Risen Indeed!

I had many Easter celebrations, including attending Easter Vigil on Saturday night at St. Luke's, participating as a storyteller in the Easter Vigil here at Seabury at 5:30am on Sunday and then going to the Easter service with baptism at St. Elisabeth's. We had a yummy brunch at Seabury following the early service. I slept most of the afternoon.

One of the cool things about our Easter Vigil was the storytelling. Instead of reading lessons during the first part, four of us told stories. I got the Exodus story about crossing the Red Sea and acted it out, using the aisle down the middle as the passageway through the Red Sea. I liked hearing the other stories. It was a great way to bring the text to life. For those interested, my Exodus story follows:

I was only a young girl when Moses led us out of Egypt. It was a frightening time. I will never forget the day that we crossed over the Red Sea and left Egypt forever. I was holding hands with my older brother. I refused to let him out of my sight because he was the first born in my family. Though my mother had explained that the Lord would only kill the first born of the Egyptians, I did not believe her and was afraid that my beloved brother might die. I had heard the story of how Miriam had saved her brother Moses when he was a baby, preserving him so that he might lead us out of slavery. Even though my brother was older than I was, I thought I would protect him by holding him close to me.

We followed the pillar of cloud during the day that turned into fire at night. I was glad we were leaving the land of slavery, but that pillar scared me. All the people were crowded together and we only ate unleavened bread. I remember that we didn’t sleep much. We thought we were on our way to freedom, that Pharaoh had finally let us go, but then when we got to the Red Sea, Pharaoh and his army came after us. The sea was before us and the army was behind us. We were trapped. I’ve never been so frightened in my life. All the parents and elders were frightened too and began yelling at Moses telling him that we would have been better off as slaves. At least when we were slaves we were alive. Now we were sure to die.

Moses told everyone not to be afraid, that the Lord would fight for us and that we only needed to keep still. It was night, and we knew we would face the Egyptians in the morning. It was hard to trust what Moses told us. Then the pillar moved behind us, between us and the Egyptians. Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all night the wind blew with a horrifying howling sound. By morning there was a passageway of dry land between the walls of water. Everyone began pouring into the dry space, but my brother had to pull me in because I was afraid the water might crush us. We cheered as we ran because it seemed that the Lord would indeed save us. But then we saw the Egyptians following us into the space between the sea.

We kept going as fast as we could with old people and children and all of our belongings. The Egyptians got closer and closer, but then they seemed to slow down. Their chariots didn’t move very fast. We got further ahead of them. Then Moses stretched out his hand, and behind us the water rushed back into the gap and drowned all the Egyptians. We were safe on the other side, out of the land of slavery. Everyone stopped to look behind us. Miriam took up her tambourine and began singing and dancing and all the women joined her except for me. I would not let go of my brother’s hand. The women sang out, “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.” I wanted to sing with them. I was glad we were finally free, glad that the Lord had saved us. But I was also afraid of the Lord. I couldn’t help thinking about the sisters who were back in Egypt. How would they feel when their brothers didn’t come home to them? I held tightly to my brother and would not let him go.