Celebrating Easter During the Great Recession
What does it mean to rejoice at Easter when unemployment is high, when many people are worried about losing their jobs and homes and when those economic difficulties cause tension in people’s lives?
One of the most ancient prayers of the Western Church, possibly dating as far back as the fifth century, is the Exsultet (“Rejoice”), which is chanted near the beginning of the Easter Vigil service on Saturday night immediately after the lighting of the Paschal candle, when the church is in darkness symbolizing Christ’s resting in the tomb before the proclamation of Resurrection.
The Exsultet (for convenience, I’ll use the official Roman Catholic version here, though Anglicans and Lutherans have similar versions) is above all a prayer of rejoicing. Chanted at a point in the service where there is only one candle lit in the church, it anticipates the great theme of light and the bursting open of Jesus’ tomb.
Yet as we pass through the third or even fourth year of the “Great Recession,” candidly these words can ring hollow or, even worse, simply become spiritualized as we fail to make a connection to the sometimes painful realities of our daily lives and our attitudes to the conditions we may face.
What does it mean to rejoice when unemployment is high, when many people are worried about losing their jobs and homes, when those economic difficulties cause tension in people’s lives that often come to the surface and endanger human and family relationships? What does it mean to rejoice when the news seems mostly bad and little good, when we hear of /a>earthquakes< and massacres, when international tensions are rising, when power and the order of things we have known seem to be slipping away, when forces beyond the control of the average person seem to take away freedom, autonomy, and economic security? While we may not be quite to the level yet of W. H. Auden’s “low, dishonest decade,” at times it seems that way.
To these very real and present concerns, the Exsultet offers both a verbal and a physical answer. The verbal answer is simple: at Easter, the earth has become once again “in shining splendor, radiant with the brightness of your King! Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!” – and here “you” clearly means not only the earth but each of us who believe in the power of Jesus’ resurrection.
The physical witness is even more profound. The hymn celebrates the lighting of one candle, but that candle will soon be multiplied, until the church is filled with light, as Jesus himself said “I am the light of the world.” Is there darkness in the world? That’s the point of all this. In the Garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus is arrested, he says, “this is your hour, and the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53). James Russell Lowell’s majestic poem “Once to Every Man and Nation” speaks of the world’s present condition in the famous words “Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;/Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong.” The Exsultet responds: yes, but it doesn’t last – rejoice! “Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!” There may be only one light now, but light will fill this place in God’s good timing and it will fill the world. As John writes in the preface to his Gospel, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” In fact, all it takes is one candle for the process to start.
At Easter 2010, are you concerned about the state of the world, about the seeming triumph of evil in such things as the behavior of nations and threats to peace, economic injustice, the persecution of minorities and dissidents, and human trafficking?
Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!
Are you concerned about your own family, wondering how it will cope with economic difficulties, about your children’s future in a world often hostile to the virtues of faith, hope, and love?
Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!
Are you unemployed or worried about losing your job or home, lonely, in sickness of body or mind, in pain, are you or someone you know suffering injustice or under the tyranny of alcohol or drugs?
Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!
Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor, radiant in the brightness of your King! * * * The power of this holy night dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy;?it casts out hatred, brings us peace,?and humbles earthly pride.? * * * May the Morning Star which never sets ?find this flame still burning:? Christ, that Morning Star,? who came back from the dead,? and shed his peaceful light on all mankind,? your Son, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.? Amen.
My best wishes for a blessed Easter to everyone.