a God of chocolate bunnies and Easter eggs. Instead, we hold vigil, waiting together at night, not during the day when everything is bright and clear. We come in the dark, we have to light a fire and candles to see. And we do it in order remind ourselves that every day we are walking around in darkness. We live in the darkness of wars, divisions, suffering, injustice. The darkness in our world is real, it’s deep, and it’s terrifying.

And so, we do what people have done throughout time. We tell our stories of hope. We tell our stories of God’s faithfulness to us, His stiff-necked people. When we tell our stories again, this year, we bring into being a new reality that breaks through darkness and once again declares that the light has conquered the darkness.

The stories we tell today aren’t simple, they aren’t easy. The stories remind us of God’s incredible faithful love, and of humanity’s continuing, never-ending inability to be faithful to God. Our stories start at the creation and go all through the Hebrew Bible. We hear how our ancestors just couldn’t keep God’s covenant, they sinned, they fell short and God kept taking them back.

And then finally comes the climax, the story we’ve been waiting for, the resurrection of Jesus, the Son of God, our redeemer. Finally, we get to the story that is the climax of all the stories. The Gospel is our alleluia moment. The moment we’ve been waiting for.

But, did you notice anything strange about the Gospel passage? Shouldn’t it be full alleluia’s, excited people rejoicing that Christ is risen, planning their Easter brunch, buying chocolate bunnies. But instead, this short Gospel passage says: don’t be afraid. Isn’t that odd? The angel told the women don’t be afraid, go tell his disciples. Jesus told the women don’t be afraid, go tell my brothers. What’s going on? Why are the women afraid?

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary didn’t know how the story ended, they’d never heard it before. All they knew was that they saw Jesus, their Rabboni, their teacher, tortured to death on a cross. And they knew that neither dead people nor angels come and talk to you and tell you to do things. That is not how the world works. That is not how reality works. They couldn’t skip ahead to find out how this story ended.

In the Gospel, we watch the Marys trying to grasp what has happened. Just imagine having the rug of reality pulled out from under you. Imagine, all of a sudden here’s an angel, whose appearance is like lightning. And then, there is someone who you saw die, standing in front of you. And both of them say “don’t be afraid and go tell the others.” Don’t be afraid? Tell the others? I’d be afraid to tell my psychiatrist. Of course they were afraid, it looks like the fundamental nature of reality has just changed.

The two Marys are being asked to believe something impossible. And even if Jesus had told them earlier he would, that’s totally different than actually seeing someone who must be a ghost, because they saw him die. Their understanding of reality just changed. They are walking from the darkest night of death into a breaking dawn of life. When we see them there at the tomb the light is dawning in their minds, in their souls. They are trying to grasp that the power and love of God is greater than death. They are trying to grasp that God can conquer all darkness, all death. It is dawning, literally and figuratively on the Marys that darkness and death no longer reign supreme.

That is what we re-enact tonight, isn’t it? We start in darkness. Yesterday we told the story of what seemed to be the finality of suffering and death. And tonight we entered in darkness, we kept vigil, in order to truly understand, truly experience that light and life have conquered sin and death. Tonight we experience again the reality that nothing will ever be the same. We are reminded again that we should never take this night for granted.

The angel and Jesus told the women to go and tell the disciples. Tell them death has been conquered. And that’s what we also are called to witness, to tell the world. We go out and tell the world by living the new reality starting in our own lives. If Christ lives then we are not limited by the power of death. There is hope, the darkness will not triumph. Let us live the profound new reality of Easter. Don’t be afraid, Christ has conquered sin and death. Don’t be afraid, live in the light. Don’t be afraid, tell the good news. Don’t be afraid, love has triumphed. Don’t be afraid, proclaim the resurrection with how you live your lives. Amen, Alleluia.