Keepers of the Story - Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 & Mark 16:1-8

In my family, on my father’s side, we pass down family names primarily through the women. There’s no real discrimination about the traditional gender of a name, or its original owner. So, for instance, there are Lauras and Saras, but there are also Andrews and Chaffens and Parkers and Morgans, all women. Each of these strong and boisterous women can tell you for whom they are named, going back several generations, and likely have an anecdote or two about those ancestors. The women in my family are the keepers of the names, and therefore the keepers of an important part of our family’s story. I thought a lot about the amazing women in my family as I listened to our Scriptures tonight, which are likewise filled with women who keep stories.

In our reading from Exodus, the Israelites took their freedom after generations of slavery. This is a foundational story of our people that tells us who God is, a liberator, and who we are, an unchained people. It comes up twice in our lectionary, but for the Easter Vigil, the lectionary writers included two extra verses, so that we can hear about Miriam, how she picks up her tambourine in celebration of this new life and begins to sing. 

The First Book of Samuel tells us that generations later, when God gives Hannah the gift of her son, Hannah sings a version of this same song. And a few generations after that, the Gospels tell of the angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she will bear the Christ child, and Mary, too, sings her version of the song. These women are the keepers of the songs of praise which tell our story. 

And then in our Gospel reading tonight, we hear Mark’s record of what happened at the tomb on that fateful Sunday morning. Three strong and faithful women are the first to discover that Christ’s body is no longer in the grave because he has been raised. They are charged with spreading this Good News. Like Miriam and Hannah and Mary, they must preserve and share the story. It is no surprise to me that all four Gospels report that women are the first to visit the empty tomb, and become the first keepers of the Easter story. We are all descended from a long and remarkable line of story-keeping women. 

As always, throughout this season of Lent, and truly for the last year, we have been hunkered down, forced to face the realities of our own mortality, our utter dependence on God, and our need to repent of our sins. Tomorrow, all that changes. Tomorrow we will have an unbridled (though Covid-safe!) celebration of Resurrection and regathering. But tonight, this strange, in-between time is all about preserving and sharing our story. We recall the legacy of so many amazing women who continue to teach all of us the value of passing on the faith of our ancestors, and of telling the future generations what we’ve been through.

We have always had this responsibility, as Christians, to tell the story of our faith and pass down our traditions. We understand our call to preach the Gospel throughout the world as a call to share the Easter story, and also to share our own story within it. But after the year we’ve had, that responsibility has been brought into sharper focus, because from now on, we won’t be able to tell the story of Christ Church without including a chapter on the pandemic. From now on, understanding who we are will mean understanding how we endured this trial. 

We must tell the story of how we persevered as a worshipping community, and stayed connected to one another through prayer and the liturgy, even when we were separated. We must tell the story of all of the new and unexpected ways we found to be the Church in the world. We must tell the story of the people that we lost. And we must tell the story of God continuing to deliver us, even in the midst of despair. 

I have a portrait above my dressing table of my great-grandmother, Jessie Andrews Parker, painted when she was quite young. In it, she is wearing a pink, feathered hat. She was very short, fair-skinned, auburn-haired and Episcopalian, just like me. I never met her, but I love hearing stories about her, because the more I know about her, the more I know about myself. That’s the power of storytelling. We know who we are as God’s people thanks to our ancestors in the faith who preserved and shared their stories. Our children, and all the people who follow after us on the journey towards salvation will come to know themselves in part thanks to our stories. 

Easter is a time to celebrate the joy of resurrection, and this year, for the joy of regathering. But this Great Vigil reminds us that it’s also a time when we join our voices with all of God’s people throughout history who offer praise and thanksgiving to the risen Lord, a time to take our place as keepers of the story. As we begin this joyful Eastertide, let it be our care and delight to share this life-giving story anywhere and in any way we can, so that everyone we meet might know who we are, and in turn, who they are: children of God, living in the light of resurrection. Amen.