The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
Immediately following Aslan’s murder, Aslan's dead body remains on the Stone Table. Susan and Lucy come out from their hiding spot and cry over his body. Shamed and humiliated, the girls are unable to face Aslan. Susan and Lucy manage to remove the muzzle from Aslan, but they are unable to untie the cords around his body. Susan and Lucy spend the rest of the night in a miserable daze, and cry until they cannot cry any longer.
Of course, this synopsis is from the most vulnerable scene in the writings of C.S. Lewis, in his epic tale, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The great Aslan, the Christ figure in Lewis’ writing, lies bound and lifeless, having handed himself over to the powers of his world, so that Susan and Lucy’s brother Edmund, might be spared. This night their hearts break because they love both of them—their brother Edmund, and this Aslan whom they have come to know and in whom they have put their trust. They keep vigil with the lifeless Aslan, miserable in pain, their tears ducts have grown dry. One can appreciate their despair, their hopelessness, their sense that all is lost, that darkness and death now have the last word.
One does not need a fable to depict these feelings of despair, we all have had them. We have our share of it in life. Yet there is power in the ritual we celebrate this night, the most ancient of rituals that people of faith have known. Tonight we begin in the shadows. Like Susan and Lucy, we sit in the darkness of the tomb and wonder if the darkness of life may have the last say. We stare at our fears, our insecurities, our illnesses, our broken relationships, our addictions, and our losses, and we wonder if all that we have put our trust in will give way to these challenges of life and we be left with only them. We stare at them like we are in the tomb with the bound and wrapped body of Jesus and wonder if only darkness will remain.
"At that moment they heard from behind them a loud noise—a great cracking, deafening noise as if a giant had broken a giant's plate...The Stone Table was broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end; and there was no Aslan."
On this night our ritual will lead us out of darkness and into song and light. It will do so because our faith story is one of experience and revelation. As human beings, sometimes we do stare at death and despair and rightly wonder if it will have the last word. As people of faith we know there will be death, but know it will not have the last word. We look to the long line of brothers and sisters who throughout time have come to find new life and freedom, even in the midst of their brokenness and pain! God is working in history and in those he has made, and our faith story is not a story about death—it is a story about life! Jesus, you see, is risen! If not so, the stories of salvation we read would be traded for tragedies about life lived valiantly but ended in defeat. People of faith put on the eyes of faith, face our fears, and by God’s grace, transcend them.
This is the life we celebrate, the song we sing. It goes like this, “Alleluia, Christ is risen.” We need only look to the first row of this Cathedral this night to see that new life is at every step. Tonight, as people of faith, we are honored to welcome this new life into our midst, into our story of life! This is the life we baptize, this Abigail Lynn deBeer, into this night. This is the song we will sing for her until she can sing it on her own! Alleluia! Christ is risen! It does not mean she will not fear, it does not mean she will not face despair, it does not mean she will not see war; it does not mean she will not see pain. It does mean her companion now is a God whose life-force in Jesus raises us to new life, new possibilities, and new hopes. Death and despair are not the final word. The song we sing tonight is “Alleluia, Christ is risen!”
