Except for a few penlights about 100 feet away, my world was dark. I could see in the shadows in the sanctuary a few people I recognized, barely: a cantor, another reader, the three celebrants, perhaps an altar server. It was hard to tell. The pews were filled with hundreds of worshippers, dressed to the nines.
And to the left of this scene, the choir. A fully-staffed choir this evening - bongo drums, guitars, including an electric bass guitar, a horn section, about 50 vocalists, well-prepared to celebrate the central fact of Christianity: the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I stood alone in the darkness just inside the entrance to the church, next to the baptismal font which would get a workout later that evening: the full-immersion baptism and welcome into our church to several folk. Dressed in full-length robes, they looked happy yet a little cautious. I couldn't blame them.
I was portraying the voice of God as three readers told the story of God's love to the Israelites, as fickle a people as ever there was (they reminded me of how we sometimes behave), and His occasional impatience with them.
I had just finished a reading, and had stepped to the side of the microphone so as not to have my voice heard when I sang the responsorial psalm. Best to leave it to the professionals, I thought.
To my left was a microphone in a stand, two small reading lights attached on the shaft of the stand, and an ambo upon which sat my readings.
I stood before the baptismal font, and drank in the scene. Hundreds singing in semi-darkness, the magical night, the reaffirmation that, yes, there was no one in the tomb in which a dead Jesus had been laid just a few hours earlier, at 3 p.m. on Good Friday.
But this was the Easter Vigil. The rock had been rolled away from the tomb, and the women who had come were told that Jesus was gone. What to make of the mystery?
Like Father Tom asked later during his homily: what next? And that, he said, is up to us.
I stood next to the baptismal font, relaxed for a moment, and surveyed the scene. I leaned on the font just a bit because I had stood for a while, and my left thigh was burning.
I thought about how lucky I was: family, health, love, fun. And I thanked God for my great good fortune. I had earlier that day completed a 60-day marathon of decisions and to-do's: filing income taxes, physicals, financial decisions, making plans for this or that, and the attendant paperwork.
God, I thought, I'm lucky, in a brief moment of rapture. Happy Easter, everyone.
