Easter in Quarantine

I am sitting right now, watching the Easter Vigil Mass from my couch. It’s my favorite Mass of the year, and I wondered what it would be like not being able to be part of it. Yeah, I’ve had to miss before, but then I could always rest in the knowledge that many others were gathering to celebrate this glorious day. But how do you have a celebration with so few people? With only the priests and necessary readers? How does the majesty of the Easter Vigil translate without the people? We are an Easter People, a People of the Eucharist, and yet, we cannot gather to celebrate Easter, we cannot gather to receive Christ in the Eucharist. 

The answer came almost immediately. A couple years ago, I wrote about the beauty of the candles and the flames that could be divided, but never diminished. The Vigil starts in darkness, with an Easter Fire outside and the light is brought in by the Easter Candle. Candlelight dominates the first half of the Liturgy of the Word. But this year, it was their absence that struck me. While the church remains in darkness, we hear Salvation History, from Genesis to Christ. 

I couldn’t help but think about how fitting that was. We are, in this time of isolation and separation, in darkness. Our streets are darker for nothing is open, our cities are darkened because businesses have closed their doors for times. We sit in the Saturday darkness. We don’t know what our world will look like after this time of isolation and separation. We worry about the economy, the spread of illness, and loss of life and livelihood. We beg for release from this time of uncertainty and loss. 

“The world was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss.”

We are pinned between the Egyptians and the Red Sea, seeing destruction on all sides. 

We are the ones wandering in darkness. We are a people crying out asking why God has abandoned us. 

And God the Father responds, reminding His people that he is always there. 

“Though the mountains leave their place and the hills be shaken, my love shall never leave you nor my covenant of peace be shaken…. Of afflicted one, storm battered and unconsoled, I lay your pavements in carnelians and your foundations in sapphires. I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of carbuncles, and all your walls of precious stones.” Isaiah 54:10-12

“All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You who have no money, come receive grain and eat; come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk. Why spend your money for what is not bread, your wages for what fails to satisfy? Heed me and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare.” Isaiah 55:1-2

God the Son adds to the call, saying, “I have conquered death. I came down, I took your sin, your weakness, your death onto myself. I broke the chains of death. I died so that death no longer have to hold the same terror.”

But still we struggle. Easter doesn’t look like it should for us. Easter is filled with death tolls, canceled celebrations, governmental decrees, huddling in quiet and fear, and an inability to embrace those we love. How is this Easter? 

Well, it’s actually very similar to the first Easter. The First Easter came to a people full of fear and terror. It came to a people who were trapped in fear, who had just lost their best friend and teacher, who were now afraid for their lives. When Magdalene first sees Jesus, even Jesus tells her not to touch him quite yet. 

We have been blessed in past years to have Easters full of family gatherings, Easter egg hunts, beautiful liturgies, and vibrant celebrations. But that was not the reality of the earliest Easters. The First Easter came to a people much like we are now: sheltered, isolated, unsure, and yearning for hope and new life.

Just as Jesus didn’t come to heal those who were not sick, Easter isn’t for a people who already live in unadulterated joy. Easter comes for those who are trapped in darkness. Easter comes for those who don’t know how light can shine in their broken worlds.

It came for the Apostles, cowering in fear and with no idea what the future held. It came for the persecuted Christians who hid in the catacombs and who sang praises in the arenas. It came for those watching their friends and loved ones die as the Black Death swept in. It came for those living in lands controlled by darkness and death. It came for the prisoners in Auschwitz. It came for those cowering as bombs fell upon their homes.  

And so, Easter comes to us today in much the same way. Easter comes into this darkness to remind us that we are, yes, an Easter People. That we are a people who clings to hope even in the darkness. That we know that our hope and our joy doesn’t come from this world, but is so much stronger, larger, and greater than anything temporary here. It reminds us that economic distress, sickness, and death are not the end. Easter comes to remind us that we have a God who came and experienced all of those with us, who has taken it upon Himself, died, and then risen again to give us a chance for a new life as well. 

This is the night

of which it is written:

The night shall be as bright as day,

dazzling is the night for me,

and full of gladness.

The sanctifying power of this night

dispels wickedness, washes faults away,

restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners,

drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty. 

O truly blessed night,

when things of heaven are wed to those of earth,

and divine to the human.

And so, as we sit in this time of darkness and separation, let us remember that we have a hope that transcends all of this here. We have the hope, the joy, and the life of Easter Resurrection. So, in this time of fear, let us be the voice of hope. In this time of isolation, let us remember that we are part of the Body of Christ, and that we are never truly alone. Let us rejoice in the Light that breaks through the darkness.