The Tomb and the Womb

A sermon by the Rev. Jacqueline Cherry


The Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist, San Francisco

April 15, 2017 – The Great Vigil of Easter

Look down, O God, from your heavenly throne, and illumine this night with your celestial brightness; that by night as by day your people may glorify your whole Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Anyone who has worked with me on this service, tonight and on vigils past, knows that I am relentless beyond annoyance about the lighting. Well, this year, I’ve had the great pleasure of working with Daniel, Endersnight’s director, who either has the patience of at saint, or is equally neurotic. Either way, I have found a partner in precision of which you are all beneficiaries.

The Easter Vigil is the liturgical consummation of our Christian calendar. For a preacher, that’s especially challenging because words ring hollow against the aesthetics of this awesome ritual. And tonight the music has lifted the beauty of this liturgy to an even higher plane. And I stand here before you, humbled.

Look, follow these columns up to the clerestory, and out into the heavens; the very architecture of this church serves to transport us to a higher place. And that’s what we desire, isn’t it? No, tonight my job is to ground you; this is the night we come face-to- face with God, on earth. Tonight, like a preacher without words, the way to God is humility. So, don’t look up; look down, look deep. Feel what it is to be human.

Human - humus -- the Latin word for soil.

“And God formed man from the dust of the ground.” Our very being is of the earth, and so it is with Jesus.

We began this service with the Exsultet, rejoicing that darkness has been vanquished, and praying to God that the light of Christ may shine continually to drive away all darkness. Yes; yes, the light of Christ is glorious. But often we forget that there is holiness in the darkness, too. Jesus was born in a dark cave. We say stable, but that stable was in fact a cave. And from a cave, Jesus rose from the dead.

Before the great earthquake, 

Before the stone was rolled away at the tomb,

In this holy moment between Good Friday and Easter Sunday,

Right now, a divine alchemy is taking place.

And I can’t help but believe that what is happening tonight in the tomb, is like the Holy gestation that occurred in Mary’s womb, some 33 years earlier.

In the dark God mingles with Mary and humanity is infused with divinity. On this Holy Saturday, in the dark tomb, a sacred process of gestation and germination is occurring. Like the suspension of time between Daniel giving the choir a direction, and the choir responding to that direction with music, there is a moment when all of the elements necessary for creation, for resurrection, are there, but the creation has not yet been manifest.

That’s where we are tonight. And that’s where I want us to stay. Because the resurrection didn’t happen on a beautiful Sunday morning, flush with white lilies, fanfare, and bonnets. It happened in a cave. There was no light and it was silent. I imagine it was dank with a very earthy smell. There were no witnesses to see it.

Wendell Berry wrote:

To know the dark, go dark.
Go without sight, and find that the dark, too,
blooms and sings.

My friends, new life begins in the dark. Seedlings take root in dark soil. In fact, almost all vegetable growth takes place in the dark.

Tonight I ask you to open up and embrace this holy darkness. I ask you to remember that God is present even when we don’t feel the presence. I ask you to remember that God is present even when everything around us feels horrific.

When it seems that nothing could ever lift us from the darkness, all of us, including our fragile earth, are transforming now, just as Jesus is being transformed.

After listening to the long record of God’s saving deeds throughout history, I don’t think there’s much more for a preacher to say. Tonight while God and Jesus are still in the tomb making the mystery, I want us to stay in the mystery. I want us to hear with open ears the anthem that William

Byrd wrote, that Daniel will direct, and the choir will make manifest. Byrd’s words push us beyond the Pascal Mystery, the words assure us that we too shall be restored to new life. Let these words seep deep into your heart:

Christ rising again from the dead now dieth not.
Death from henceforth hath no power upon him.
Christ is risen again, the first fruits of them that sleep.

For as in Adam all men do die,
so by Christ shall all men be restored to life.

Amen.