Yes here. Yes now.

An Easter Vigil sermon preached with the people of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Oakland, California.

I want to thank Doug and Vicki for their stories. This service is all about our stories; the stories of God and God’s people. And this year, I have a renewed sense of why that practice of storytelling is so valuable.

So many of you have told me Holy Week just … hit harder this year. These well-worn familiar stories suddenly felt “more real,” in a variety of ways. With their themes of a burgeoning peacemaking movement, arrest with no legitimate charges, and even state violence. These stories tell us we are not the first, and we are not alone.

And so, despite liturgical practice, for some of you – for me – this might be a year we ask ourselves, now that we have turned the page to Easter, “wait – really? ‘cause it kind of still feels like Holy Week.”

And here too, I think we can find our answers, and our comfort, and our hope in the stories. Because we are not alone in asking that question either. In fact, it seems from Luke’s Gospel account that the very first disciples’ initial response — the women at the tomb, and the men they tell later -- to the very first Easter was, ““wait – really? ‘cause it kind of still feels like Holy Week.”

But one by one, the disciples come to understand. And forget. And understand. And forget. That Easter does not promise a cessation of the realities of the world. Nor does it ask us to deny or ignore those realities. Easter asks us to live into those realities in hope, as part of the peacemaking movement to which we belong. Easter asks us to be aware, always, that there is a coming reign of reversals. And, perhaps most importantly, Easter asks us to notice and soak in the bits of that reign already breaking in.

Look around right now. [PAUSE]

There it is. This is Easter. Soak it in.

Yes, it is here. Tonight.

And yes, Holy Week realities have not vanished into thin air. I can hear Jesus say, “I never said that was how this was going to look.”

What Jesus did say was, walk with one another through those realities. Care for one another through those realities. Tell your stories through those realities. Be a people of peace and love through those realities.

And so, I say, with confidence. Yes here. Yes now.

Alleluia, Christ is Risen